Sir John Macdonald, the Prime Minister, was very often at Government House, and dined there perpetually.  When at the Petrograd Embassy, I was constantly hearing of Sir John from my chief, Lord Dufferin, who had an immense admiration for him, and considered him the maker of the Dominion, and a really great statesman.  I was naturally anxious to meet a man of whom I had heard so much.  “John A.,” as he was universally known in Canada, had a very engaging personality, and conveyed an impression of having an enormous reserve of latent force behind his genial manner.  Facially he was reminiscent of Lord Beaconsfield, but there was nothing very striking about him as an orator:  his style was direct and straightforward.

The Houses of Parliament at Ottawa are a splendid pile of buildings, and though they may owe a great deal to the wonderful site they occupy on a semicircular wooded bluff projecting into the river, I should consider them one of the most successful group of buildings erected anywhere during the nineteenth century.  All the details might not bear close examination, but the general effect was admirable, especially that of the great circular library, with its conical roof.  In addition to the Legislative Chambers proper, two flanking buildings in the same style housed various Administrative departments.  Seen from Rideau Hall in dark silhouette against the sunset sky, the bold outline of the conical roof of the library and the three tall towers flanking it gave a sort of picturesque Nuremberg effect to the distant view of Ottawa, The Parliament buildings proper were destroyed by an incendiary during the war, but the library and wings escaped.

Everything in the House of Commons was modelled accurately on Westminster.  The Canadian Parliament being bi-lingual, French members addressed the Speaker as “Monsieur l’Orateur,” and the Usher of the Black Rod of the Senate became “l’Huissier de la Verge Noire.”  To my mind there was something intensely comical in addressing a man who seldom opened his mouth except to cry, “Order, order,” as “Monsieur l’Orateur.”  A Frenchman from the Province of Quebec seems always to be chosen as Canadian Speaker.  In my time he was a M. Ouiment, the twenty-first child of the same parents, so French Canadians are apparently not threatened with extinction.  I heard in the House of Commons at Ottawa the most curious peroration I have ever listened to.  It came from the late Nicholas Flood Davin, a member of Irish extraction who sat for a Far-Western constituency.  The House was debating a dull Bill relating to the lumber industry, when Davin, who may possibly have been under the influence of temporary excitement, insisted on speaking.  He made a long and absolutely irrelevant speech in a voice of thunder, and finished with these words, every one of which I remember:  “There are some who declare that Canada’s trade is declining; there are some who maintain that the rich glow of health which at present mantles o’er Canada’s virgin cheek will soon be replaced by the pallid hues of the corpse.  To such pusillanimous propagandists of a preposterous pessimism, I answer, Mr. Speaker with all confidence, never! never!” As a rhetorical effort this is striking, though there seems a lack of lucidity about it.