[53] It is a comment on Lowell’s indifference to wealth that his imagination did not take fire at the announcement of the discovery of gold in California. It may be said that his mind was directed toward the immediate political consequences, but he had occasion to write upon the subject of the discovery, when this alone engaged his attention. He was struck with some of the picturesque situations, but his reflections were mainly summed up in these words: “We have never seen anything like the accounts from California since we read that chapter of _Candide_, in which Voltaire carries his hero to El Dorado. Supposing all we hear to be true, it is hardly probable that gold will continue to be found there in such large quantities for any great length of time. It will doubtless become more and more scarce, and the difficulty of obtaining it greater. After all, the gold mines which give the surest and richest yield are the brain and the common earth. The discovery of a new fertilizer is of more practical benefit than that of the philosopher’s stone would be; the invention of the steam-engine has created more wealth than the richest gold mines; and wise men are not wanting who believe that Fourier has given us something better than a California. And why travel fifteen thousand miles around Cape Horn for a place to dig in? Heaven knows the earth wants more washing here than at Sacramento River. Moreover, every one of us has a vein more or less profitable, if it were only diligently worked.”--“Eldorado,” in _National Anti-Slavery Standard_, 21 December, 1848. [54] Mr. Briggs was highly entertained by the French exercise, and asked: “Who is your master? But never mind. Let me recommend you to an incomparable one who had the honor of teaching Talleyrand a new language (English) to help him conceal his thoughts. I mean Cobbett. If you have never seen his French grammar, get it by all means and read it, if you do not study it; and then read his English grammar, which you will find more amusing than the Comic Latin Grammar.” Lowell does not seem to have followed his advice immediately. At least he wrote to me three or four years before his death: “I never read any English grammar in my life, thank God, except Cobbett’s a few years ago, and in that I found errors of ignorance,--as was to be expected.” [55] At the close of 1866 a testimonial was presented to Mr. Garrison when he retired from active service, and Lowell was the medium of certain English subscriptions, among them that of John Bright. In sending this Lowell writes to Mr. Garrison: “Nothing could have been more in keeping with the uniform wisdom of your anti-slavery leadership than the time you chose for resigning it.” [56] It is greatly to be regretted that the important correspondence of Quincy and Lowell does not exist. By agreement each destroyed the letters of the other.