"...a wall that was ready to fall by its own weight."

From James Houston's book, "Prayer: the transforming friendship":

Leo Tolstoy, the Russian novelist, once told the story of two brothers who met for a weekend after a long time apart. On the first night, the older brother was fascinated to see that his younger brother knelt and prayed by his bedside. 'Huh, you still do that?' he said. The younger brother did not reply, but from that time he never prayed again.

Tolstoy remarked:

'This is not because he knows his brother's convictions and has joined him in them, nor because he has decided anything in his own soul, but simply because the word spoken by his brother was like the push of a finger on a wall that was ready to fall by its own weight.'"

Oh, Watcher on the Wall, how solid are your foundations?