Is it not quite absurd, then, to call
him a man of supreme intellect?
And observe, lastly, that his failure in perception is closely connected
with his badness. He was destroyed by the power that he attacked, the
power of love; and he was destroyed by it because he could not
understand it; and he could not understand it because it was not in him.
Iago never meant his plot to be so dangerous to himself. He knew that
jealousy is painful, but the jealousy of a love like Othello's he could
not imagine, and he found himself involved in murders which were no part
of his original design. That difficulty he surmounted, and his changed
plot still seemed to prosper. Roderigo and Cassio and Desdemona once
dead, all will be well. Nay, when he fails to kill Cassio, all may still
be well. He will avow that he told Othello of the adultery, and persist
that he told the truth, and Cassio will deny it in vain. And then, in a
moment, his plot is shattered by a blow from a quarter where he never
dreamt of danger. He knows his wife, he thinks. She is not
over-scrupulous, she will do anything to please him, and she has learnt
obedience. But one thing in her he does not know--that she _loves_ her
mistress and would face a hundred deaths sooner than see her fair fame
darkened.
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