THE BATTALION.
15
where anything overcomes his greed, and this when he re
fuses many times over the amount brorowed, and when
entreated with the suggestion that tne bond will be of no
material value to him, he replies: “If it will feed nothing
else, it will feed my revenge.”
The pleadings of Antonio’s friends seem but to amuse
him and to give him a foretaste of the sweet revenge he seeks.
For the time being, he seems to have forgotten his troubles—
the loss of his daughter, his ducats, his jewels and even the
ring of his departed wife. In his iron will and determination
the bull dog tenacity with which he contends that the law be
carried out to the letter, there is a certain strain we can hard
ly help admiring.
We feel that the yearnings of revenge have silenced all
other cares and all other thoughts. In the rapture of his
saianic hate, the man has grown super-human, and his eyes
seem all aglow.
Fearful, however, as is his passion, he comes not off'
without moving our pity. In the very act whereby bethinks
to avenge his own and his brethren’s wrongs; the national
curse overtakes him. In standing up for the letter of the
law against all the pleadings of mercy, he has strengthened
his enemie’s hands and sharpened their weapons against
himself, and the terrible Jew sinks at last into the poor, piti
able, heart-broken Shylock.