Othello shows that our Good—our excellence—our capacity of happiness—lies all in Love. That our light in which we walk—our light which we give forth—is Love. He declares this, by cleaving to this Good—by having it—by losing it—by recovering it. The self-consciousness of Othello returns to its unison with universal being—with heaven's harmony of the worlds. Iago denies this Good—never acknowledges it—although he serves involuntarily to demonstrate the truth—of which Othello perishes the self-sacrificed witness. It is great, sir, in the Tragedy, but in him the House of Love is divided against itself. His jealousy, child of his love, lifts up a parricidal hand, wounds and is wounded—but only unto its own death. And what is the feeling left by the catastrophe?
NORTH.
Say, my friend, say.
TALBOYS.
Peace—rest—repose—depth of tranquillity—like the sea stilled from storms.
NORTH.
The charmed calm that reflects heaven.
TALBOYS.
Peace grounded in this proved thought—that Love is Best. Of all the Persons, whose stars will you accept to be your own? If you are a man, Othello's; if woman, the wronged and murdered Desdemona's. Study for ever the two closing and summing up verses—"I kissed thee ere I killed thee; no way but this—Killing myself to die upon a kiss!" To gather up all the terror that is past, as if not only the winds were upgathered like sleeping flowers, but upgathered into the sleeping flowers. I don't know how to avoid comparing—all unlike as the characters are—the end of Romeo and Juliet—Lear and Cordelia—Othello and Desdemona. I never can separate them. Love the mightiest torn asunder in life—reunited in death. Love—the solace of lapsed and mortal humanity.