Literature Network » Horace Walpole

Technology insulates us, limits 'happy accidents'

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From: Deseret News (Salt Lake City)
Date: 20050821
Author:Tom Chaffin Los Angeles Times

Poker, I'm told, is dealing out a royal flush for cable TV ratings. But elsewhere in our media culture, transactions governed by chance seem to be holding a dead hand.

Consider, for instance, the apparently waning sway of serendipity. Coined by 18th century British author Horace Walpole, the term derives from a Persian fairy-tale, "The Princes of Serendip," in which the story's three namesake princes "were always making discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of."

Of course, in the eternal contest with her rival destiny, serendipity hasn't yet thrown in her ...

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