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Smollett, Tobias George, 1721-1771

"The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle"

" "You may therefore," said he, in a peremptory tone, "spare
yourself the trouble of torturing your invention; for, after all,
I am pretty certain that I shall want capacity to comprehend the
discussion of your lemma, and consequently be obliged to all the
pangs of an ingenuous mind that I refuse my assent to your deduction."
Mr. Jolter was disconcerted at this declaration, and so much offended
at Peregrine's disrespect, that he could not help expressing his
displeasure, by telling him flatly, that he was too violent and
headstrong to be reclaimed by reason and gentle means; that he (the
tutor) must be obliged, in the discharge of his duty and conscience,
to inform the commodore of his pupil's imprudence; that if the
laws of this realm were effectual, they would take cognizance of
the gipsy who had led him astray; and observed, by way of contrast,
that if such a preposterous intrigue had happened in France, she
would have been clapped up in a convent two years ago. Our lover's
eyes kindled with indignation, when he heard his mistress treated
with such irreverence: he could scarce refrain from inflicting
manual chastisement on the blasphemer, whom he reproached in his
wrath as an arrogant pedant, without either delicacy or sense, and
cautioned him against rising any such impertinent freedoms with his
affairs for the future on pain of incurring more severe effects of
his resentment.


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