A person can't help their birth. Auteur: William Makepeace Thackeray Copy Quote More from William Makepeace Thackeray “In a word, in adversity she was the best of comforters, in good fortune the mos…” “Miss Sedley was almost as flurried at the act of defiance as Miss Jemima had be…” “Here’s a 165-year old but still fitting comment on public officials who are so …” “In the midst of friends, home, and kind parents, she was alone.”