Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/204

198 articles: one of which was that she might have the freedom of Jack's conversation, and might take him for better and for worse, if she pleased; provided always he did not come into the house at unseasonable hours, and disturb the rest of the old woman, John's mother.

T is an old observation, that the quarrels of relations are harder to reconcile than any other; injuries from friends fret and gall more, and the memory of them is not so easily obliterated. This is cunningly represented by one of your old sages, called Æsop, in the story of the bird, that was grieved extremely at being wounded with an arrow feathered with his own wing: as also of the oak, that let many a heavy groan, when he was cleft with a wedge of his own timber.

There was no man in the world less subject to rancour than John Bull, considering how often his goodnature had been abused; yet I don't know how, but he was too apt to hearken to tattling people, that carried tales between him and his sister Peg, on purpose to sow jealousies, and set them together by the ears. They say that there were some hardships put upon