" It is an awful thing to get a glimpse, as one sometimes does, when the time is past, of some little little wheel which works the whole mighty machinery of FATE, and see how our destinies turn on a minute’s delay or advance, or on the turning of a street, or on somebody else’s turning of a street, or on somebody else’s doing of something else in Downing Street or in Timbuctoo, now or a thousand years ago. "

― William Makepeace Thackeray , Delphi Complete Works of W. M. Thackeray (Illustrated)