ase. His sufferings
at his wife's supposed inconstancy have doubtless in them a large
selfish element. Much of them is caused by the mere passion of jealousy.
But the deepest sting of all does not lie here. It lies rather in the
thought of what his wife has done to herself, than of what she has done
to him. This is what overcomes him.

_The bawdy wind, that kisses all it meets,
Is hushed within the hollow mine of earth,
And will not hear it_.

He could have borne anything but a soul's tragedy like this:

_Alas! to make me
A fixed figure for the time of scorn
To point his slow unmoving finger at!
Yet I could bear that too, well--very well:
But there, where I have garnered up my heart,
Where I must either live, or bear no life;
The fountain from the which my current runs
Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!
Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads
To knot and gender in!_

Whenever he was with her, Desdemona might still be devoted to him. She
might only give to Cassio what she could not give to her husband. But to
Othello this would be no comfort. The fountain would be polluted '_from
which his current runs_'; and though its waters might still flow for
him, he would not care to touch them. If this feeling is manifest in
such a love as Othello's, much more is it manifest in love of a higher
type. It is expressed thus, for instance, by the heroine of Mrs.
Craven's '_Recit d'une Soeur_.' '_I can indeed say_,' she says, '_that
we never loved each other so much as when we saw how we both loved
God:_' and again, '_My husband would not have loved me as he did, if he
had not loved God a great deal more._' This language is of course
distinctly religious; but it embodies a meaning that is appreciated by
the positive school as well. In positivist language it might be
expressed thus: '_My husband would not have loved me as he did, if he
would not, sooner than love me in any other way, have ceased to love me
altogether._' It is clear that this sentiment is proper, nay essential,
to positivist affection, just as well as to Christian. Any pure and
exalted love would at once change its character, if, without any
further change, it merely believed it were free to change it. Its
strongest element is the consciousness, not that it is of such a
character only, but that this character is the right one. The ideal
bride and bridegroom, the ideal man and wife, would not va