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[144]

I have almost forgot the taste of fears:*
The time has been, my senses would have cool'd
To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in't: I have supp'd full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaught'rous. thoughts,
Cannot once start me.[1]

The fears of which Macbeth laments that he has forgotten the taste, are not fears of danger personal to himself;—(of which it would be strange indeed, if he were sorry to be rid;)—the fears of which he regrets the loss, are those tender apprehensions which

  1. Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 5.