Henry Fielding: The History of Tom Jones, a foundling

BOOK XII. CONTAINING THE SAME INDIVIDUAL TIME WITH THE FORMER. 3. Chapter iii. The departure of Jones from Upton... (continued)

"Be under no apprehension, Partridge," cries Jones; "I am now so well convinced of thy cowardice, that thou couldst not provoke me on any account." "Your honour," answered he, "may call me coward, or anything else you please. If loving to sleep in a whole skin makes a man a coward, non immunes ab illis malis sumus. I never read in my grammar that a man can't be a good man without fighting. Vir bonus est quis? Qui consulta patrum, qui leges juraque servat. Not a word of fighting; and I am sure the scripture is so much against it, that a man shall never persuade me he is a good Christian while he sheds Christian blood."