FRA_NCE AND THE PILLARS OF HERCULES.
(TO TEE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
Sr,—In your last week's article on the change of Government in France, you tell us that "to say that M. de Freycinet's Government are the Pillars of Hercules of social order, beyond it is chaos,' is to use a very noble metaphor. But behind the metaphor there is no solid meaning." May I say that I think a meaning may be found, although not the one intended by the writer whose words you quote ? The ancients, as every schoolboy now knows, were in gross- error in supposing that chaos reigned beyond the Pillars. To the westward lay, not chaos, but physical order on a grander scale than anything of which they had knowledge,—a vast and stormy ocean, destined, nevertheless, to be the highway of the world's commerce ; and beyond it a fair, new world, the future home of civilisation and of progress.
Assuredly, France has little reason to fear the meaning behind
such a metaphor as this I—I am, Sir, &c., H. N.
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