That lov’st to make thine honesty a vice!
Oh monstrous world! take note, take note, O world!
To be direct and honest, is not safe.
I thank you for this profit, and from hence
I’ll love no friend, since love breeds such offence.’
This burst of hypocritical indignation might well have called forth all Mr. Kean’s powers, but it did not. We might multiply passages of the same kind, if we had time.
The philosophy of the character is strikingly unfolded in the part where Iago gets the handkerchief:—
‘This may do something.
The Moor already changes with my poisons,
Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,