Little is more coveted than gold. It has been that way for thousands of years and it will continue for millennia yet to be. Man’s attraction seems genetic. Civilizations have risen on acquiring it and maintaining it, individuals have risen to great prominence with it and an equal number of societies and people have been destroyed by it. On first discovery, gold fever infects and does not leave. `
More findings set a miner’s path. A miner may know family, work, love. But hills and streams now command a melancholy longing unknown to others.
As Kipling put it in the Explorer
Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes
On one everlasting Whisper day and night repeated—so:
“Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges—
“Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!”
The miner goes. If only in their mind, they go. Their last discovery may be two weeks old and two thousand miles away. They may now be at a desk or talking with friends. But they are still in those hills or on the banks of that river. You may hold a miner as friend. But understand they want to leave, if at least for a while. If they are not already gone.
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