The same man also said:—
One of the last interviews I enjoyed strengthened the impression of the “Cardinal.” On the day on which he started to Winnipeg for that triumphal tour which raised such high hope before his defeat in 1917, I had an hour with him in his home. He received me in his study on the second floor. He had just been taking a nap to prepare himself for the fatigues of the journey. He had on a dressing gown of which I remember that the predominating color was a decorative figure in dull red.
The “Cardinal” received me with his customary graciousness, and for an hour we reviewed the chances of the campaign. When I was leaving him he followed me to the top of the stairs, and as he shook hands he said, with that peculiar serenity that was one of his outstanding characteristics in his later days:
“I may be defeated, but I will not be dishonoured.”
On one occasion Sir Wilfrid spoke in the pavilion of the Horticultural Gardens. During his address hisses came from the audience when he mentioned a paper that had taken issue with him. Sir Wilfrid exclaimed, rebukingly, “How dare any man hiss when another has the courage of his convictions? I do not find fault with the paper because it does not agree with me. We Liberals have our differences, but that fact does not justify hisses.”
Mention has been made of a certain similarity of viewpoint between Laurier and Gladstone. It is true that the great English Liberal was born to large opportunity. His magnificent intellectual gifts were enhanced by all that wealth and culture could do to polish and prepare perhaps the largest mind ever devoted to the service of the State since Parliamentary government began. From his earliest years he had consorted with world-figures—with men who were playing a great part on the great stage of the world. He was admirably trained and equipped at all points to play the part of the public man.
With Sir Wilfrid Laurier it was otherwise. He lacked the adventitious aids of fortune and station which smoothed the path of Gladstone as, until the last ten years, they have smoothed the path of every British Premier, with the solitary exception of Disraeli. The two great Liberal leaders were akin in spirit—and it is the things of the spirit that really matter. It is possible that there was in Sir Wilfrid Laurier, as certainly to the last there was in Gladstone, a certain strain of conservatism, using that word in no narrow party sense. Both belonged to the old school which valued fine manners, and, in the case of both, their fine manners were the outward and visible sign of minds that were rarely fine. But, in spite of this strain of conservatism, both were men imbued through and through with the spirit of genuine Liberalism. The life of each, to his last and latest moment, was a life of growth.
It is as impossible to set bounds to the growth of Liberalism as it is to set bounds to the aspirations of a nation. Those who would seek to reduce Liberal doctrines to formulae, to compress them into a creed, and who would say: “This is the Liberal faith, the whole Liberal faith, and nothing but this is the Liberal faith,” have small conception of the inherent function of Liberalism. That function is to keep abreast of the times, to be in harmony with the spirit of the times, and to be prepared to face the problems of the times with high heart and high hopes, with unconquerable courage and unfaltering faith. Liberal beliefs are no effete and petrified dogmas. They are a living, energizing, vitalizing force. They are that—or they are nothing.