Very good--very good--my dear Seward, I like your observation much, that the demeanour of the married pair before the Senate has a stamp of composure. That is finely felt; but I venture to aver, my dear friend, that we must otherwise understand it. The dignity of their spirits it is that holds them both composed. Invincible self-collectedness is by more than one person in the Play held up for a characteristic quality of Othello. To a mind high and strong, which Desdemona's is, the exigency of a grand crisis, which overthrows weaker and lower minds, produces composure; from a sense of the necessity for self-possession; and involuntarily from the tension of the powers--their sole direction to the business that passes--which leaves no thought free to stray into disorder, and the inquietude of personal regards. Add, on the part of Othello, the gravity, and on that of Desdemona the awe of the Presence in which they stand, speak, and act; and you have ennobling and sufficing tragical, that is loftily and pathetically poetical, motives for that elate presence of mind which both show. Now all the greatness and grace vanish, if you suppose them calm simply because they have been married these two months. That is a reason fit for Thalia, not for Melpomene. TALBOYS. Let any one English among all the two of you answer that. SEWARD. The Duke says-- "You must hence to-night. _Desdemona._ To-night, my Lord? _Othello._ With all my heart." This faint expression of Desdemona's slight surprise and reluctance, and no more--is I allow--natural and delicate in her--whether wife, bride, or Maid--but Othello's "with all my heart" is-- TALBOYS. Equally worthy of Othello. You know it is. NORTH. My dear Seward--do the Doge--Brabantio--the Senate understand and believe what Othello has been telling them--and that he has now disclosed to them the fact of a private marriage with Desdemona, of some weeks' or months' standing? Is that their impression? SEWARD. I cannot say. NORTH. I can. Or has Othello been reserved--cautious--crafty in all his apparent candour--and Desdemona equally so? Are they indeed oldish-married folk? TALBOYS. Shocking--shocking. That Scene in the Council Chamber of itself deals your "Theory!" its death-blow. SEWARD. I look on it in quite another light. I shall be glad to know what you think is meant by Desdemona's to the Duke "If I be left behind, _The rites for which I love him are denied me_." What are the _rites_ which are thus all comprehensive of Desdemona's love for Othello? The phrase is, to the habit of our ears, perhaps somewhat startling; yet five lines before she said truly "I saw Othello's visage in his mind"--a love of spirit for spirit. And again-- "To his honour and his valiant parts Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate." I think they had been married some time. TALBOYS.