If a king is a useful public functionary who may be changed, and in whose place you may make another, you cannot regard him with mystic awe and wonder; and if you are bound to worship him, of course you cannot change him.
This quote explores the relationship between the monarchy and public perception, suggesting that a king's utility affects reverence.
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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.
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
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.
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