In the following essay excerpt, Meyering explores themes "The Diamond Mine" shares with other stories by Cather, most notably "A Gold Slipper" and "Scandal."

For her second collection of short stories, Youth and the Bright Medusa (Knopf, 1920), Cather reprinted four of the stories from the earlier collection The Troll Garden: "Paul's Case,""A Wagner Matinée,""The Sculptor's Funeral," and "A Death in the Desert." To these were added four newer works, "Coming, Aphrodite!""A Gold Slipper,"" Scandal," and "The Diamond Mine," the earliest of the four. The title of the collection suggests the theme that binds all eight stories together. As she had done for The Troll Garden, Cather chose a classical image for Youth and the Bright Medusa as a way of tying the stories together thematically. (For a complete explanation of the thematic relationship of the Troll Garden stories to the epigraphs Cather...