I do deny that he has represented in Lady Macbeth a woman "_naturally cruel_,"[116] "_invariably savage_,"[117] or endued with "_pure demoniac firmness_."[118] If ever there could have existed a woman to whom such phrases could apply--a woman without touch of modesty, pity or fear,--Shakspeare knew that a thing so monstrous was unfit for all the purposes of poetry. If Lady Macbeth had been _naturally_ cruel, she needed not so solemnly to have abjured all pity, and called on the spirits that wait on mortal thoughts to _unsex_ her; nor would she have been loved to excess by a man of Macbeth's character; for it is the sense of intellectual energy and strength of will overpowering her feminine nature, which draws from him that burst of intense admiration-- Bring forth men children only, For thy undaunted metal should compose Nothing but males. If she had been _invariably_ savage, her love would not have comforted and sustained her husband in his despair, nor would her uplifted dagger have been arrested by a dear and venerable image rising between her soul and its fell purpose. If endued with _pure demoniac firmness_, her woman's nature would not, by the reaction, have been so horribly avenged, she would not have died of remorse and despair. * * * * * We cannot but observe that through the whole of the dialogue appropriated to Lady Macbeth, there is something very peculiar and characteristic in the turn of expression: her compliments, when she is playing the hostess or the queen, are elaborately elegant and verbose: but, when in earnest, she speaks in short energetic sentences--sometimes abrupt, but always full of meaning; her thoughts are rapid and clear, her expressions forcible, and the imagery like sudden flashes of lightning: all the foregoing extracts exhibit this, but I will venture one more, as an immediate illustration. MACBETH. My dearest love, Duncan comes here to-night. LADY MACBETH. And when goes hence? MACBETH. To-morrow,--as he purposes. LADY MACBETH. O never Shall sun that morrow see! Thy face, my thane, is as a book, where men May read strange matters;--to beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye Your tongue, your hand; look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it. What would not the firmness, the self-command, the enthusiasm, the intellect, the ardent affections of this woman have performed, if properly directed? but the object being unworthy of the effort, the end is disappointment, despair, and death.