nsult in their least looked-for
and most galling shapes, searching every thread and fibre of his heart,
and finding out the last remaining image of respect or attachment in the
bottom of his breast, only to torture and kill it! In like manner the "So
I am" of Cordelia gushes from her heart like a torrent of tears, relieving
it of a weight of love and of supposed ingratitude, which had pressed upon
it for years. What a fine return of the passion upon itself is that in
Othello--with what a mingled agony of regret and despair he clings to the
last traces of departed happiness--when he exclaims,

"Oh now, for ever
Farewel the tranquil mind. Farewel content;
Farewel the plumed troops and the big wars,
That make ambition virtue! Oh farewel!
Farewel the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, th' ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war:
And O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
Th' immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit,
Farewel! Othello's occupation's gone!"

How his passion lashes itself up and swells and rages like a tide in its
sounding course, when, in answer to the doubts expressed of his returning
love, he says,

"Never, Iago. Like to the Pontic sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont:
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,
Till that a capable and wide revenge
Swallow them up."--

The climax of his expostulation afterwards with Desdemona is at that line,

"But there where I had garner'd up my heart,
To be discarded thence!"--

One mode in which the dramatic exhibition of passion excites our sympathy
without raising our disgust is, that in proportion as it sharpens the edge
of calamity and disappointment, it strengthens the desire of good. It
enhances our consciousness of the blessing, by making us sensible of the
magnitude of the loss. The storm of passion lays bare and shews us the
rich depths of the human soul: the whole of our existence, the sum total
of our passions and pursuits, of that which we desire and that which we
dread, is brought before us by contrast; the action and re-action are
equal; the keenness of immediate suffering only gives us a more intense
aspiration after, and a more intimate participatio