A submissive spirit might be patient, a strong understanding would supply resolution, but here was something more; here was that elasticity of mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of herself, which was from Nature alone. It was the choicest gift of heaven.
ATTRIBUTION:
Jane Austen (1775–1817), British novelist. Thought by Anne Elliot of Mrs. Smith, in Persuasion, ch. 17 (1818).
