There are some vices which circulate through the world without invading the seclusion of woman. She cannot imagine what they are; consequently they remain so vague that she has no more blame for them than for the nebulæ in Orion. Financial operations, for instance, are so intricate that she shrinks from following, and so foreign to the course of her life that they secure a languid attention. Her lover or husband can easily make it appear to her that his violations of trust are either the knavery and carelessness of others, or admissible procedures; and, if she is as deeply in love as he is in offence, she will resort to connivance rather than divorce. Jessica plunders her father, and then calls out to her lover,--
"Here, catch this casket; it is worth the pains."
But, not being quite sure if she has taken enough, she returns to gild herself "with some more ducats." It was a highly profitable "irregularity:"--
"Two sealed bags of ducats, Of double ducats, stol'n from me by my daughter! And jewels,--two stones, two rich and precious stones, Stol'n by my daughter!"
One of the stones was a diamond worth two thousand ducats, and another was a turquoise which her mother gave to Shylock before marriage. That she exchanged in Genoa for a monkey. A critic says of these transactions, "We recognize a certain equity in their furtively taking what we think he ought to have voluntarily bestowed." This anxiety to protect Shakspeare from moral blame disregards some feminine possibilities. Jessica's offence was the very one, the only one, of which she was capable; and, like all such lapses, her act was due to circumstances conspiring with latent tendency. We are not reconciled to her behavior by recalling the pound of flesh; for the theft of the jewels is as contrary to mercy as the stipulation in Antonio's bond. But love and sex prevail: she behaves like any full-blooded nature who has been defrauded of her rights, immured in a house with the "vapor of a dungeon," cut off from amusements and sympathies, from gondolas and serenades. She spends money foolishly after she gets it, thanks to the father who scrimped her. It depends upon how deeply we mean to hate Shylock whether his howls over the transaction of the monkey delight our ears.