"Few there are, my dear Madeline, whose situations, however bad, might not be rendered worse; we should therefore try not to deserve an augmentation of calamity, by bearing that inflicted with resignation.
"Why calamity is the prevalent lot of humanity—why our virtuous hopes are so often overthrown—why the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; both reason and religion teaches us will be explained hereafter; in the mean time, let no disappointment, no vicissitudes, however painful and unmerited we may consider them, ever tempt us to doubt, or to arraign the goodness and wisdom of that Being, from whose hand proceeds alike the cup of good and evil.
"Think not, (she continued) as too many perhaps might do, that I preach what I do not practise; or, that my lessons are those of a woman, who herself, untried by disappointment, can exhort others to that submission which she never knew the difficulty
