"He that can heroically endure adversity will bear prosperity with equal greatness of soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former is not likely to be transported with the later"
About this Quote
Fielding is selling an aristocracy of temperament, not of birth. In an age when “greatness” was still publicly measured by rank, this sentence quietly relocates nobility inside the nervous system: the truly elevated person is the one whose inner weather refuses to be hijacked by circumstance. “Heroically endure” flatters the reader with a martial ideal, but the real target is vanity. If you can survive hardship without collapse, you’ve proven something rarer than toughness: you’ve proved you’re not easily moved by the world’s bribery.
The paired verbs do the heavy lifting. “Dejected” is not just sad; it’s a lowering of the self, a surrender of posture. “Transported” suggests being carried away, kidnapped by good fortune into bad judgment. Fielding’s moral psychology is symmetrical: adversity and prosperity are both tests because both are distortions. Pain tries to shrink you; pleasure tries to inflate you. Greatness of soul, for Fielding, is a refusal of both humiliations.
There’s also a novelist’s skepticism hiding under the sermon. Fielding watched social climbing, windfalls, patronage, and the theater of reputation; he knew how quickly “success” turns people into caricatures of themselves. The line reads like advice to characters who mistake events for identity: don’t let misfortune define you, and don’t let luck convince you you’re a new species. It’s a cool, Enlightenment-era insistence on steadiness as virtue - not because calm is pretty, but because it keeps you free.
The paired verbs do the heavy lifting. “Dejected” is not just sad; it’s a lowering of the self, a surrender of posture. “Transported” suggests being carried away, kidnapped by good fortune into bad judgment. Fielding’s moral psychology is symmetrical: adversity and prosperity are both tests because both are distortions. Pain tries to shrink you; pleasure tries to inflate you. Greatness of soul, for Fielding, is a refusal of both humiliations.
There’s also a novelist’s skepticism hiding under the sermon. Fielding watched social climbing, windfalls, patronage, and the theater of reputation; he knew how quickly “success” turns people into caricatures of themselves. The line reads like advice to characters who mistake events for identity: don’t let misfortune define you, and don’t let luck convince you you’re a new species. It’s a cool, Enlightenment-era insistence on steadiness as virtue - not because calm is pretty, but because it keeps you free.
Quote Details
| Topic | Resilience |
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