e real business of life,--chiefly because they do not know, but partly
because they do not mean, any better.

The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely of
merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation to
it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready to
live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others
less lucky, without contributing any value to society! And that is
called enterprise! I know of no more startling development of the
immorality of trade, and all the common modes of getting a living. The
philosophy and poetry and religion of such a mankind are not worth the
dust of a puff-ball. The hog that gets his living by rooting, stirring
up the soil so, would be ashamed of such company. If I could command the
wealth of all the worlds by lifting my finger, I would not pay _such_ a
price for it. Even Mahomet knew that God did not make this world in
jest. It makes God to be a moneyed gentleman who scatters a handful of
pennies in order to see mankind scramble for them. The world's raffle! A
subsistence in the domains of Nature a thing to be raffled for! What a
comment, what a satire on our institutions! The conclusion will be, that
mankind will hang itself upon a tree. And have all the precepts in all
the Bibles taught men only this? and is the last and most admirable
invention of the human race only an improved muck-rake? Is this the
ground on which Orientals and Occidentals meet? Did God direct us so to
get our living, digging where we never planted,--and He would,
perchance, reward us with lumps of gold?

God gave the righteous man a certificate entitling him to food and
raiment, but the unrighteous man found a _facsimile_ of the same in
God's coffers, and appropriated it, and obtained food and raiment like
the former. It is one of the most extensive systems of counterfeiting
that the world has seen. I did not know that mankind were suffering for
want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very
malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a
great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.

The gold-digger in the ravines of the mountains is as much a gambler as
his fellow in the saloons of San Francisco. What difference does it
make, whether you shake dirt or shake dice? If you win, society is the
loser. The gold-digger is the enemy of the honest laborer, whatever
checks and compensations