reproach or resistance
never enters her thought.

Good friend, go to him--for by this light of heaven
I know not how I lost him: here I kneel:--
If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love,
Either in discourse of thought or actual deed;
Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense,
Delighted them in any other form;
Or that I do not yet, and ever did,
And ever will, though he do shake me off
To beggarly divorcement, love him dearly,
Comfort forswear me! Unkindness may do much,
And his unkindness may defeat my life,
But never taint my love.

And there is one stroke of consummate delicacy surprising, when we
remember the latitude of expression prevailing in Shakspeare's time, and
which he allowed to his other women generally: she says, on recovering
from her stupefaction--

Am I that name, Iago?

IAGO.

What name, sweet lady?

DESDEMONA.

That which she says my lord did say I was.

So completely did Shakspeare enter into the angelic refinement of the
character.

Endued with that temper which is the origin of superstition in love as
in religion,--which, in fact makes love itself a religion,--she not
only does not utter an upbraiding, but nothing that Othello does or
says, no outrage, no injustice, can tear away the charm with which her
imagination had invested him, or impair her faith in his honor; "Would
you had never seen him!" exclaims Emilia.

DESDEMONA.

So would not I!--my love doth so approve him,
That even his stubbornness, his checks and frowns
Have grace and favor in them.

There is another peculiarity, which, in reading the play of Othello, we
rather feel than perceive: through the whole of the dialogue
appropriated to Desdemona, there is not one general observation. Words
are with her the vehicle of sentiment, and never of reflection; so that
I cannot find throughout a sentence of general application. The same
remark applies to Miranda: and to no other female character of any
importance or interest; not even to Ophelia.

The rest of what I wished to say of Desdemona, has been anticipated by
an anonymous critic, and so beautifully, so justly, so eloquently
expressed, that I with pleasure erase my own page, to make room for his.

"Othello," observes this writer, "is no love story; all that is below
tragedy in the passion of love, is taken away at on