A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
What we really want is a novel showing us all the hidden under-current of an ambitious man's career--his struggles, and failures, and hopes, his disappointments and victories. It would be an immense success. I am sure the wooing of Fortune would prove quite as interesting a tale as the wooing of any flesh-and-blood maiden, though, by the way, it would read extremely similar; for Fortune is, indeed, as the ancients painted her, very like a woman--not quite so unreasonable and inconsistent, but nearly so--and the pursuit is much the same in one case as in the other. Ben Jonson's couplet--
"Court a mistress, she denies you;
Let her alone, she will court you"--
puts them both in a nutshell. A woman never thoroughly cares for her lover until he has ceased to care for her; and it is not until you have snapped your fingers in Fortune's face and turned on your heel that she begins to smile upon you.
~ Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow