Walter Bagehot: “Again, the Congress declares war, but they would find it very difficult, according to the recent construction of their…”

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

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

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.

Just so the lines of our Constitution were framed in old eras of sparse population, few wants, and simple habits; and we adhere in seeming to their shape, though civilisation has come with its dangers, complications, and enjoyments.