rk that was very literally new
to Richard Yorke. He had seen it, of course, often; was acquainted by
hearsay with its contents, and had joked about them. It is the easiest
book in the world to make jokes upon, which, perhaps, accounts for its
being so favorite a subject of ridicule with foolish persons. Shakspeare
is also easy to make fun of, but the _soupcon_ of blasphemy is in that
case wanting, which, to many, forms the chief charm of witty converse.
Richard looked at it as a dog looks at a stick; but he took it up, and
opened it at random. "Having no hope, and without God in the world."

He was not a believer in sortilege. If the text he had chanced upon had
been ever so applicable to his own condition, it would have made but
little impression upon him, and this was not very pertinent in its
application. He was by no means without hope. He had come to Plymouth
full of hope, though disappointed at its not having been already
exchanged for certainty. He had good hope of inspiring John Trevethick
with confidence in his social position, and consequently of obtaining
his consent to marry the woman who had now become indispensable to his
happiness. He had even some hope of yet inheriting a portion of his
father's great estate. He could not be accused of spiritual ambition.
Any other sort of hope than that of being in a position to enjoy himself
thoroughly had never entered into his mind. Just now, however, he was
far from enjoying himself; he was a prey to anxiety, and any opportunity
of forgetting it was welcome to him. Not without an effort to be
interested, therefore, he reflected upon these words, which seemed
rather to have been spoken in his ear aloud than merely to have caught
his eye. He had already shut the book with contemptuous impatience, but
he found himself, nevertheless, repeating: "Having no hope, and without
God in the world," and pondering upon their meaning. He wondered at
himself for taking the trouble to do so; but if he didn't do that, his
thoughts would, he knew, be even less pleasantly occupied; so he let
them slip into this novel channel. How _could_ a man be without God in
the world, if God was every where? as he had somewhere seen or heard
stated, and which he believed to be the fact. It was one of the
objections against the Bible, was his peevish reflection, that it was
self-contradictory in its assertions, and unmistakably distinct only in
its denunciations of wrath. Here was a case in point, a