Anne Elliot on the Boston Marathon

The last few hours were certainly very painful . . . but when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure. One does not love a [race] the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering -- which was by no means the case at [Boston]. We were only in anxiety and distress during the last two hours, and, previously, there had been a great deal of enjoyment. So much novelty and beauty! I have [run] so little, that every fresh [race] would be interesting to me -- but there is real beauty at [Boston]: and in short . . . altogether my impressions of the [race] are very agreeable.

Jane Austen, Persuasion