steven crane is being known for being a great novelist and writing "the red badge of courage" but one of the most compelling accounts he ever wrote or anyone has ever written about the dangers and the horrors of a particular line of work was steven crane's essay just before the turn of the last century about a coal mine near my hometown of scranton. the name of the article, i think it was "collier's magazine" was in the depths of a coal mine. i won't of course read all of it and recite major portions of it but suffice it to say steven crane the great novelist went into the coal mine and reported what i saw there, not as a work of fiction but as a work of the harsh reality, the nonfiction of what those miners were facing. he described in one part of the essay the mine he was in when he descends all the way down -- descended all the way down and you only have to go down a short distance before it's pitch black. you can't even see your hand in front of your face. he described the mine as a place of an insecurityible darkness -- inscrutible, a soundless place of tangible loneliness and he