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PORTIA. 401 fall on the heads of the poor Jews a tempest of persecution which will far surpass all their previous sufferings. Though I looked all around in the synagogue of Venice, on every side I could nowhere see the face of Shylock. And yet it seemed to me he must be there, hidden under one of those white talars, praying more fervently than any of his fellow-believers, with stormy, wild passion, yes, with madness, to the throne of Jehovah, the severe, divine monarch. I saw him not. But towards evening when, according to the belief of the Jews, the gates of heaven are closed and no further prayer can enter, I heard a voice in which tears ilowed as they were never wept from eyes. There was a sobbing which might have moved a stone to pity there were utterances of agony such as could only come from a breast which held shut- within itself all the martyrdom which an utterly tormented race had endured for eighteen centuries. It was the death-rattle of a soul which, weary to death, sinks to the ground before the gates of heaven. And this voice seemed to be well known to me as if I had heard it long long ago, when ifc wailed just as despairingly, "Jessica, my child !" 2 C