Mistaking fortune for nature
pass through our imaginations as incidents in which our fortunes are too humble to be concerned, or which writers form for the ostentation of their own force; or, at most, as things fit rather to exercise the powers of our minds, than to create new habits in them. Instead of such high passages, I was thinking it would be of great use, if anybody could hit it, to lay before the world such adventures as befall persons not exalted above the common level. This, methought, would better prevail upon the ordinary race of men; who are so prepossessed with outward appearances, that they mistake fortune for nature, and believe nothing can relate to them, that does not happen to such as live and look like themselves.
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THE QUALIFICATIONS OF FRIENDSHIP
JOSEPH ADDISON
THE QUALIFICATIONS OF FRIENDSHIP
‘Nos duo turba sumus.’—Ovid.
We two are a multitude.