heart, grand intellect, and unwavering
integrity; there was nevertheless an air of severity about him--a
haughty, unbending spirit; which with his high sense of honor and scorn
of meanness would prompt him to lead an isolated life. We have sometimes
thought that even he had not been able to resist the fascinations of his
young and beautiful cousin, and that the effort to conceal his feelings
had given a greater severity to his manner than he naturally possessed.
Too noble, however, to sacrifice such a beautiful being by uniting her
fate with his own, when a throne was offered her; or perceiving that the
lovely and gentle being he had seen ripen into faultless womanhood could
never return his love--indeed, could cherish no feeling but that of a
fond daughter, he crushed by his strong will his fruitless passion. In
no other way can I account for the life he led, lingering forever around
the palace gates, where now and then he might get a glimpse of her who
had been the light of his soul, the one bright bird which had cheered
his exile's home. That home he wished no longer to see, and day after
day he took his old station at the gates of Shushan, and looked upon the
magnificent walls that divided him from all that had made life
desirable. It seems also as if some latent fear that Haman, the favorite
of the king--younger than his master, and of vast ambition, might
attempt to exert too great an influence over his cousin, must have
prompted him to treat the latter with disrespect, and refuse him that
homage which was his due. No reason is given for the hostility he
manifested, and which he must have known would end in his own
destruction.

Whenever Haman, with his retinue, came from the palace, all paid him the
reverence due to the king's favorite but Mordecai, who sat like a
statue, not even turning his head to notice him. He acted like one tired
of life, and at length succeeded in arousing the deadly hostility of the
haughty minister. The latter, however, scorning to be revenged on one
man, and he a person of low birth, persuaded the king to decree the
slaughter of all the Jews in his realm. The news fell like a thunderbolt
on Mordecai. Sullen, proud, and indifferent to his own fate, he had
defied his enemy to do his worst; but such a savage vengeance had never
entered his mind, It was too late, however, to regret his behavior.
Right or wrong, he had been the cause of the bloody sentence, and he
roused himself to avert th