Scarcely one person in a thousand is capable of tasting the happiness of others.

Fielding’s remark is a sharp observation about the rarity of genuine fellow-feeling. To “taste the happiness of others” suggests more than polite approval: it implies an imaginative participation in another person’s good fortune, free from envy, rivalry, or the impulse to compare. The hyperbolic ratio (“one in a thousand”) underscores how social life is often governed by self-regard—people may tolerate others’ success, but few can take real pleasure in it as if it were their own. The line also hints at a moral ideal: the capacity for sympathetic joy is presented as an uncommon virtue, and its scarcity helps explain why praise can be grudging and why happiness is frequently experienced in isolation.