What merit does her patience add to her other merits! How has her calamity endeared her to me! If ever I shall be heavily afflicted, God give me her … - Samuel Richardson

Sir Thomas Mansfield was a very good man; and much respected in his neighbourhood. He was once possessed of a large estate; but his father left him involved in a law-suit to support his title to more than one half of it. After it had been depending several years, it was at last, to the deep regret of all who knew him, by the ehicanery of the lawyers of the opposite side, and the remissness of his own, carried against him; and his expences having been very great in supporting for years his possession, he found himself reduced from an estate of near three thousand pounds a year, to little more than five hundred.

The World, thinking itself affronted by superior merit, takes delight to bring it down to its own level.

What, my good Sir, is this span of life, that a passenger through it should seek to overturn the interests of others to establish her own? And can the single life be a grievance? Can it be destitute of the noblest tendernesses?