very delicate or scrupulous about trifles.  She thought her husband odd and ‘wayward,’ and looked on his fancy for the handkerchief as an instance of this (III. iii. 292); but she never dreamed he was a villain, and there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of her belief that he was heartily sorry for Cassio’s disgrace.  Her failure, on seeing Othello’s agitation about the handkerchief, to form any suspicion of an intrigue, shows how little she doubted her husband.  Even when, later, the idea strikes her that some scoundrel has poisoned Othello’s mind, the tone of all her speeches, and her mention of the rogue who (she believes) had stirred up Iago’s jealousy of her, prove beyond doubt that the thought of Iago’s being the scoundrel has not crossed her mind (IV. ii. 115-147).  And if any hesitation on the subject could remain, surely it must be dispelled by the thrice-repeated cry of astonishment and horror, ‘My husband!’, which follows Othello’s words, ‘Thy husband knew it all’; and by the choking indignation and desperate hope which we hear in her appeal when Iago comes in: 

     Disprove this villain if thou be’st a man: 
     He says thou told’st him that his wife was false: 
     I know thou did’st not, thou’rt not such a villain: 
     Speak, for my heart is full.

Even if Iago had betrayed much more of his true self to his wife than to others, it would make no difference to the contrast between his true self and the self he presented to the world in general.  But he never did so.  Only the feeble eyes of the poor gull Roderigo were allowed a glimpse into that pit.

The bearing of this contrast upon the apparently excessive credulity of Othello has been already pointed out.  What further conclusions can be drawn from it?  Obviously, to begin with, the inference, which is accompanied by a thrill of admiration, that Iago’s powers of dissimulation and of self-control must have been prodigious:  for he was not a youth, like Edmund, but had worn this mask for years, and he had apparently never enjoyed, like Richard, occasional explosions of the reality within him.  In fact so prodigious does his self-control appear that a reader might be excused for feeling a doubt of its possibility.  But there are certain observations and further inferences which, apart from confidence in Shakespeare, would remove this doubt.  It is to be observed, first, that Iago was able to find a certain relief from the discomfort of hypocrisy in those caustic or cynical speeches which, being misinterpreted, only heightened confidence in his honesty.  They acted as a safety-valve, very much as Hamlet’s pretended insanity did.  Next, I would infer from the entire success of his hypocrisy—­what may also be inferred on other grounds, and is of great importance—­that he was by no means a man of strong feelings and passions, like Richard, but decidedly cold by temperament.  Even so, his self-control was wonderful, but there never was in him any violent