Of constant recurrence among the commonplaces of biography are such “buts,” inopportune and inevitable, as Cicero’s biographer prefixes to a critical paragraph: “But while all things were proceeding very prosperously in his favour, and nothing seemed wanting to crown his success, ... all his hopes and fortunes were blasted at once, by an unhappy rencounter with his old enemy Clodius.”
There is a popular historical fiction in which we see the Cardinal Alberoni musing on the greatness he has achieved for Spain and for himself, only to find himself overtaken by ruin and disgrace. The rope which he has twisted so carefully, proves to be of sand. In another we see a successful adventurer at the culminating point of his success. There seems nothing wanting to him in “that supreme moment,” as the phrase goes. He is in “a tumult of gratified ambition and selfish joy.” “This glory and grandeur” repay a thousand-fold his patient endeavours and strenuous schemings. But at this very moment a dark shadow overlays the sunshine on his pathway; and we look on a changed countenance—“no longer full of triumph and pleasure, but ghastly pale” at a sudden but very present and very pressing sense of impending disaster. Fortuna vitrea est, tum cum splendet frangitur.
At the opening of the twelfth century all was prosperity with the Emperor Henry IV.; his turbulent and agitated life seemed, in the words of Dean Milman, “as if it would close in an august and peaceful end.” But, as an after page in the history of Latin Christianity is prompt to prove, this most secure and splendid period in the life of Henry was one calm and brilliant hour of evening before a night of utter gloom.
Columbus had just welcomed tranquillity in exchange for the troubles and dangers of his island, when intelligence arrived of the discovery of a large tract of country rich in mines. He now anticipated the prosperous prosecution of his favourite enterprise, and was exultant at the turn of the tide. “How illusive were his hopes!” exclaims his biographer. “At this moment events were maturing which were to overwhelm him with distress, strip him of his honour, and render him comparatively a wreck for the remainder of his days.” Who, the chronicler of the conquest of Granada may well ask, who can tell when to rejoice in this fluctuating world? “Every wave of prosperity has its reacting surge, and we are often overwhelmed by the very billow on which we thought to be wafted into the haven of our hopes.” Et subito casu, quæ valuere, ruunt.
Olivarez was requested by his royal master to resign, just at the moment when the death of Richelieu (1643) opened to him an almost royal road, it might seem, to success.
“O momentary grace of mortal men,
Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!
Who builds his hope in air of your fair looks,
Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast,
Ready, with every nod, to tumble down