Wilde is sketching something rather sneaky here—that intellectual maturity isn't really about being clever or well-read, but about maintaining a kind of productive humility before life's refusals to cooperate. Most people think they're thinking ahead when they're actually just rehearsing familiar scenarios; Wilde suggests that true modernity of mind means suspending that comfortable certainty altogether. When a parent loses a job unexpectedly, the thoroughly modern intellect doesn't spiral because they were already mentally prepared for disappointment itself, rather than for any specific disaster. It's the difference between predicting the future (impossible) and genuinely expecting that the future will surprise you (liberating).