To the people of India the tour brought home a clearer perception of the personal power presiding over their destinies and a vivid picture of the greatness of the authority before which all their greatest dignitaries with the traditions of many thousand years, bowed in loyal obeisance. To the imaginative Indian mind nothing more effective could have been presented than the scenes of that brilliant and triumphal passage through the stamping ground of ancient conquerors. To the people of Great Britain it brought home a more realizable sense of the vastness of their dominions and the equivalent greatness of their national duty and responsibility. It helped to lay the foundation of that Imperial future of which Disraeli then dreamed and for which others have since laboured with a measure of success shown in the events preceding and following the accession of Edward VII., King and Emperor. CHAPTER IX. Thirty Years of Public Work During the years between 1872 and the end of the century the Prince of Wales filled a place in public affairs not unlike that of the Prince Consort in the later and ripest period of his useful life. He grew steadily in the faculties which make for wisdom in council and action while retaining and developing the qualities which make for popularity and, in a Prince, may embody the characteristics and feelings of his nation. In those thirty years he saw much and travelled far; met many men of varied qualities and attainments and character; learned much by personal experience and observation and much from other people's experience; tested almost the pinnacle of earthly splendour in his Indian tour and learned in private something of the suffering which comes to all individuals whether great or little. He created the position of Heir Apparent as now understood; gave it a significance and value never before attained to; and filled it with a tact and ability which no detraction or misrepresentation could practically affect, and which in time made him the admittedly most all-round popular man in the United Kingdom.