n' Desdemona and himself. It is fortunately
a fact in human nature that these aspects of Cassio's character are
quite compatible. Shakespeare simply sets it down; and it is just
because he is truthful in these smaller things that in greater things we
trust him absolutely never to pervert the truth for the sake of some
doctrine or purpose of his own.

There is something very lovable about Cassio, with his fresh eager
feelings; his distress at his disgrace and still more at having lost
Othello's trust; his hero-worship; and at the end his sorrow and pity,
which are at first too acute for words. He is carried in, wounded, on a
chair. He looks at Othello and cannot speak. His first words come later
when, to Lodovico's question, 'Did you and he consent in Cassio's
death?' Othello answers 'Ay.' Then he falters out, 'Dear General, I
never gave you cause.' One is sure he had never used that adjective
before. The love in it makes it beautiful, but there is something else
in it, unknown to Cassio, which goes to one's heart. It tells us that
his hero is no longer unapproachably above him.

Few of Shakespeare's minor characters are more distinct than Emilia, and
towards few do our feelings change so much within the course of a play.
Till close to the end she frequently sets one's teeth on edge; and at
the end one is ready to worship her. She nowhere shows any sign of
having a bad heart; but she is common, sometimes vulgar, in minor
matters far from scrupulous, blunt in perception and feeling, and quite
destitute of imagination. She let Iago take the handkerchief though she
knew how much its loss would distress Desdemona; and she said nothing
about it though she saw that Othello was jealous. We rightly resent her
unkindness in permitting the theft, but--it is an important point--we
are apt to misconstrue her subsequent silence, because we know that
Othello's jealousy was intimately connected with the loss of the
handkerchief. Emilia, however, certainly failed to perceive this; for
otherwise, when Othello's anger showed itself violently and she was
really distressed for her mistress, she could not have failed to think
of the handkerchief, and would, I believe, undoubtedly have told the
truth about it. But, in fact, she never thought of it, although she
guessed that Othello was being deceived by some scoundrel. Even after
Desdemona's death, nay, even when she knew that Iago had brought it
about, she still did not remember the handker