A chasm, defined as a deep fissure or gap, often evokes images of geological divisions or metaphorical ruptures. Authors have explored this theme through varied perspectives: Fürst von Pückler-Muskau portrays laborers’ children leaping over gaps, merging human endurance with nature’s severity, while Mayne Reid presents them as dangerous barriers in adventure stories, such as swaying bridges over roaring torrents.
Philip Schaff, meanwhile, employs chasms as moral symbols, envisioning souls hanging in punitive darkness. These viewpoints, ranging from physical to symbolic, highlight the chasm as a universal image of danger, change, and existential divides.
Fürst von Hermann Pückler-Muskau, Tour in England, Ireland, and France…
“ Some children of the workmen were amusing themselves in leaping across this chasm, for the sake of earning a few pence. The perpendicular sides were hung with men, who looked like dark birds, striking the rock with their long picks, and throwing down masses of slate which fell with a sharp and clattering sound. ”
Various, The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07…
“ Creeping behind another shaft, we reach still another chasm, above which piles of dark rocks lie heaped in such confusion as might result from a great convulsion. There is a narrow path along its edge, and here the stones are small; but, as we look up, the mighty masses frown down upon us with threatening grandeur. Along this path, treading lightly, as if gifted with wings, the Captain passes; then the Agent (for we had slightly altered our order of march) ; Mon Amie follows. She is half-way past the danger, when an ominous pause,—we are ordered to stop. ”
Mayne Reid,
The Forest Exiles: The Perils of a Peruvian Family in the Wilds of the Amazon
“ Sometimes a hanging bridge has to be crossed, spanning a horrid chasm, at the bottom of which roars a foaming torrent—the bridge itself, composed of ropes and brambles, all the while swinging like a hammock under the tread of the affrighted traveller! ”
