NORTH.
Let it. Iago was, you said truly, a stout Soldier—and I add, a hard, unfeeling, unprincipled Soldier. Of all trades in the world, that of a Soldier is the worst and the best—witness an Iago—an Othello. The same trade helped to make both. In Othello we almost see Wordsworth's Happy Warrior—in Iago one—
"Yet ill he lived, much evil saw,
'Mongst men to whom no better law
Nor better life was known;
Deliberately and undeceived,
Those bad men's vices he received
And gave them back his own!"
You are convinced, without a hint, that he is infidel—atheist: everything shaped like religion, like moral conscience—his mind shakes off and rejects with scorn. He does not, however, as I said, disbelieve in Virtues. He believes in them, and uses them to the destruction of the havers. What he disbelieves is the worth of Virtues. To that savage Idol, Self, the more bleeding and noble victims, the more grateful the sacrifice.