A nature like this, secretive, false, deceitful, and wicked, which had thus far satisfied itself in a legitimate way, and, having no temptation in his own house, had never shown its real shape there, would naturally not have been understood by his wife. Glimpses she might have of what he was, but not a thorough understanding of him. Blinded by her personal attachment to him, and herself essentially his opposite in character, as we shall see, she would naturally have misinterpreted him. The secretive nature is always a puzzle to the frank nature. Accustomed to go straight to her object, whether good or bad, she was completely deceived by his hypocritical and sentimental pretenses, and supposed his nature to be “full of the milk of human kindness.” But time also opened her eyes, though, perhaps, never, even to the last, did she fully comprehend him. “What thou wouldst highly, that wouldst thou holily,” she would never have said after the murder of the king. But however this may be, that her view of his character is false is proved by the whole play. When did he ever show an iota of kindness? What crime did his conscience or the desire to act “holily” ever prevent his committing? When did he ever exhibit any want of bloody determination? Infirm of purpose? He was like a tiger in his purposes and in his deeds. The murder of Duncan did not satisfy him. The next morning, he kills the two chamberlains, in cold blood, to gratify his wanton cruelty. It was impossible that they should testify against him—they had been drugged, and he could have had no fear of them. Then immediately he plots the murder of Banquo and Fleance, and all the while hypocritically conceals his foul purposes even from his wife; and because Macduff “failed his presence at the tyrant’s feast,” he determines also to murder him. Foiled of this, he then cruelly and hideously puts to the sword his wife and little children. In all these murders, after the king’s, Lady Macbeth not only takes no part, but she is even kept in ignorance of them. She drive him to the commission of his crimes? She does not know of them till they are done. They are plotted and determined upon in secret by Macbeth alone, and carried into execution with a bloody directness and suddenness. He is “bloody, false, deceitful, sudden,”—essentially a hypocrite, false in his pretenses, secret in his plotting, loud in his showy talk, but sudden and bloody in his crimes and in his malice.