She does not mean this seriously. But the robe has more to do with it than she thinks. Her passion for Florizel is the warmth that sets the springs of her thoughts free, and they flow with the grace belonging to a princess-nature; but it is the robe that opens the door of her speech, and, by elevating her consciousness of herself, betrays her into what is only natural to her, but seems to her, on reflection, inconsistent with her low birth and poor education. This instance, however, involves far higher elements than any of the examples I have given before, and naturally leads to a much more important class of illustrations. In “Macbeth,” act ii. scene 4, why is the old man, who has nothing to do with the conduct of the play, introduced?--That, in conversation with Rosse, he may, as an old man, bear testimony to the exceptionally terrific nature of that storm, which, we find--from the words of Banquo: “There’s husbandry in heaven: Their candles are all out,”-- had begun to gather, before supper was over in the castle. This storm is the sympathetic horror of Nature at the breaking open of the Lord’s anointed temple--horror in which the animal creation partakes, for the horses of Duncan, “the minions of their race,” and therefore the most sensitive of their sensitive race, tear each other to pieces in the wildness of their horror. Consider along with this a foregoing portion of the second scene in the same act. Macbeth, having joined his wife after the murder, says: “Who lies i’ the second chamber? “_Lady M._ Donalbain. * * * * * “There are two lodged together.” These two, Macbeth says, woke each other--the one laughing, the other crying _murder_. Then they said their prayers and went to sleep again.--I used to think that the natural companion of Donalbain would be Malcolm, his brother; and that the two brothers woke in horror from the proximity of their father’s murderer who was just passing the door. A friend objected to this, that, had they been together, Malcolm, being the elder, would have been mentioned rather than Donalbain. Accept this objection, and we find a yet more delicate significance: the _presence_ operated differently on the two, one bursting out in a laugh, the other crying _murder_; but both were in terror when they awoke, and dared not sleep till they had said their prayers. His sons, his horses, the elements themselves, are shaken by one unconscious sympathy with the murdered king. Associate with this the end of the third scene of the fourth act of “Julius Caesar;” where we find that the attendants of Brutus all cry out in their sleep, as the ghost of Caesar leaves their master’s tent. This outcry is not given in Plutarch.