Description
“The question is, are you the right guy? Real bonanzas are few and far between that take a lot of finding. Why is gold worth so $20 an ounce? A 1,000 men say go searching for gold. After 6 months one of them is lucky. One out of a thousand. His find represents not only his own labor but that of 999 others to boot. That’s 6,000 months, 500 years scrambling over mountains going hungry and thirsty. An ounce of gold is worth what it is because of the human labor that went into the finding and getting of it. Gold is a devilish sort of thing anyway. You start out to tell yourself that you’ll be satisfied with $25,000. So help me Lord. Cross my heart. Fine resolution. After months of sweating yourself dizzy and going short on provisions and finding nothing, you finally come down to 15,000, then 10,000. Finally, you say, ‘Lord, let me find just $5,000 and I’ll never ask for anything more for the rest of my life.’ To make a real strike you couldn’t be dragged away. Not even the threat of miserable death to keep you from trying to add $10,000 more. 10,000 you get 25,000 and then 50,000, then 100,000. Like roulette, one more turn. You know, always one more. I know what gold does to men’s soul. Never knew a prospector who died rich. Make one fortune and blew it trying to make another.”
