A few years' experience will convince us that those things which at the time they happened we regarded as our greatest misfortunes have proved our greatest blessings.
George Mason's letter to his daughter Sarah Mason McCarty after the death of an infand daughter (February 10, 1785) as quoted in Kate Mason Rowland "The Life of George Mason, Volume 2: 1725-1792" (p. 74), 1892.
