1 DECEMBER 1900, Page 29

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]

Sin,—The locus classicus for Huxley's view that hell, if endurable, would be preferable to annihilation is in "Paradise Lost," Book II., where, at the Council of Pandemonium, Belial is opposing bioloch's "sentence for open war." Repulse, he urges, would leave the fallen spirits no prospect but to— "Exasperate The Almighty Victor to spend all his rage ; And that must end us; that must be our cure— To be no more. Sad cure! for who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being, Those thoughts that wander through eternity,

To perish rather, swallowed up and lost In the wide womb of uncreated Night, Devoid of sense and motion P "