A LESSON FROM WALES.
[To THE EDI [OR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Some philosopher has, or might have, observed that " the real significance of everything we see, lies not in the thing itself, but in the point of view from which we see it." This saying was called to my mind some little time ago by one of the statues on the roof of the Royal Chapel at Dresden. Standing in front of the Palace, you see one of the saints bend- ing low in adoration, and you are no doubt deeply impressed by the fervour and devotion shown in his attitude. But if a cynical friend takes you a little way along a side-street past the Palace, and directs your gaze from thence, you are shocked to find the saint stooping over the chimney of the Royal kitchen, and seeming to inhale the odour of the Royal dinner. Another illustration was given me a few days since in Wales. In the valley of the Lledr, about two miles above Bettws-y- coed, there is a rock which, as you descend, exactly resembles the head of a lion, but, as you ascend, reproduces with ludicrous fidelity the face of Sir William Harcourt. How aptly does this rocky Janus characterise that blustering speech which conveys to the careless hearer the impression of true leonine majesty where calmer judgment detects the punctured wind-bag! And how significant it is that they who descend the valley, carried on by the resistless stream which will at last take them out of their depth, should seem to recognise the British Lion in that figure which to those who scaling the heights appears as nothing more than—Sir William
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