Assertion of Rights a Social Duty
The picture of Shylock conjures up another before my mind, the no less historical than poetical one of Michel Kohlhaas, which Heinrich von Kleist has described in his novel of that name with all the fascination of truth. Shylock retires from the scene entirely broken down by grief; his strength is gone and he bows without resistance to the decision of the judge. Not so Michel Kohlhaas. After every means to obtain his rights, which have been most grievously violated, has been exhausted; after an act of sinful cabinet-justice has closed the way of redress to him, and Justice herself in all her representatives, even to the highest, has sided with injustice, a feeling of infinite woe overpowers him at the contemplation of the outrage that has been done him and he exclaims: “Better be a dog, if I am to be trampled under foot, than a man”; and he says: “The man who refuses me the protection of the law relegates me to the condition of the savage of the forest, and puts a club in my hand to defend myself with.” He snatches
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