This objection seems to us to spring from the state of mind often induced by long familiarity with a subject, in which the gain of minute knowledge is accompanied by a loss of the force and vividness of the first impression. People study Shakespeare as they study the Bible, softening whatever they find revolting until they have convinced themselves that it does not exist. Actors in general share in this sentiment or strive to gratify it. Othello's complexion is forgotten in the reading, and becomes in the representation such that the spectator feels no repugnance to his marriage with the fair Desdemona. Betrayed through the mere openness and generosity of his nature, he acts only as a sensitive and vehement nature would be compelled to act in so terrible a complication, and the emotions kindled by his demeanor and conduct are never those of horror and repulsion, but only of pity and admiration. But, however noble and pathetic such a rendering may be, it consorts better with the ideas and demands of the present time than with those of the Elizabethan age. The dramatist who began by writing _Titus Andronicus_ had at least no instinctive distaste to repulsive subjects, no fear of shocking his audience by an exhibition of untamed barbarity. Othello is "of a free and open nature," he is "great of heart," he is above doing wrong without provocation, real or supposed. But his nature admits no possibility of self-control, of reason in the midst of doubts, of patience under injury. His temperament betrays itself in physical exhibitions wild and portentous. "You are fatal _then_ when your eyes roll so," is the suggestive cry of Desdemona. In his perplexity and fury he swoons and foams. He overhears an insult to Venice and slays the traducer. His language to the wife whom he still loves while believing himself dishonored by her is such that "a beggar, in his drink, could not have laid such terms upon his callet." He outrages her kinsman and a throng of attendants by striking her in their presence. Her protestations of innocence serve only to inflame him, and he cuts short her last pleadings with his murderous hand in a way which would have forced M. Dumas _fils_ himself to cry out, "Ne tue la _pas_!"