Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/397

 the language which the jealous, frenzied moment drove by heart-spasms from her lips. Still less can we subject Macbeth to the matrimonial luck of such a ferocious contrast. How truculently married would numerous husbands be if their wives' temper corresponded to the abandoned use of language which domestic virtue sometimes will employ, when every hair upon the head, both native and naturalized, seems twisted into the coils of a fell purpose to turn a thing of beauty into a fury for ever! The gust passes, the familiar features of the landscape reappear, and the lips transpire with mellower salutes; as when Lady Macbeth, who has been regretting that her husband should stay so much apart, greets him with the blandishing rhythm of those two lines:—

"How now, my lord? why do you keep alone, Of sorriest fancies your companions making?"

There the old feeling strays out beyond the flaming swords which forbid paradise to follow in the track of this tragedy. The mutual crime closes a double gate, and posts inexorable sentinels against the endearments of the past.