———
LADY MACBETH.
The imagination of the reader is powerfully aroused by these dark inuendoes, and the mind, prepared by a secret undefinable state of suspense and emotion, is doubly startled by the woman’s sudden, hushed
Lo you, here she comes!
It is possible that, with something of the terrors of a guilty conscience herself, the poor waiting woman at first imagines that the queen has been listening and caught her plotting with the doctor, for the second exclamation shows an otherwise unaccountable surprise at her being asleep;
This is her very guise, and, upon my life, fast asleep: observe her: stand close.
Doctor. How came she by that light?
Gent. Why it stood by her. She has a light by her continually: ’tis her command!
Observe the short sentences—as of people listening—watching—under the pressure of a powerful motive and interest. The light—the doctor’s surprise at seeing her carry it about with her, and the reply. “She has a light by her continually. ’Tis her command.”
This is a new and fearful discovery of the internal state of the wretched woman’s mind. Here we have at once a view of her night-terrors, the guilty phantoms which throng her bedside. It is as if a lurid gleam had been suddenly cast upon her soul from the half-opened gates of hell itself.