But I am perfectly aware of the difficulty, almost impossibility, of doing justice to men from some of whose forms of thought I am greatly repelled, who creep from the sunshine into every ruined archway, attracted by the brilliance with which the light from its loophole glows in its caverned gloom, and the hope of discovering within it the first steps of a stair winding up into the blue heaven.

Naturally here, the words of the opening canto of "Marmion" are recalled to our memory "Day set on Norham's castled steep, On Tweed's fair river, broad and deep, And Cheviot's mountains lone The battled towers, the donjon keep, The loophole grates, where captives weep, The flanking walls that round it sweep, In yellow lustre shone.