"'Gentleman ," said I , "I don't say 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 a 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 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."
P.681-682, ROUGHING IT by Mark Twain (1984)
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
NATIVE GOLD
"'Gentleman ," said I , "I don't say 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 a 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 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."
P.681-682, ROUGHING IT by Mark Twain (1984)