They are full-bodied, healthy, and contented; but between him
and them there is a great gulf fixed. A hard and drawn look begins
to settle about the corners of his mouth, so that even if he were
not in a black coat and white tie a child might know him for a parson.
He knows that he is doing his duty. Every day convinces him of
this more firmly; but then there is not much duty for him to do. He is
sadly in want of occupation. He has no taste for any of those field
sports which were not considered unbecoming for a clergyman forty
years ago. He does not ride, nor shoot, nor fish, nor course, nor play
cricket. Study, to do him justice, he had never really liked, and what
inducement was there for him to study at Battersby? He reads neither
old books nor new ones. He does not interest himself in art or science
or politics, but he sets his back up with some promptness if any of
them show any development unfamiliar to himself. True, he writes his
own sermons, but even his wife considers that his forte lies rather in
the example of his life (which is one long act of self-devotion)
than in his utterances from the pulpit. After breakfast he retires
to his study; he cuts little bits out of the Bible and gums them
with exquisite neatness by the side of other little bits; this he
calls making a Harmony of the Old and New Testaments.
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