A full-blooded virago who has murder in her heart, but supposes that any chance to commit it is a long way off, would not betray emotion if Fate suddenly tossed a chance into her lap. Lady Macbeth's nerves are not well padded against such a shock. The husband's letter astonishes and exalts her soul; but the old desires, never before so animated, seem fruitless as ever, since neither time nor place concur. In the height of this turmoil, an attendant enters to say, "The King comes here to-night." The tidings appal her: has Providence gone mad, to trust Duncan with her in this temper? The man is mad to say it. Coming! To-night! "And when goes hence?" Her looks and speech recoil from the coincidence. Then she breaks into that soliloquy which is not the ranting of a mannish murderess who is in a frenzy to get at her victim. The lines quiver with the excitement of a delicate nature that is overstrained and dreads to fail. Vexed and chagrined at womanly proclivities which will be apt to follow their bent against her purpose, she invokes spirits to unsex her, to make thick the blood that runs too limpidly and warm, and clot "the access and passage to remorse." It fills us with dismay to see how far a susceptible womanhood can be transported by a vehement passion; as when, toward nightfall, the dweller upon a soft inland stream sees the freshet's discolored water come down, thick with the fruits of gentle husbandry and the quenched hearths of homesteads, with piteous wrecks of innocence clinging round them. Soon after those shrill cries, as of a string too tightly drawn, have escaped from her, the King arrives at the castle. Contrast the dry color of her language when, as hostess, she welcomes him: we are surprised at its constrained and measured politeness. Her soul seems to have collapsed into the dullest prose:-- "Your servants ever Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt, To make their audit at your highness' pleasure, Still to return your own." It is the talk of a book-keeper to his employer. Has something bereft the fine woman of her tact? No, the fineness of the woman fell instinctively into a protective tone. Her consciousness has been so acutely set to the key of crime that she knows the least touch will sound it. The secret is torture to the mind, but must be borne; as a guilty man, who overhears the pursuit drawing close to his cramped and insupportable place of concealment, turns rigid with stifled groans. So, when Duncan says,-- "See, see! our honor'd hostess! The love that follows us sometime is our trouble, Which still we thank as love." "Fair and noble hostess, We are your guest to-night,"-- the courtesy, so mild and royal, is a threat that comes too near the pent-up feeling: she grows preternaturally still and cold.