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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: better-ordered times. If the spirit had been beaten out of them in
a century of battle, that was all the more reason for keeping up the
letter. They had had a meaning once, a life once; perhaps there was
a little life left in them still; perhaps the dry bones would clothe
themselves with flesh once more, and stand upon their feet. At
least it was useful that the common people should so believe. There
was good hope that the simple masses, seeing the old dignities and
formalities still parading the streets, should suppose that they
still contained men, and were not mere wooden figures, dressed
artistically in official costume. And, on the whole, that hope was
not deceived. More than a century of bitter experience was needed
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