Walter Bagehot: “If the House of Peers ever goes, it will go in a storm, and the storm will not leave all else as it is.”

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.

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.

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.

The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.