All are architects of fate, working in these walls of time
Source: The Builders, The Seaside and the Fireside (1850)
Topic
Misfortune in this collection is most interesting when it is compared to fortune rather than opposed to it. Aristotle on misfortune revealing false friends is the most practically useful entry: adversity is a diagnostic tool for relationship. Karr on happiness-as-misfortunes-avoided is the negative definition — happiness is the absence of bad events rather than the presence of good ones, which is either realistic or depressing depending on your baseline. Montaigne on his life being full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened is the most instructive: the capacity to generate imaginary misfortunes is at least as significant as actual ones, and Montaigne treated anxiety as a form of misfortune in itself. Voltaire on history-as-the-register-of-crimes-and-misfortunes is the historian's view: public life is misfortune by another name. The anonymous one-man's-meat is the relational qualification: misfortune is not absolute but comparative. Marquis on happiness as the interval between unhappiness gives misfortune temporal dominance: the default condition is trouble, and peace is the exception.
All are architects of fate, working in these walls of time
Misfortune tests the sincerity of friends.
Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, but great minds rise above it.