Walter Bagehot: “But the most miserable of these classes do not impute their misery to politics.”

Just so the lines of our Constitution were framed in old eras of sparse population, few wants, and simple habits; and we adhere in seeming to their shape, though civilisation has come with its dangers, complications, and enjoyments.

At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.

I own that I do not entirely sympathise with the horror of these anomalies which haunts some of our best critics.

Subject to this saving remark, however, I not only admit, but maintain, that our Constitution is full of curious oddities, which are impeding and mischievous, and ought to be struck out.