"I never wish to offend, but I am so foolishly shy, that I often seem negligent, when I am only kept back by my natural awkwardness." -Edward Ferrars - Jane Austen

She was of course only too good for him; but as nobody minds having what is too good for them, he was very steadily earnest in the pursuit of the blessing...

To wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect

"Oh!" cried Anne eagerly, "I hope I do justice to all that is felt by you,
and by those who resemble you. God forbid that I should undervalue
the warm and faithful feelings of any of my fellow-creatures!
I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true attachment
and constancy were known only by woman. No, I believe you capable
of everything great and good in your married lives. I believe you equal
to every important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance,
so long as — if I may be allowed the expression — so long as you have
an object. I mean while the woman you love lives, and lives for you.
All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one;
you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence
or when hope is gone."