imperial movement was at its crescent, synchronous with the great
welling up of sentiment and reverence called forth by the Diamond
Jubilee of Queen Victoria. Strachey has a penetrating word about the
strength which Queen Victoria's "final years of apotheosis" brought
to the imperialistic movement:

"The imperialist temper of the nation invested her office with a new
significance exactly harmonizing with her own inmost proclivities.
The English policy was in the main a common-sense structure; but
there was always a corner in it where common-sense could not enter.
. . . Naturally it was in the crown that the mysticism of the
English polity was concentrated--the crown with its venerable
antiquity, its sacred associations, its imposing spectacular array.
But, for nearly two centuries, common-sense had been predominant in
the great building and the little, unexplored, inexplicable corner
had attracted small attention. Then with the rise of imperialism
there was a change. For imperialism is a faith as well as a
business; as it grew the mysticism in English public life grew with
it and simultaneously a new importance began to attach to the crown.
The need for a symbol--a symbol of England's might, of England's
worth, of England's extraordinary mystical destiny--became felt more
urgently than before. The crown was the symbol and the crown rested
upon the head of Victoria."

To be translated from the humdrum life of Ottawa to a foremost place
in the vast pageantry of the Diamond Jubilee, there to be showered
with a wealth of tactful and complimentary personal attentions was
rather too much for Laurier. The oratorical possibilities of the
occasion took him into camp; and in a succession of speeches he gave
it as his view that the most entrancing future for Canada was one in