Like the old head-dress of mountain villages, they make the traveller think not so much whether they are good or whether they are bad, as wonder how any one could have come to think of them; to regard them as 'monstrosities,' which only some wild abnormal intellect could have hit upon.
Bagehot notes that unusual cultural practices can provoke curiosity rather than judgment.
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In early society, originality in life was forbidden and repressed by the fixed rule of life.
Nothing promotes intellect like intellectual discussion, and nothing promotes intellectual discussion so much as government by discussion.
The moderate people of every party must combine to support the Government which, on the whole, suits every party best.
The Parliament, the laws, the press were human institutions; but the Monarchy was a Divine institution.
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