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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