Note 53 — Chapter IV · IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY RANKS 1845-1849

It is a comment on Lowell’s indifference to wealth that his imagination did not take fire at the announcement of the discovery of gold in California. It may be said that his mind was directed toward the immediate political consequences, but he had occasion to write upon the subject of the discovery, when this alone engaged his attention. He was struck with some of the picturesque situations, but his reflections were mainly summed up in these words: “We have never seen anything like the accounts from California since we read that chapter of Candide, in which Voltaire carries his hero to El Dorado. Supposing all we hear to be true, it is hardly probable that gold will continue to be found there in such large quantities for any great length of time. It will doubtless become more and more scarce, and the difficulty of obtaining it greater. After all, the gold mines which give the surest and richest yield are the brain and the common earth. The discovery of a new fertilizer is of more practical benefit than that of the philosopher’s stone would be; the invention of the steam-engine has created more wealth than the richest gold mines; and wise men are not wanting who believe that Fourier has given us something better than a California. And why travel fifteen thousand miles around Cape Horn for a place to dig in? Heaven knows the earth wants more washing here than at Sacramento River. Moreover, every one of us has a vein more or less profitable, if it were only diligently worked.”—“Eldorado,” in National Anti-Slavery Standard, 21 December, 1848.