Walter Bagehot: “Who is sure that they are the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, of the matter in hand?”

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

I cannot, therefore, join in the full cry against anomalies; in my judgment it may quickly overrun the scent, and so miss what we should be glad to find.

The casual line was traced according to the strength of deceased combatants; succeeding generations fought elsewhere; and the hesitating line of a half-drawn battle was left to stand for a perpetual limit.

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.