Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/738

ÆT. 62] By the end of the month he had cleared off long arrears of translation and romance-writing by finishing his Heimskringla and the romance of "The Water of the Wondrous Isles," and was working harder than ever for the Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings. The main object of their defence at the moment was Peterborough Cathedral.

It was one of the churches which had been his earliest admirations ; he had known it in his boyhood, and felt towards it as though he had been one of its own builders. One of the most brilliant pieces of imaginative description in "The Earthly Paradise" is put in the mouth of a wanderer who had seen that magnificent western front rising. It occurs in the introductory verses to the tale of "The Proud King."

A long and bitter controversy was carried on between the Dean and Chapter on one side and the Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings on the