On the record
It is commonly hidden like a mystery, and sometimes paraded like a pageant, but in neither case is it contentious.
Said by
Walter Bagehot
Source
gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “It is commonly hidden like a mystery, and sometimes paraded like a pageant, but in neither case is it contentious.”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot reflects on the dual nature of monarchy as both mysterious and ceremonial.
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In early society, originality in life was forbidden and repressed by the fixed rule of life.
No doubt this momentary gain is bought at a ruinous after-cost.
The United States could not have become monarchical, even if the Constitutional Convention had decreed it, even if the component States had ratified it.
We have thus a whole group of ancient republics of non-Aryan race, and one which, being more ancient than the classical republics, could not have borrowed from or imitated them.
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