Gold Rush: A Literary Exploration by edited by Michael Kowalewski

“He was calm and composed; his dreadful paroxysms had passed, and the fatal work was done. He was then poised on an eddying wave of death’s dark tide, which on its next swell would whirl him out of the bounds of time into the breakers of eternal seas beyond. I saw his peril, and pulled with all my might to bring the lifeboat of mercy by his side. I got very near to him, and entreated him to try to get into it and save his soul, but I could not prevail on him to make an effort; under the force of the ruling habit of his life he cooly said, ‘Well, I’ll think about it.’”

-William Taylor, 1851