I confess,
without shame, that I expected to find masses of silver
lying all about the ground. I expected to see it glittering
in the sun on the mountain summits. I said nothing about
this, for some instinct told me that I might possibly have
an exaggerated idea about it, and so if I betrayed my
thought I might bring derision upon myself. Yet I was as
perfectly satisfied in my own mind as I could be of
anything, that I was going to gather up, in a day or two,
or at furthest a week or two, silver enough to make me
satisfactorily wealthy--and so my fancy was already busy
with plans for spending this money. The first opportunity
that offered, I sauntered carelessly away from the cabin,
keeping an eye on the other boys, and stopping and
contemplating the sky when they seemed to be observing me;
but as soon as the coast was manifestly clear, I fled away
as guiltily as a thief might have done and never halted
till I was far beyond sight and call. Then I began my
search with a feverish excitement that was brimful of
expectation--almost of certainty. I crawled about the
ground, seizing and examining bits of stone, blowing the
dust from them or rubbing them on my clothes, and then
peering at them with anxious hope. Presently I found a
bright fragment and my heart bounded! I hid behind a
boulder and polished it and scrutinized it with a nervous
eagerness and a delight that was more pronounced than
absolute certainty itself could have afforded. The more I
examined the fragment the more I was convinced that I had
found the door to fortune. I marked the spot and carried
away my specimen. Up and down the rugged mountain side I
searched, with always increasing interest and always
augmenting gratitude that I had come to Humboldt and come
in time. Of all the experiences of my life, this secret
search among the hidden treasures of silver-land was the
nearest to unmarred ecstasy. It was a delirious revel. By
and by, in the bed of a shallow rivulet, I found a deposit
of shining yellow scales, and my breath almost forsook me!
A gold mine, and in my simplicity I had been content with
vulgar silver! I was so excited that I half believed my
overwrought imagination was deceiving me. Then a fear came
upon me that people might be observing me and would guess
my secret. Moved by this thought, I made a circuit of the
place, and ascended a knoll to reconnoiter. Solitude. No
creature was near. Then I returned to my mine, fortifying
myself against possible disappointment, but my fears were
groundless--the shining scales were still there. I set
about scooping them out, and for an hour I toiled down the
windings of the stream and robbed its bed. But at last the
descending sun warned me to give up the quest, and I turned
homeward laden with wealth. As I walked along I could not
help smiling at the thought of my being so excited over my
fragment of silver when a nobler metal was almost under my
nose. In this little time the former had so fallen in my
estimation that once or twice I was on the point of
throwing it away.
The boys were as hungry as usual, but I could eat
nothing. Neither could I talk. I was full of dreams and far
away. Their conversation interrupted the flow of my fancy
somewhat, and annoyed me a little, too. I despised the
sordid and commonplace things they talked about. But as
they proceeded, it began to amuse me. It grew to be rare
fun to hear them planning their poor little economies and
sighing over possible privations and distresses when a gold
mine, all our own, lay within sight of the cabin and I
could point it out at any moment. Smothered hilarity began
to oppress me, presently. It was hard to resist the impulse
to burst out with exultation and reveal everything; but I
did resist. I said within myself that I would filter the
great news through my lips calmly and be serene as a summer
morning while I watched its effect in their faces. I
said:
"Where have you all been?"
"Prospecting."
"What did you find?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? What do you think of the country?"
"Can't tell, yet," said Mr. Ballou, who was an old gold
miner, and had likewise had considerable experience among
the silver mines.
"Well, haven't you formed any sort of opinion?"
"Yes, a sort of a one. It's fair enough here, may be,
but overrated. Seven thousand dollar ledges are scarce,
though. That Sheba may be rich enough, but we don't own it;
and besides, the rock is so full of base metals that all
the science in the world can't work it. We'll not starve,
here, but we'll not get rich, I'm afraid."
"So you think the prospect is pretty poor?"
"No name for it!"
"Well, we'd better go back, hadn't we?"
"Oh, not yet--of course not. We'll try it a riffle,
first."
"Suppose, now--this is merely a supposition, you
know--suppose you could find a ledge that would yield, say,
a hundred and fifty dollars a ton--would that satisfy
you?"
"Try us once!" from the whole party.
"Or suppose--merely a supposition, of course--suppose
you were to find a ledge that would yield two thousand
dollars a ton--would that satisfy you?"
"Here--what do you mean? What are you coming at? Is
there some mystery behind all this?"
"Never mind. I am not saying anything. You know
perfectly well there are no rich mines here--of course you
do. Because you have been around and examined for
yourselves. Anybody would know that, that had been around.
But just for the sake of argument, suppose--in a kind of
general way--suppose some person were to tell you that
two-thousand-dollar ledges were simply
contemptible--contemptible, understand--and that right
yonder in sight of this very cabin there were piles of pure
gold and pure silver--oceans of it--enough to make you all
rich in twenty-four hours! Come!"
"I should say he was as crazy as a loon!" said old
Ballou, but wild with excitement, nevertheless.
"Gentlemen,"
said I, "I don't say anything--I haven't been
around, you know, and of course don't know anything--but
all I ask of you is to cast your eye on that, for
instance, and tell me what you think of it!" and I tossed
my treasure before them.
There was an eager scramble for it, and a closing of
heads together over it under the candle-light. Then old
Ballou said:
"Think of it? I think it is nothing but a lot of granite
rubbish and nasty glittering mica that isn't worth ten
cents an acre!"
So vanished my dream. So melted my wealth away. So
toppled my airy castle to the earth and left me stricken
and forlorn.
Moralizing, I observed, then, that "all that glitters is
not gold."
Mr. Ballou said I could go further than that, and lay it
up among my treasures of knowledge, that nothing
that glitters is gold. So I learned then, once for all,
that gold in its native state is but dull, unornamental
stuff, and that only low-born metals excite the admiration
of the ignorant with an ostentatious glitter. However, like
the rest of the world, I still go on underrating men of
gold and glorifying men of mica. Commonplace human nature
cannot rise above that.
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