expression or action and it shall alter it thus powerfully because in
proportion to its very insignificance it shows a strong general
principle at work that extends in its ramifications to the smallest
things. This in fact will make all the difference between minuteness
and subtlety or refinement; for a small or trivial effect may in given
circumstances imply the operation of a great power. Stillness may be
the result of a blow too powerful to be resisted; silence may be imposed
by feelings too agonising for utterance. The minute, the trifling and
insipid is that which is little in itself, in its causes and its
consequences; the subtle and refined is that which is slight and
evanescent at first sight, but which mounts up to a mighty sum in the
end, which is an essential part of an important whole, which has
consequences greater than itself, and where more is meant than meets the
eye or ear. We complain sometimes of littleness in a Dutch picture,
where there are a vast number of distinct parts and objects, each small
in itself, and leading to nothing else. A sky of Claude's cannot fall
under this censure, where one imperceptible gradation is as it were the
scale to another, where the broad arch of heaven is piled up of
endlessly intermediate gold and azure tints, and where an infinite
number of minute, scarce noticed particulars blend and melt into
universal harmony. The subtlety in Shakespear, of which there is an
immense deal scattered everywhere up and down, is always the instrument
of passion, the vehicle of character. The action of a man pulling his
hat over his forehead is indifferent enough in itself, and generally
speaking, may mean anything or nothing; but in the circumstances in
which Macduff is placed, it is neither insignificant nor equivocal.

What! man, ne'er pull your hat upon your brows, etc.

It admits but of one interpretation or inference, that which follows