He was dealing, not with a private individual, but with a national hero.

In his small official capacity as Mayor of Wellingsford, he was but the mouthpiece of a national sentiment.

And more than that.
This ceremony was an appeal to the unimaginative, the sluggish, the faint-hearted.

In its little way--and please remember that all tremendous enthusiasms are fit by these little fires--it was a proclamation of the undying glory of England.

It was impersonal, it was national, it was Imperial.