NORTH.
Good. But I believe body and soul of Othello—or the relation between body and soul—to be physiologically right and sound. The swooning goes soon off—the accident of an hour—the mind is else in full vigour, sound, and misled. You must recollect that a mind of supereminent physical (may one say so?) and moral power—a mind that would have been strong and calm through the Russian Campaign of Napoleon—is not in a day stricken into a state which requires the medical skill and attention of Dr Willis. Othello had an immensely strong physical constitution undoubtedly—had he not, the adventures related would long ago have extinguished him. This is one meaning of that sudden and strange narrative which children are taught by rote, and which men may not have quite fathomed; but a strong body and strong soul conjoined, do not lightly admit of disjunction. Madness, properly so called, is a disjunction, in some way or kind, of the natural union between soul and body. A few days disrupt the ties in the aged Lear. You may think that in Othello—I suppose Ætat. 40 or 45—the ties would bear some wrenching of the rack, ere snapping. I think that they held firm.