Any of these is sufficient to make
shipwreck of all peace and comfort for a family; and often, indeed, it
happens that the desolation is accomplished within the course of one
revolving sun; often the whole dire catastrophe, together with its
total consequences, is both accomplished and made known to those whom
it chiefly concerns within one and the same hour. The mighty Juggernaut
of social life, moving onwards with its everlasting thunders, pauses
not for a moment to spare--to pity--to look aside, but rushes forward
for ever, impassive as the marble in the quarry--caring not for whom it
destroys, for the how many, or for the results, direct and indirect,
whether many or few. The increasing grandeur and magnitude of the
social system, the more it multiplies and extends its victims, the more
it conceals them; and for the very same reason: just as in the Roman
amphitheatres, when they grew to the magnitude of mighty cities, (in
some instances accommodating four hundred thousand spectators, in many
a fifth part of that amount,) births and deaths became ordinary events,
which, in a small modern theatre, are rare and memorable; and exactly
as these prodigious accidents multiplied, _pari passu_, they were
disregarded and easily concealed: for curiosity was no longer excited;
the sensation attached to them was little or none.
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