He would fain have desired liberty, but all hope of it was gone.
I too would fain be a track-repairer somewhere in the orbit of the earth.
Late in the 15th century, in spite of the somewhat greater liberty of that age, we find Stephen Scrope writing nakedly to a familiar correspondent "for very need [of poverty], I was fain to sell a little daughter I have for much less than I should have done by possibility," i.e.
They would fain be at home with the Lord, and absent from the body, for which there is no place in heaven since flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor corruption inherit incorruption.
To be an eminent scholar was to be accused of immorality, heresy and atheism in a single indictment; and the defence of weaker minds lay in joining the Jesuits, as Heinsius was fain to do.
