THE BATTALION.
5
ami shows her high regard for him in the following words: “I
remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy
praise. ’ 1
It seems at first thought that Portia’s father must have
had a very unfeeling nature to trust the happiness of his only
child to chance as he did, but on maturer consideration we
must conclude that he was an excellent judge of human nature.
II e seems to have known that the one who would choose the
golden casket was the one who was seeking the vain pomp and
glory of the world; that the class, repta seated by the Prince of
Aragan, who would not choose with those whom gold would
tempt, would accept the silver casket rather than that of lead,
and also that the one who would choose the leaden casket and
was willing to give and hazard all he had would be the one
most worthy of his noble daughter.
It must have been hard for Portia to be thus subjected to
a mere whim of her dead father. She could neither choose
whom she liked nor refuse those she disliked. It must have
been trying indeed for her to stand by and watch those she did
not love draw, as at lottery, for her as “first prize.” What a
sense of relief it must have been to her, when she saw those
she did not love, choose the wrong casket!
A beautiful trait of her character is portrayed in her obedi
ence to her father in this affair.
Again she must have been under considerable strain when
Bassanio, whom she loved, come to try his luck. A\ ould it
have been wrong to have given him some hint as to which cas
ket contained her picture? Whether or not it would have been
wrong, she did not do it. She would have been forsworn and
gave him no hint; but she makes him understand that she de
sires him to choose the casket in which her picture is, and she
tells him:
“ If you do love me you will find me out.”