Chapter 198: Chapter 198

I Mines and Miners Human societies all have what is called in theatrical parlance, “a third lower floor.” The social soil is everywhere undermined, sometimes for good, sometimes for evil. These works are superposed one upon the other. There are superior mines and inferior mines. There is a top and a bottom in this obscure subsoil, which sometimes gives way beneath civilization, and which our indifference and heedlessness trample under foot. The Encyclopedia, in the last century, was a min…