While courage and fortitude could triumph with massive preparation, no one was willing to bet on it. Fortune was a cruel and unpredictable force in a world of danger, a deity requiring the strength and wit of Hercules to overcome. Nor is serendipity the same as luck. Luck is a neutral force. To be sure, when we say a person is lucky, we normally think of good luck, but we know that not all luck is good.
Luck can be good, bad, dumb, blind, indifferent.
So when Guy Masterson in Guys and Dolls asks in song that Luck be a Lady tonight, he knows that there is no controlling the roll of the dice. But in the more optimistic world of Walpole s serendipity, the dice are somehow weighted, not to guarantee an outcome but certainly to make good luck more likely. So serendipity is not dumb luck. Indeed, in Walpole s phrase, it flows from some kind of sagacity, some kind of wisdom. If we look at the tale of the three princes, we discover they were not persons of average gifts.