布莱克先生是一个彻头彻尾的铁石心肠的罪人，可以说，他与基督教格格不入。他习惯于在星期天晚饭后抽一根长烟斗，喝一杯烈酒，而且很少想到一星期去教堂两次以上，如果耶稣受难日或圣诞节正好到来，那就去三次。他对牧师去教堂做礼拜时所穿的特殊服装毫不在意，不管他做什么来解除一个人的痛苦，他总是用一种卑鄙的、偷偷摸摸的、卑鄙的、隐蔽的方式。我曾见过，当新教教会对女服下摆的适当宽度问题产生分歧时，他沉湎于亵渎的、没有绅士风度的强调;我甚至知道他嘲笑过白种人——至于白种人，言语无法表达他对白种人的蔑视。他不相信那些自己并不富裕而不得不把慈善活动局限于向更富有的人募捐的人，他认为前一个阶级的人是教会的鹰派;他常说，他不会干涉他的牧师长袍，就像他不会干涉他的教堂或教堂尖塔一样。他也不认为自己的灵魂会受到威胁，因为有人把自己打扮得像个夸张的盖伊·福克斯，而他对这个人却毫无影响。这个令人触目惊心的老流浪汉无耻到说不出的地步，竟去追求一个名叫比格斯的中年姐姐，她是个可敬而虔诚的人。她是一个相当漂亮的寡妇，她的生活一向特别无可指摘。她的第一任丈夫由于在无花果方面做了一些幸运的投机买卖，给她留下了一笔稳定而适度的财产。她在各方面都是一个优秀的人，甚至赢得了格伦迪太太的尊敬。她也是一个优秀的家庭主妇，如果她拥有光之山，她就不会浪费一分钱。 She was just as strict as he was lax in her observance of Sunday, And being a good economist, and charitable besides, she took all the bones and cold potatoes and broken pie-crusts and candle-ends (when she had quite done with them), and made them into an excellent soup for the deserving poor. I am sorry to say that she rather took to BLAKE - that outcast of society, And when respectable brothers who were fond of her began to look dubious and to cough, She would say, "Oh, my friends, it's because I hope to bring this poor benighted soul back to virtue and propriety, And besides, the poor benighted soul, with all his faults, was uncommonly well off. And when MR. BLAKE'S dissipated friends called his attention to the frown or the pout of her, Whenever he did anything which appeared to her to savour of an unmentionable place, He would say that "she would be a very decent old girl when all that nonsense was knocked out of her," And his method of knocking it out of her is one that covered him with disgrace. She was fond of going to church services four times every Sunday, and, four or five times in the week, and never seemed to pall of them, So he hunted out all the churches within a convenient distance that had services at different hours, so to speak; And when he had married her he positively insisted upon their going to all of them, So they contrived to do about twelve churches every Sunday, and, if they had luck, from twenty-two to twenty-three in the course of the week. She was fond of dropping his sovereigns ostentatiously into the plate, and she liked to see them stand out rather conspicuously against the commonplace half-crowns and shillings, So he took her to all the charity sermons, and if by any extraordinary chance there wasn't a charity sermon anywhere, he would drop a couple of sovereigns (one for him and one for her) into the poor-box at the door; And as he always deducted the sums thus given in charity from the housekeeping money, and the money he allowed her for her bonnets and frillings, She soon began to find that even charity, if you allow it to interfere with your personal luxuries, becomes an intolerable bore. On Sundays she was always melancholy and anything but good society, For that day in her household was a day of sighings and sobbings and wringing of hands and shaking of heads: She wouldn't hear of a button being sewn on a glove, because it was a work neither of necessity nor of piety, And strictly prohibited her servants from amusing themselves, or indeed doing anything at all except dusting the drawing-rooms, cleaning the boots and shoes, cooking the parlour dinner, waiting generally on the fa