"The chasm was merely one of the orifices of that pit of blackness that lies beneath us, everywhere.

The firmest substance of human happiness is but a thin crust spread over it, with just reality enough to bear up the illusive stage scenery amid which we tread.

It needs no earthquake to open the chasm.

A footstep, a little heavier than ordinary, will serve; and we must step very daintily, not to break through the crust at any moment.
By and by, we inevitably sink! It was a foolish piece of heroism in Curtius to precipitate himself there, in advance; for all Rome, you see, has been swallowed up in that gulf, in spite of him.

The Palace of the Caesars has gone down thither, with a hollow, rumbling sound of its fragments! All the temples have tumbled into it; and thousands of statues have been thrown after! All the armies and the triumphs have marched into the great chasm, with their martial music playing, as they stepped over the brink.