“It is our duty, more pressing upon us than all other duties . . . to let Great Britain know, that there is in Canada but one mind and one heart, and that all Canadians stand behind the mother country, conscious and proud that she had engaged in this war, not from any selfish motive, for any purposes of aggrandisement, but to maintain untarnished the honour of her name, to fulfill her obligations to her allies, to maintain her treaty obligations and to save civilization from the unbridled lust of conquest and power.”
The secret of his great powers was not hard to find. Perhaps at the very foundation must be placed his broad tolerance and kindliness. He was first of all a Christian gentleman. Then following that must be placed his thorough mastery of the great writers in both English and French and a complete understanding of the points of view of these two people. It was characteristic of the man that he should always remember with kindly feelings the influence and atmosphere of the Scottish home where he lived for a period. It was there that he got his first love for the tongue of Shakespeare and Milton, and where he made himself familiar with the struggles and achievements of Fox, Bright, Morley, Gladstone and other great Liberal leaders.
No matter on what occasion or what his subject might be, his audience was always sure to be treated to some striking phrase or bit of imagery that made a lasting impression. On his return from Europe a few years ago, he urged the young men of the Dominion in the words of Henry of Navarre: “To follow his White Plume and there they would find honour.” Again when speaking of the Grand Trunk Pacific project he announced that “it would roll back the map of Canada and add depth to the country.”
The princeliness of his bearing was that which impressed the British public most when he first went to Great Britain in 1897, as a guest at Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. Richard Harding Davis, who described that event for “Harper’s Magazine,” said that in the procession to Westminster Abbey on that occasion, the two individuals, who, after the aged Queen herself, most aroused the enthusiasm of the myriad spectators, were Lord Roberts, the typical military hero, and Sir Wilfrid Laurier, whom most of them saw for the first time. He appealed to England as an essentially romantic figure; typical of what British Imperial prestige stood for—a man of foreign race, whom Britain’s wise colonial policy had made a distinguished servant of the Crown.