Mr. John A. Macdonald Entered The Governor-General's Presence With A
Manly Deference.
I was at once struck by an odd resemblance in some of
his features and expressions to Disraeli - dark curly hair, piercing
eyes, aquiline nose, mouth sometimes firm, almost stern in expression,
sometimes so mild that he seemed especially fitted to play with little
children.
I soon learned that, in tact, fixed purpose, and resources,
he was ahead of them all. And, after watching his career for a quarter
of a century, I have seen no reason to alter that opinion. He is the
statesman of Canada - one of the ablest men on the Continent. I wish he
administered the Colonial relations of the whole Empire. Had he done so
for the last ten years we should have escaped our mistakes in South
Africa, and the everlasting disgrace of Majuba Hill. Why is it that
such men are excluded from office at home? Sir John A. Macdonald (then
Mr. Macdonald) was once taken by me under the gallery, by special order
of Mr. Speaker, to hear a "great" speech of Mr. Gladstone, whom he had
not before heard. When we went away, I said: "Well, what do you think
of him?" He replied: "He is a great rhetorician, but - he is not an
orator." Would that men would not be carried away in a torrent of happy
words. One hour of the late Patrick Smyth was, to my mind, worth a week
of all the great rhetoricians.
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