Walter Bagehot: “The most difficult of problems is how to change late foes into free friends.”

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.

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 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.

I own that I do not entirely sympathise with the horror of these anomalies which haunts some of our best critics.