David [antikvár]

CHAPTER ISAMUELHe chose David also his servant, And took him from the sheepfolds:From following the ewes great with young he brought him To feed Jacob his people And Israel his inheritance.Psalm lxxviii, verses 70-71IDavid, the youngest son of Jesse, was fortunate in many ways. His father was prosperous, and he himself was gifted with great intellectual ability, with musical and literary creative power, and with striking personal beauty. It is rare that mental qualities of the first order are combined with overwhelming physical charm. The combination produced in David a certain impudent self-confidence, which was very attractive to strangers and to older people, but which was resented by his brothers and by boys of his own age. As a child he was not popular with his contemporaries, and his reaction to unpopularity was outward scorn but inward anguish. Throughout his life his cold, proud intellect despised the criticism of the ignorant, but his sensitive, artistic nature suffered from it, and many of the apparent contradictions in his character were due to the influence of these conflicting emotions.Several years younger than the youngest of his brothers, David was born of a late marriage. He was the product of his father's failing powers, and the apple of his eye. Old age clings hard to life, and to the old all links with life are precious. And so it is that Sf r , old parents often love best their latest born, as affording proof of l^,. t f their maintained virility, and promising longer continuance of their /. representation in the land of the living.David was fair. All the other sons of Jesse were dark, nor were any of them beautiful. No race admires physical beauty more7