Dyspepsia and Success: Are They Flip Sides of the Same Coin?

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Thanks to my friend Amy, I don't need to come up with anything new for this post. I will note that Orley Farm is one of my favorite Trollope novels, along with most of the others I've read. I'm also fond of The Way We Live Now, which is frighteningly topical.

Discerning readers will note that this quotation appeared in the comments section of my previous post. It was too good to languish there. It needs breathing room.

"Nothing makes a man so cross as success, or so soon turns a pleasant friend into a captious acquaintance. Your successful man eats too much and his stomach troubles him ; he drinks too much and his nose becomes blue. He wants pleasure and excitement, and roams about looking for satisfaction in places where no man ever found it. He frets himself with his banker's book, and everything tastes amiss to him that has not on it the flavour of gold. The straw of an omnibus always stinks ; the linings of the cabs are filthy. There are but three houses round London at which an eatable dinner may be obtained. And yet a few years since how delicious was that cut of roast goose to be had for a shilling at the eating-house near Golden Square. ... Success is the very misfortune of life, but is only to the very unfortunate that it comes early." - Anthony Trollope, Orley Farm

Discuss: agree?