The pride that kept so many men in California. They want to go home. But I can't go until I've got something to prove my success. They've been reading about success back home. I know, says the miner, how many people are failing.
Failure is the most common fact of life in California.
They don't know that. So they stay. Dear Sabrina, My specific answer to your kind question is that my expectations are not realized. I mostly regret the necessity of staying here longer. By the summer of 1850, William Swain had been away from home for more than a year.