"turns to the letters and argues that: Walpole's numerous letters are often used as a historical resource. In one, dating from 28 January 1754, he coined the word serendipity which he said was derived from a ""silly fairy tale"" he had read, ""The Three Princes of Serendip"". The oft-quoted epigram, ""This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel"", is from a letter of Walpole's to Anne, Countess of Ossory, on 16 August 1776. The original, fuller version appeared in a letter to Sir Horace Mann on 31 December 1769: ""I have often said,"
"source of the word serendipity, coined by Horace Walpole because of his recollection of the part of the ""silly fairy tale"" in which the three princes by ""accidents and sagacity"" discern the nature of a lost camel. In a separate line of descent, the story was used by Voltaire in his 1747 ""Zadig"", and through this contributed to both the evolution of detective fiction and the self-understanding of scientific method. ""In ancient times there existed in the country of Serendippo, in the Far East, a great and powerful king by the name of Giaffer. He had three sons who were"
"unhappy, unlucky and unexpected discoveries occurring by design"". A zemblanity is, effectively, an ""unpleasant unsurprise"". It derives from Novaya Zemlya (or Nova Zembla), a cold, barren land with many features opposite to the lush Sri Lanka (Serendip). On this island Willem Barents and his crew were stranded while searching for a new route to the east. Bahramdipity is derived directly from Bahram Gur as characterized in ""The Three Princes of Serendip"". It describes the ""suppression"" of serendipitous discoveries or research results by powerful individuals. Serendipity Serendipity means an unplanned, fortunate discovery. The notion of serendipity is a common occurrence throughout"
"notion of probability was expressed by the Latin loanword ""chance"", adopted in Middle English from the late 13th century, literally describing an outcome as a ""falling"" (as it were of dice), via Old French ""cheance"" from Late Latin ""cadentia"" ""falling"". Fortuna, the Roman goddess of fate or luck, was popular an allegory in medieval times, and even though it was not strictly reconcilable with Christian theology, it became popular in learned circles of the High Middle Ages to portray her as a servant of God in distributing success or failure in a characteristically ""fickle"" or unpredictable way, thus introducing the"
"— the chaos of the real world. While some methods of investigation are fragile in the face of human error and randomness, the scientific method relies on randomness in many ways. Taleb believes that the more anti-fragile the system, the more it will flourish in the real world. According to M. K. Stoskopf, it is in this way that serendipity is often the ""foundation for important intellectual leaps of understanding"" in science. The word ""Serendipity"" is frequently understood as simply ""a happy accident"", but Horace Walpole used the word 'serendipity' to refer to a certain kind of happy accident: the"
"the words ""fortunate"" and ""unfortunate"" in English), Dedun in Nubian religion, the Seven Lucky Gods in Japanese mythology, mythical American serviceman John Frum in Polynesian cargo cults, and the inauspicious Alakshmi in Hinduism. The English noun ""luck"" appears comparatively late, during the 1480s, as a loan from Low German, Dutch or Frisian ""luk"", a short form of ""gelucke"" (Middle High German ""gelücke""). Compare to old Slavic word ""lukyj"" (""лукый"") - ""appointed by destiny"" and old Russian ""luchaj"" (""лучаи"") - ""destiny, fortune"". It likely entered English as a gambling term, and the context of gambling remains detectable in the word's connotations;"
"a series of unfortunate events will eventually lead to a happier outcome. The theological concept is one of the underlying themes of Raphael Carter's science fiction novel, ""The Fortunate Fall""; the novel's title derives explicitly from the Latin phrase. It is also the theme of the fifteenth-century English text Adam lay ybounden, of unknown authorship, and it is used in various guises, such as ""Foenix culprit"", ""Poor Felix Culapert!"" and ""phaymix cupplerts"" by James Joyce in ""Finnegans Wake"". John Milton includes the concept in ""Paradise Lost."" In book 12, Adam proclaims that the good resulting from the Fall is ""more"
"by fate/destiny). This term originated in Egyptian mythology and storytelling, and has figured in several other novels and screenplays since 1976. The term also appears in King's short story, ""Low Men in Yellow Coats"", in which Ted describes its meaning to Bobby. While the series was declared finished with the publication of the seventh volume in 2004, King described in an interview in March 2009 an idea for a new short story he'd recently had: ""And then I thought, 'Well, why don't I find three more like this and do a book that would be almost like modern fairy tales?'"
"popular success. ""People which live part of the unintermitting third, commonly called the southern land, containing a relation of the Government, manners, religion & language of this nation, unknown factor until now at the people of Europe"", on the assumption of the existence of Southern lands nondiscovered in Indian Ocean in the south-east of Cape of Good Hope. The conflicts between Protestants and Catholics forced Vairasse into exile in England where he wrote his major work ""Histoire of Séverambes"", a Utopian novel set in Australia. A travel story akin to Thomas More's ""Utopia"" and Jonathan Swift's ""Gulliver's Travels"". Authors such"
"Peripeteia Peripeteia () is a reversal of circumstances, or turning point. The term is primarily used with reference to works of literature. The Anglicized form of ""peripeteia"" is peripety. Aristotle, in his Poetics, defines peripeteia as ""a change by which the action veers round to its opposite, subject always to our rule of probability or necessity."" According to Aristotle, peripeteia, along with discovery, is the most effective when it comes to drama, particularly in a tragedy. He wrote that ""The finest form of Discovery is one attended by Peripeteia, like that which goes with the Discovery in Oedipus..."". Aristotle says"
"Serendipity Serendipity means an unplanned, fortunate discovery. The notion of serendipity is a common occurrence throughout the history of scientific innovation. Examples are Alexander Fleming's accidental discovery of penicillin in 1928, the invention of the microwave oven by Percy Spencer in 1945, and the invention of the Post-it note by Spencer Silver in 1968. In June 2004, a British translation company voted the word to be one of the ten English words hardest to translate. However, due to its sociological use, the word has since been exported into many other languages. The first noted use of ""serendipity"" in the English"
"fairy, the appearance of the hero at a tournament on three consecutive days in three different disguises, and the rescue of a queen or princess from an Otherworld prison are all features of a well-known and widespread tale, variants of which are found in almost every land and numerous examples of which have been collected by Theodore Hersart de la Villemarqué in his ""Barzaz Breiz"", by Emmanuel Cosquin in his ""Contes Lorrains"", and by John Francis Campbell in his ""Tales of the West Highlands"". In Chrétien de Troyes's earliest known work ""Erec and Enide"", the name Lancelot appears as third"
"Inventio Fortunata Inventio Fortunata (also Inventio Fortunate, Inventio Fortunat or Inventio Fortunatae), """"Fortunate, or fortune-making, discovery"""", is a lost book, probably dating from the 14th century, containing a description of the North Pole as a magnetic island (the Rupes Nigra) surrounded by a giant whirlpool and four continents. No direct extracts from the document have been discovered, but its influence on the Western idea of the geography of the Arctic region persisted for several centuries. The book is said to be a travelogue written by a 14th-century Franciscan (Minorite) friar from Oxford who travelled the North Atlantic region in the"
"helmet that appears as a result of supernatural causes. However, that moment, along with the rest of the unfolding plot, includes a mixture of both ridiculous and sublime supernatural elements. The plot finally reveals how Manfred's family is tainted in a way that served as a model for successive Gothic plots. From 1762 on, Walpole published his ""Anecdotes of Painting in England"", based on George Vertue's manuscript notes. His memoirs of the Georgian social and political scene, though heavily biased, are a useful primary source for historians. Smith, noting that Walpole never did any work for his well-paid government sinecures,"
"Eucatastrophe A eucatastrophe is a sudden turn of events at the end of a story which ensures that the protagonist does not meet some terrible, impending, and very plausible and probable doom. The writer J. R. R. Tolkien coined the word by affixing the Greek prefix ""eu"", meaning ""good"", to ""catastrophe"", the word traditionally used in classically inspired literary criticism to refer to the ""unraveling"" or conclusion of a drama's plot. For Tolkien, the term appears to have had a thematic meaning that went beyond its literal etymological meaning in terms of form. In his definition as outlined in his"
"wish and he is now peacefully dead. Andersen concludes with a quote by Solon: ""Call no man happy until he rests in his grave."" Dame Care then tells the other fairy that her predictions have indeed all came true. Though she does grant the student a favor. She takes off his galoshes and takes them back with her, causing him to be brought back to life. The Galoshes of Fortune ""The Galoshes of Fortune"" () is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a set of time-travelling boots, considered to be inspired by the folktale of the ""seven-league"
"a precarious situation, especially one in which the onset of tragedy is restrained only by a delicate trigger or chance. Shakespeare's ""Henry IV"" expands on this theme: ""Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown""; compare the Hellenistic and Roman imagery connected with the insecurity offered by Tyche and Fortuna. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer refers to the sword of Damocles, which the knight describes to hang over Conquest. When the knight describes the three temples, he also pays special attention to the paintings, noticing one on the walls of the temple of Mars, ""Above, where seated in his tower,"
"with deductive and inductive reasoning"". An apparently unreasoned guess that turns out to be correct may be called a happy guess, or a lucky guess, and it has been argued that ""a 'lucky guess' is a paradigm case of a belief that does not count as knowledge"". In Jane Austen's ""Emma"", however, the author has the character, Emma, respond to a character calling a match that she made a ""lucky guess"" by saying that ""a lucky guess is never merely luck. There is always some talent in it"". As Tschaepe notes, William Whewell stated that certain scientific discoveries ""are not"
"game of Hazard came the modern terms: Hazard (game) Hazard is an early English game played with two dice; it was mentioned in Geoffrey Chaucer's ""Canterbury Tales"" in the 14th century. Despite its complicated rules, hazard was very popular in the 17th and 18th centuries and was often played for money. At Crockford's Club in London, hazard was especially popular. In the 19th century, the game craps developed from hazard through a simplification of the rules. Craps is now very popular in North America but neither game remains popular amongst the rest of the world. Any number may play, but"
"luck in, and an upside-down version of the same sign on the back end, keeping bad luck out. Later, Gladstone was born on his mother's birthday, and during one of his childhood birthday parties, lightning had hit him while he had been hoisted on the upside-down distelfink sign by Donald. The event caused his birthday to become the only exception to his near-universal good luck. When Donald and Gladstone hear of this, both of them rush to the front end of the barn, trying to get hit by lightning again, but this time on the rightside-up sign. Donald hoists himself"
"John Day says, Inventio Fortunata Inventio Fortunata (also Inventio Fortunate, Inventio Fortunat or Inventio Fortunatae), """"Fortunate, or fortune-making, discovery"""", is a lost book, probably dating from the 14th century, containing a description of the North Pole as a magnetic island (the Rupes Nigra) surrounded by a giant whirlpool and four continents. No direct extracts from the document have been discovered, but its influence on the Western idea of the geography of the Arctic region persisted for several centuries. The book is said to be a travelogue written by a 14th-century Franciscan (Minorite) friar from Oxford who travelled the North Atlantic"
"fairy tale ""Hans in Luck"" has a similar sequence in which the character believes that every change is for the better. The Hedley Kow ""The Hedley Kow"" is an English fairy tale, particular to the village of Hedley on the Hill in Northumbria. It was collected by Joseph Jacobs in ""More English Fairy Tales"" in 1894. A poor woman finds a pot on the road. She thinks it must have a hole for it to be discarded, but optimistically decides she might find a use for it as a flowerpot. Looking inside she discovers it is full of gold pieces,"
"Cliffe. According to local folklore, the name Wansford-in-England comes from the tale of a local man who fell asleep on a hayrick and upon awakening found himself floating down the River Nene. He asked a traveller on the riverbank where he was, and upon hearing the reply ""Wansford"", asked, ""Wansford in England?"". The name stuck and the Haycock Hotel takes its name from the legend. This version of the story seems to be derived by oral transmission from """"Barnabæ Itinerarium, or Barnabee's Journal"""", an account of four long and often drunken journeys north through England published by Richard Brathwait in"
"be touched. In all traditions, luck is ""contained"" in the shoe and can ""pour out"" through the ends. In some traditions, any good or bad luck achieved will only occur to the ""owner"" of the horseshoe, not the person who hangs it up. Therefore, if the horseshoe was stolen, borrowed or even just found then the ""owner"", not the person who found or stole the horseshoe will get any good or bad luck. Other traditions require that the horseshoe be found to be effective. One reputed origin of the tradition of lucky horseshoes is the story of Saint Dunstan and"
"miracle occurred, and believers may accept this as a fact. Statistically ""impossible"" events are often called miracles. For instance, when three classmates accidentally meet in a different country decades after having left school, they may consider this as ""miraculous"". However, a colossal number of events happen every moment on earth; thus extremely unlikely coincidences also happen every moment. Events that are considered ""impossible"" are therefore not impossible at all — they are just increasingly rare and dependent on the number of individual events. British mathematician J. E. Littlewood suggested that individuals should statistically expect one-in-a-million events (""miracles"") to happen to"
"peculiar objects and calling them forth to serve them; and had access to ancient coinage of precious metals (as do the Whateleys in ""The Dunwich Horror""). Lovecraft scholar Peter Cannon dismissively describes the story as ""little more than a polemic against the intrusion of people Lovecraft regarded as 'foreigners', that is, the non-English immigrants who arrived in the nineteenth century as cheap labor to fill the factories of an increasingly industrialized America."" S. T. Joshi identified the story as having been inspired by Lord Dunsany's short story ""Probable Adventure of the Three Literary Men"". Joshi wrote that modern critics have"
"Trowie ""Pig"""", from Scotland, also tells of an inexhautable jug. There is a Scottish folktale from the 17th century of a man who sees a whirlwind in a field and hears voices saying """"Horse and Hattock"""" - he repeats the phrase and is swept up by the wind and wakes up the next day in the King of France's cellar with a silver cup in his hand. A fairy origin legend has also been given to the glass known as the Luck of Edenhall, a 14th C. drinking glass originating in the middle east. In the legend, which may have"
"its Latin origins and describes a year of particularly notable events. According to the ""Oxford English Dictionary"", Dryden's use of the term for the title of his poem constitutes the first known written use of the phrase in an English text. The first event of the miraculous year was the Battle of Lowestoft fought by English and Dutch ships in 1665. The second was the Four Days Battle of June 1666, and finally the victory of the St. James's Day Battle a month later. The second part of the poem deals with the Great Fire of London that ran from"
"early 1360s, making some half-a-dozen journeys conducting business on behalf of the King of England (Edward III). He described what he found on his first journey to the islands beyond 54 degrees north in a book, ""Inventio Fortunata"", which he presented to the King. Unfortunately, by the time Atlantic explorers were seeking information in the 1490s, the ""Inventio"" had gone missing, and was only known through a summary in a second text, the ""Itinerarium,"" written by a Brabantian traveller from 's-Hertogenbosch named Jacobus Cnoyen (also known as James Cnoyen or Jakob van Knoyen; modern Knox). As will be discussed below,"
"mountains near Great Sodus Bay"". Cole also surmised that Joseph Smith worked under the inspiration of ""Walters the Magician."" Abner Cole's non-satirical account, published in the February 28, 1831 Reflector, mentions ""a vagabond fortune-teller by the name of Walters, who [...] was once committed to the jail of this country for juggling, was the constant companion and bosom friend of these money digging impostors."" Cole proposes ""Walters [...] first suggested to Smith the idea of finding a book."". According to Cole, Walters would read, in Latin, from Cicero's Orations, ""to his credulous hearers, uttering at the same time an unintelligible"
"from ""The Three Princes of Serendip"", an Italian rendition of Amir Khusro's ""Hasht-Bihisht"". Poe may also have been expanding on previous analytical works of his own including the essay on ""Maelzel's Chess Player"" and the comedic ""Three Sundays in a Week"". As for the twist in the plot, Poe was likely inspired by the crowd reaction to an orangutan on display at the Masonic Hall in Philadelphia in July 1839. The name of the main character may have been inspired from the ""Dupin"" character in a series of stories first published in ""Burton's Gentleman's Magazine"" in 1828 called ""Unpublished passages"
"luck is a way of understanding a personal chance event. Luck has three aspects: Before the adoption of ""luck"" at the end of the Middle Ages, Old English and Middle English expressed the notion of ""good fortune"" with the word ""speed"" (Middle English ""spede"", Old English ""spēd""); ""speed"" besides ""good fortune"" had the wider meaning of ""prosperity, profit, abundance""; it is not associated with the notion of probability or chance but rather with that of fate or divine help; a bestower of success can also be called ""speed"", as in ""Christ be our speed"" (William Robertson, ""Phraseologia generalis"", 1693). The"
"literature, making four exceptionally well-paid tours of North America. As a gay man at a time when homosexual practices were illegal for men in Britain, Walpole conducted a succession of intense but discreet relationships with other men, and was for much of his life in search of what he saw as ""the perfect friend"". He eventually found one, a married policeman, with whom he settled in the English Lake District. Having as a young man eagerly sought the support of established authors, he was in his later years a generous sponsor of many younger writers. He was a patron of"