He was, indeed, particularly brilliant and enchanting; and I left
him at night so thoroughly _magnetized_, that I could not for two or three
days afterwards reflect enough to put any thing on paper,--ED.]
* * * * *
I have often told you that I do not think there is any jealousy, properly
so called, in the character of Othello. There is no predisposition to
suspicion, which I take to be an essential term in the definition of the
word. Desdemona very truly told Emilia that he was not jealous, that is, of
a jealous habit, and he says so as truly of himself. Iago's suggestions,
you see, are quite new to him; they do not correspond with any thing of a
like nature previously in his mind. If Desdemona had, in fact, been guilty,
no one would have thought of calling Othello's conduct that of a jealous
man. He could not act otherwise than he did with the lights he had; whereas
jealousy can never be strictly right. See how utterly unlike Othello is to
Leontes, in the Winter's Tale, or even to Leonatus, in Cymbeline! The
jealousy of the first proceeds from an evident trifle, and something like
hatred is mingled with it; and the conduct of Leonatus in accepting the
wager, and exposing his wife to the trial, denotes a jealous temper already
formed.
Pages:
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91