Daniel Defoe

“ He told me that money purchased titles of honour in almost all parts of the world, though money could not give principles of honour, they must come by birth and blood; that, however, titles sometimes assist to elevate the soul and to infuse generous principles into the mind, and especially where there was a good foundation laid in the persons; that he hoped we should neither of us misbehave if we came to it, and that as we knew how to wear a title without undue elevations, so it might sit as well upon us as on another ”

“ However, the next time my gentleman came I had not courage enough, or not ill-nature enough, to treat him in the rude manner I had resolved to do; and it was very well I did not, for soon after I had another letter from Amy in which was the mortifying news, and indeed surprising to me, that my Prince (as I with a secret pleasure had called him) was very much hurt by a bruise he had received in hunting (and engaging with) a wild boar, a cruel and desperate sport which the noblemen of Germany, it seems, much delight in. ”

“ Nothing can be so ridiculous as the simple steps we take in such cases; a man or a woman becomes a mere malade imaginaire, and, I believe, may as easily die with grief or run mad with joy (as the affair in his fancy appears right or wrong) , as if all was real and actually under the management of the person.
I had indeed two assistants to deliver me from this snare, and these were, first, Amy, who knew my disease, but was able to do nothing as to the remedy; the second, the merchant, who really brought the remedy but knew nothing of the distemper. ”

“ The ready-witted jade, that knew the pride of my temper too almost as well as did myself, answered without the least hesitation, “Both, madam. Which of them!” says she, repeating the words, “why not both of them? and then you will be really a Princess; for sure, to be a Lady in English and a Countess in Dutch may make a Princess in High-Dutch.” Upon the whole, though Amy was in jest, she put the thought into my head, and I resolved that, in short, I would be both of them ”

“ This alarmed me indeed, and the more because Amy wrote me word that his gentleman was gone away express to him, not without apprehensions that he should find his master was dead before his coming home, but that he (the gentleman) had promised her that as soon as he arrived he would send back the same courier to her with an account of his master’s health, and of the main affair; and that he had obliged Amy to stay at Paris fourteen days for his return, she having promised him before to make it her business to go to England and to find me out for his lord if he sent her such orders ”

“ I told him I liked the last best, but then I would not let him buy it unless he would let me pay the thousand pistoles. “No, no,” says he, “I refused a thousand pistoles that I had more right to have accepted than that, and you shall not be at so much expense now.” ”

“ So Amy said she supposed I might soon find him out, but that she doubted he was poor, and not worth looking after. This she did because of the next clause, which the jade had most mind to on many accounts.
2. That as to the Prince ——, that, as above, he was gone into Germany, where his estate lay; that he had quitted the French service, and lived retired; that she had seen his gentleman, who remained at Paris to solicit his arrears, etc.; that he had given her an account how his lord had employed him to enquire for me and find me out, as above, and told her what pains he had taken to find me ”