On the record
He gave an excellent moral example to his contemporaries, but he is an instance of those whose good dies with them, while their evil lives after them.
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Walter Bagehot
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gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “He gave an excellent moral example to his contemporaries, but he is an instance of those whose good dies with them…”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot discusses the dual legacy of individuals, highlighting how their positive contributions may fade while their negative impacts endure.
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More from Walter Bagehot
These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
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.
Political philosophy is still more imperfect; it has been framed from observations taken upon regular specimens of politics and States; as to these its teaching is most valuable.
Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner.
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