It is the dangerous hour of clear understanding.  Oh, for a kindly hand to tap at my door!  Oh, for a face to come between me and the made-up counselor spying on me out of the mirror!  Chance, my friend and master, will surely deign to send again, to help me, the familiar devils of his unruly kingdom! l have no faith, except in him—and in myself.  Particularly in him, for, when I sink, he fishes me up again, and grips and shakes me like a rescuing dog, whose teeth every time meet in my skin! So that every time I sink, I do not expect a final catastrophe, but only some adventure, some trivial, commonplace miracle which, like a sparkling link, may close up again the necklace of my days. 
Now this is faith indeed, with all its half-sham blindness and its jesuitical renunciations—faith which makes me hope even at the very moment when I cry, “Everything fails me!” Indeed, should some day, Chance, my master, bear another name within my soul, I should prove an excellent Catholic!

I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and so effectively lost to us until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the tree or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison.  Then they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have recognized their voice the spell is broken.  We have delivered them; they have overcome death and return to share our life.
     And so it is with our own past.  It is a labor in vain to attempt to recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile.  The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of the intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) which we do not suspect.  And as for that object, it depends on chance whether we come upon it or not before we ourselves must die.

Here is the character Augusto, talking to himself in Miguel de Unamuno’s Mist (Niebla), on the subject of chance, after falling in love with Eugenia, who passed his door, by chance:

“A chance apparition?  But what apparition may that not be? And what is the logic of apparitions? It is the same as the logic of this succession of figures formed by the smoke of my cigar.  Chance!  Chance is the inner rhythm of the world; chance is the soul of poetry.  Ah, my chanceful Eugenia! This life of mine, quiet, modest, and routine, is a Pindaric ode woven of the thousand trifles of daily events.  Daily events!  Give us this day our daily bread!  Give me, O Lord, the thousand small events of each day.  It is not the great pains, nor the great joys, to which we succumb; and this is because the great pains and the great joys come wrapped in a vast mist of trifling incidents.  And life is just this—mist. Life is a nebula.  And out of it now arises Eugenia. But who is Eugenia? Ah, it begins to dawn upon me that for some time past I have been looking for her.  And while I was in the process of looking for her, there she turned up right in front of me.  Isn’t that what you mean by finding something?”

Milan Kundera:
Whenever something happens in place Z, something else is happening in places A, B, C, D, and E.  “At the very moment that . . .” is a magic sentence in all novels, a sentence that enchants us . . . [Professor Avenarius goes on to classify coincidences for the big book he dreams of writing, The Theory of Chance:]

mute coincidence: a coincidence without any significance, such as “At the very moment when Professor Avenarius stepped into the Jacuzzi and felt the warm stream of water on his back, in a public park in Chicago a yellow leaf fell off a chestnut tree.”
poetic coincidence: coincidence that breathes unexpected significance into an event, such as “At the very moment the first yellow leaf fell in Chicago, Professor Avenarius entered the Jacuzzi to massage his back,” in which the coincidence makes us see Professor Avenarius as a harbinger of autumn . . . .  
contrapuntal coincidence: “like two melodies merging into one small composition,” such as “Professor Avenarius submerged himself in the Jacuzzi at the very moment that, in the Swiss Alps, Agnes started her car.”
story-producing coincidence: “adored by novelists,” such as, “Professor Avenarius entered the Montparnasse Métro at the very moment a beautiful woman was standing there with a red collection box in her hand.”

See:
Glynns: Thanks to the god of happy accidents, it seems that every September there is a moonlit night when I do happen to see sweet autumn clematis growing on a wall, and so every year the memories return to me 

A Topical Guide to the Complete Peter Leroy (so far) is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, dialogues, settings, and businesses portrayed in it are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. 

All rights reserved. No part of this guide may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. 

Portions of A Topical Guide to the Complete Peter Leroy (so far) were first published by Voyager, Inc., as part of The Complete Peter Leroy (so far).

The illustration at the top of the page is an adaptation of an illustration by Stewart Rouse that first appeared on the cover of the August 1931 issue of Modern Mechanics and Inventions. The boy at the controls of the aerocycle doesn’t particularly resemble Peter Leroy—except, perhaps, for the smile.