The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 1: Essays, Sketches, and LettersWard, Artemus
General
The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 1: Essays, Sketches, and Letters
Ward, Artemus
American wit and humor
cookin and washin. Desdemony, in fact, don't have to git the
water to wash her own hands with. But a low cuss named Iago,
who I bleeve wants to git Otheller out of his snug government
birth, now goes to work & upsets the Otheller family in the
most outrajus stile. Iago falls in with a brainless youth
named Roderigo & wins all his money at poker. (Iago allers
played foul.) He thus got money enuff to carry out his
onprincipled skeem. Mike Cassio, a Irishman, is selected as a
tool by Iago. Mike was a clever feller & orficer in Otheller's
army. He liked his tods too well, howsever, & they floored
him, as they have many other promisin young men. Iago injuces
Mike to drink with him, Iago slyly throwin his whiskey over his
shoulder. Mike gits as drunk as a biled owl & allows that he
can lick a yard full of the Veneshun fancy before breakfast,
without sweatin a hair. He meets Roderigo & proceeds for to
smash him. A feller named Montano undertakes to slap Cassio,
when that infatooated person runs his sword into him. That
miserble man, Iago, pretents to be very sorry to see Mike
conduck hisself in this way & undertakes to smooth the thing
over to Otheller, who rushes in with a drawn sword & wants to
know what's up. Iago cunningly tells his story, & Otheller
tells Mike that he thinks a good deal of him, but he can't
train no more in his regiment. Desdemony sympathizes with poor
Mike & interceeds for him with Otheller. Iago makes him bleeve
she does this because she thinks more of Mike than she does of
hisself. Otheller swallers Iago's lyin tail & goes to makin a
noosence of hisself ginrally. He worries poor Desdemony
terrible by his vile insinuations, & finally smothers her to
deth with a piller. Mrs. Iago cums in just as Otheller has
finished the fowl deed & givs him fits right & left, showin him
that he has bin orfully gulled by her miserble cuss of a
husband. Iago cums in, & his wife commences rakin him down
also, when he stabs her. Otheller jaws him a spell & then cuts
a small hole in his stummick with his sword. Iago pints to
Desdemony's deth bed & goes orf with a sardonic smile onto his
countenance. Otheller tells the peple that he has dun the
state sum service & they know it; axes them to do as fair a
thing as they can for him under the circumstances, & kills
hisself with a fish-knife, which is the most sensible thing he
can do. This is a breef skedule of the synopsis of the play.
Edwin Forrest is a grate acter. I thot I saw Otheller before
me all the time he was actin, & when the curtin fell, I found
my spectacles was still mistened with salt-water, which had run
from my eyes while poor Desdemony was dyin. Betsy Jane--Betsy
Jane! let us pray that our domestic bliss may never be busted
up by a Iago!
Edwin Forrest makes money actin out on the stage. He gits
five-hundred dollars a nite & his board & washin. I wish I had
such a Forrest in my Garding!
1.21. THE SHOW BUSINESS AND POPULAR LECTURES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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