Walter Bagehot: “But it is not true that the reverence for rank--at least, for hereditary rank--is as base as the reverence for money.”

It is natural that those who by special and admirable culture have come to look at all things upon the artistic side, should start back from these queer peculiarities.

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.

But it is natural also that persons used to analyse political institutions should look at these anomalies with a little tenderness and a little interest.

These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.