Patience is a virtue, though it may often displease. When sorrowful hearts are hurt by scorn or something else, long-suffering can assuage them and ease the pain, for she [i.e. patience] kills everything bad and extinguishes malice. For if anyone could endure sorrow, happiness would follow; and anyone who, through resentment, cannot endure suffers the more intensely. So it is better [for me] to put up with the blow from time to time, though this may be distasteful to me, than to give vent continually to my resentment. I heard on a holy day, at a solemn mass, how Matthew told that his Master taught His followers. [11] He decreed them eight beatitudes, and for each one a reward, severally, according to its merit, in a diverse manner: they are blessed who have poverty at heart, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven to keep for ever; they who practise meekness are also blessed, for they shall possess this world and have all their wishes; they are blessed also who weep for their sin, for they shall obtain comfort in many countries; they are blessed also who hunger after justice, for they shall abundantly be nourished full of all goodness; [21] they are blessed also who have pity at heart, for their reward shall be mercy in all ways; they are blessed also who are pure in heart, for they shall see with their eyes their Saviour on [His] throne; they are blessed also who remain quiet, for they shall properly be called the gracious God's sons; they are blessed also who can control their hearts, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, as I said before. These are all the eight beatitudes that were promised to us, if we would love these ladies in imitation of [their] virtues: [31] Dame Poverty, Dame Pity, Dame Penance the third, Dame Meekness, Dame Mercy, and fair Cleanness, and then Dame Peace, and Patience put in afterwards. He who had one would be blessed; all would be better. But since I am reduced to a condition that is called poverty, I shall equip myself with patience and amuse myself with both, for in the passage [i.e. the Beatitudes] where these two are discussed, they are presented in one formula [as] the first and the last, and by pursuit of their wisdom attain one [i.e. the same] reward.