Don't let us waste a word on
it; a doubt of me were an injury!" But men will do that for affection
which they would never do in cool blood, and therefore one cannot help
asking whether Shakespeare really felt and practised this extreme
contempt of wealth? For the moment, if we leave his actions out of the
account, there can be, I think, no doubt about his feelings. His dislike
of money makes him disfigure reality. No merchant, it may fairly be
said, either of the sixteenth century or the twentieth, ever amassed or
kept a fortune with Antonio's principles. In our day of world-wide
speculation and immense wealth it is just possible for a man to be a
millionaire and generous; but in the sixteenth century, when wealth was
made by penurious saving, by slow daily adding of coin to coin,
merchants like this Antonio were unheard of, impossible.
Moreover all the amiable characters in this play regard money with
unaffected disdain; Portia no sooner hears of Shylock's suit than she
cries:
"Pay him six thousand, and deface the bond;
Double six thousand, and then treble that,
Before a friend of this description
Shall lose a hair through Bassanio's fault.
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