John Brent

"A few years ago I was working a gold-quartz mine in California. It was a worthless mine, under the conditions of that time. I had been dragged into it by the shifts and needs of California life. Destiny probably meant to teach me patience and self-possession in difficulty. So Destiny thrust me into a bitter bad business of quartz mining. If I had had countless dollars of capital to work my mine, or quicksilver for amalgamation as near and plenty as the snow on the Sierra Nevada, I might have done well enough...."

Theodore Winthrop (1828–1861) was a writer, lawyer, and world traveller. He was one of the first Union officers killed in the American Civil War.