Page:Anti-slavery and reform papers by Thoreau, Henry David.djvu/135

 124 A uti- Slavery and Re form Papers.

tanglit !nen only this ? and is the last and most admir- able invention of the human race only an improved muck- rake ? Is this the ground on which Orientals and Occi- dentals meet ? Did God direct us so to get our living, digging where we never planted, — and He would, per- chance, 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 sufferinor for want of grold. 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 Fran- cisco. 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, what- ever checks and compensations there may be. It is not enough to tell me that you worked hard to get your gold.

So does the devil work hard. The way of transgressors may be hard in many respects. The humblest observer who goes to the mines sees and says that gold-digging is of the character of a lottery ; the gold thus obtained is not the same thingf with the wajjes of honest toil. But, practically, he forgets what he has seen, for he has seen only the fact, not the principle, and goes into trade there, that is, buys a ticket in what commonly proves another lottery, where the fact is not so obvious.