The irresistible, universal, automatic tendency to find sweet pleasure somewhere, which pervades all life, from the meanest to the highest, had at length mastered Tess. Being even now only a young woman of twenty, one who mentally and sentimentally had not finished growing, it was impossible that any event should have left upon her an impression that was not in time capable of transmutation.那種尋找歡樂的趨向是不可抵抗的、普遍存在的、自然發生的，它滲透在所有從最低級到最高級的生命中，最后終于把苔絲控制住了。即使現在她也只是一個二十歲的青年女子，她的思想和情感還在發展變化，因此任何事件給她留下的印象，就不可能經久不變。

And thus her spirits, and her thankfulness, and her hopes, rose higher and higher. She tried several ballads, but found them inadequate; till, recollecting the psalter that her eyes had so often wandered over of a Sunday morning before she had eaten of the tree of knowledge, she chanted: 'O ye Sun and Moon... O ye Stars... ye Green Things upon the Earth... ye Fowls of the Air Beasts and Cattle... Children of Men... bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for ever!'所以她的精神、她的感激、她的希望，就越來越高漲。她唱了好幾首民歌，但是感到它們都不能把內心的情緒表達出來；后來，她回想起在吞吃智慧樹的禁果之前，在禮拜的早晨她的眼睛瀏覽過多少次的圣詩，于是又開口唱起來：“哦，你這太陽，你這月亮……哦，你們這些星星……你們這些世間的綠色萬物……你們這些空中的飛禽……野獸和家畜……你們世人……你們應當贊美主，頌揚主，永遠尊崇主！”

She suddenly stopped and murmured: 'But perhaps I don't quite know the Lord as yet.'她突然住口不唱了，嘴里嘟噥著說：“可是我也許還不完全知道我唱的主呢。”

And probably the half-unconscious rhapsody was a Fetichistic utterance in a Monotheistic setting; women whose chief companions are the forms and forces of outdoor Nature retain in their souls far more of the Pagan fantasy of their remote forefathers than of the systematized religion taught their race at later date. However, Tess found at least approximate expression for her feelings in the old Benedicite that she had lisped from infancy; and it was enough. Such high contentment with such a slight initial performance as that of having started towards a means of independent living was a part of the Durbeyfield temperament. Tess really wished to walk uprightly, while her father did nothing of the kind; but she resembled him in being content with immediate and small achievements, and in having no mind for laborious effort towards such petty social advancement as could alone be effected by a family so heavily handicapped as the once powerful d'Urbervilles were now.這種半不自覺的吟唱圣詩，也許就是在一神教背景中的一種拜物狂吟；那些把戶外大自然的形體和力量作為主要伙伴的女子們，她們在心靈中保有的多半是她們遙遠祖先的異教幻想，而很少是后世教給她們的那種系統化了的宗教。但是，苔絲至少在她從搖籃時代就開始呀呀學唱的古老的萬物頌中，找到大約可以表達她的感情的句子；因此這也就足夠了。她已經朝著自食其力的方向開始走了，對這種細小的最初表現她感到高度滿足，這種滿足也正是德北菲爾德性情的一部分。苔絲的確希望行為正直地往前走，而她的父親完全不是這樣；但是對眼前一點點成就就感到滿足，不肯付出艱苦的努力把低下的社會地位向前推動，她卻像她的父親。德北菲爾德家曾是輝煌一時的家族，現在卻成了一個受到嚴重阻礙的家庭，影響到社會地位的發展。