Debtors and creditors as racehorses from an old novel

[MattH]

http://preview.tinyurl.com/DebtorCreditorHorses

But the patience of a creditor is nothing compared with that of a debtor.  The one is a mere hack-horse, that breaks down at the first heat; the other a full-blooded racer

I happened across the above passage while looking for something else in Google Books.  Had I but world enough and time, I could happily spend entire days following every tangential link on every Google search, but alas I must focus my attention on the task at hand most of the time!

Edited to add, a few pages further on in the novel the Colonel's wife says something very wise and still true:

I believe that half the miseries of this life originate in our foolish fears of what people will say of us.  Let us do right, and let others wonder as they will.

Not surprisingly, the Colonel reacts badly to her sage words...