Good. But I believe body and soul of Othello--or the relation between body and soul--to be physiologically right and sound. The swooning goes soon off--the accident of an hour--the mind is else in full vigour, sound, and misled. You must recollect that a mind of supereminent physical (may one say so?) and moral power--a mind that would have been strong and calm through the Russian Campaign of Napoleon--is not in a day stricken into a state which requires the medical skill and attention of Dr Willis. Othello had an immensely strong physical constitution undoubtedly--had he not, the adventures related would long ago have extinguished him. This is one meaning of that sudden and strange narrative which children are taught by rote, and which men may not have quite fathomed; but a strong body and strong soul conjoined, do not lightly admit of disjunction. Madness, properly so called, is a disjunction, in some way or kind, of the natural union between soul and body. A few days disrupt the ties in the aged Lear. You may think that in Othello--I suppose Ætat. 40 or 45--the ties would bear some wrenching of the rack, ere snapping. I think that they held firm. TALBOYS. True, sir, insanity would even detract from the moral majesty and splendour of Othello. NORTH. It would. The time comes back to me when I did _not care for the Play or the Man_. The Play now seems to me wonderful, more even than Hamlet or Lear--and the Man, in poetical invention, a match for Achilles or Satan. TALBOYS. Sir--sir. NORTH. Passion in the blood like that of a Negro--and right in the soul as of Socrates or Epaminondas. Yes, Talboys, the Majesty of the Moral soul in Othello seems to me the most prophetic, or divining, or inconceivable of Shakspeare's conceptions. TALBOYS. Nay--nay--my dear sir. NORTH. Everything else might seem to offer its own reason-- TALBOYS. Nay--nay--my dear sir. Compare the gross Hamlet of Saxo Grammaticus with Ours. NORTH. Well, do--but Othello--you don't know whence he is derived. He is a tropical animal--kindred to the lion--the tiger--the dragon--and, on the other hand, he has the rational equipoise of the faculties that stamp the Philosopher--and he is everything between the two. TALBOYS. An Eloge, indeed--perhaps a _leetle_ too eulogistic. NORTH. No. What a simple sincerity colours the narrative of his love-making! Is your _imagination_ bewitched by the wild story of his adventurous life? Hers, doubtless, was fascinated. But your _soul_, methinks, is won to approving the Venetian Maiden's choice by a profounder, a more legitimate charm. Who ever heard Othello relate, and hung back from believing him? He is honest, and she is honest. That is the bond whereby the Parcæ united their souls and their threads. Why they disunited both--how that infernal intervention of Lachesis and Atropos crossed their pure souls in their pure conjunction, let Clotho--if she can--tell. TALBOYS. Let's be more cheerful. NORTH. Ay--let's.