The prospect from the summit was almost unlimited. In the valley beneath, the city they had just left, its more prominent buildings showing as in an isometric drawing--among them the broad Cathedral tower, with its Norman windows and immense length of aisle and nave; the spires of St. Thomas’s; the pinnacled tower of the College; and more to the right the tower and gables of the ancient hospice, where to this day the pilgrim may receive his dole of bread and ale.... Against these far stretches of country rose, in front of the other city edifices, a large red brick building with level grey roof, and rows of short barred windows speaking captivity, the whole contrasting greatly by its formalism with the quaint irregularities of the Gothic erections.... From the middle of the building an ugly flat-topped octagonal tower ascended against the east horizon, and viewed from this spot, on its shady side and against the light, seemed the one blot on the city’s beauty. Yet it was with this blot and not with the beauty that the two gazers were concerned. Upon the cornice of the tower a tall staff was fixed. Their eyes were riveted on it. A few minutes after the hour had struck, something moved slowly up the staff and extended itself upon the breeze. It was a black flag.[7] Poor Tess! was it necessary for the author to mete out measure thus cruelly upon the children of his imagination--was it kind to Winchester to burden her memories with one so appallingly harrowing, so much in contrast with her quiet peace? And yet, after all, is it anything more than retributive justice? Have not her citizens--those of a generation or so back, at least--been responsible for permitting the one really commanding elevation and landmark she possesses to be marred and dishonoured by this same ‘blot,’ these obtrusive prison-walls, capped by this self-same ‘ugly flat-topped octagonal tower’? Is not rather the creator of _Tess_ displaying a fine and just critical perception in thus exacting from them the full literary penalty for so unpardonable an outrage on the outward attractiveness of their own fair city?