We find
it, for instance, in his gleeful cry to Roderigo, who proposes to shout
to Brabantio in order to wake him and tell him of his daughter's flight:
Do, with like timorous[116] accent and dire yell
As when, by night and negligence, the fire
Is spied in populous cities.
All through that scene; again, in the scene where Cassio is attacked and
Roderigo murdered; everywhere where Iago is in physical action, we catch
this sound of almost feverish enjoyment. His blood, usually so cold and
slow, is racing through his veins.
But Iago, finally, is not simply a man of action; he is an artist. His
action is a plot, the intricate plot of a drama, and in the conception
and execution of it he experiences the tension and the joy of artistic
creation. 'He is,' says Hazlitt, 'an amateur of tragedy in real life;
and, instead of employing his invention on imaginary characters or
long-forgotten incidents, he takes the bolder and more dangerous course
of getting up his plot at home, casts the principal parts among his
newest friends and connections, and rehearses it in downright earnest,
with steady nerves and unabated resolution.' Mr. Swinburne lays even
greater stress on this aspect of Iago's character, and even declares
that 'the very subtlest and strongest component of his complex nature'
is 'the instinct of what Mr.
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