Martin had still proceeded as gravely as he began, and doubtless
would have delivered an admirable lecture of morality, which might
have exceedingly contributed to my reader's repose both of body and
mind (the true ultimate end of ethics), but Jack was already gone a
flight-shot beyond his patience. And as in scholastic disputes
nothing serves to rouse the spleen of him that opposes so much as a
kind of pedantic affected calmness in the respondent, disputants
being for the most part like unequal scales, where the gravity of
one side advances the lightness of the other, and causes it to fly
up and kick the beam; so it happened here that the weight of
Martin's arguments exalted Jack's levity, and made him fly out and
spurn against his brother's moderation. In short, Martin's patience
put Jack in a rage; but that which most afflicted him was to observe
his brother's coat so well reduced into the state of innocence,
while his own was either wholly rent to his shirt, or those places
which had escaped his cruel clutches were still in Peter's livery.
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