But there are other proofs of an extrinsic nature, which settle the previous character of Lady Macbeth at the same time, and shows how ripe they both were for the fiends. If a man’s true nature may be supposed to be known to any one it _is to his wife_. He may put on a smooth face before his best friend; he may write or speak virtuous sentiments to the public; he may give charitable donations, and follow the career of a flaming patriot or a meek saint, but the lady upon whom he has conferred with his name, the right of being with him continually, will be pretty able to tell how matters really are. I do not say that, because a wife abuses her husband and calls him names, he must necessarily be a rascal; but, as a general rule, the partner of his woes and joys has better opportunities of _knowing the man_ than almost any one else—at least, if she be a person of Lady Macbeth’s discrimination. Well then, see what his _lady_ says of him, to herself, on receiving his letter recounting the prediction of the weird sisters. “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promis’d:—yet I do fear thy nature; It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness, To catch the nearest way.” That she should suppose him _too full of the milk of human kindness_ to do cruel actions is a skilful stroke in the delineation both of his nature and hers. However well she knew him, as he had been till then, an unprincipled man—even _she_ had never fathomed those depths of character, (for good or for evil common to all men, and equally unfathomed probably by himself,) which the subsequent events disclosed. Shakspeare somewhere else says, “It is not a year or so that shows us a man”—and it is an important truth, that we are not thoroughly known by our best friends, and do not know ourselves till late in life. This same person, so full of the milk of human kindness that she feared his “softer nature” could never be brought to the necessary resolution, no sooner finds himself once fairly compromised than his atrocities throw the cruelties of ordinary oppressors quite into the shade. “Thou would’st be great; Art not without ambition; but without The illness should attend it. What thou would’st highly Thou would’st holily; would’st not play false, And yet _would’st wrongly win_,” etc. etc.