E-text prepared by Al Haines
Transcriber's note:
"Domino" is the pseudonym of Augustus Bridle (1869-?)
by
"Wherefore are these things hid?
* * * * *
We will draw the curtain and show you the picture."
—SHAKESPEARE.
Toronto: The MacMillan Company
of Canada, Ltd., at St. Martin's House.
MCMXXI.
Copyright, Canada, 1921.
By the MacMillan Company of Canada, Limited.
Do not imagine that I spend much time at once in Ottawa. I have neverliked the kind of play-house that politicians have made on thatglorious plateau in a valley of wonderland with a river of dreamsrolling past to the sea. Where under heaven is any other Capital sofavoured by the great scenic artist? On what promontory doparliamentary towers and gables so colossally arise to enchant thevision? The Thames draws the ships of the world and crawls muddily andlazily out to sea wondering what haphazard of history ever concentratedso much commerce, politics and human splendour on the banks of onelarge ditch. Ottawa's house of political drama overlooks one of thenoblest rivers in the world, that takes its rise in everlasting hillsof granite and pines.
One, Laurier, used to dream that he would devote his declining days tomaking Ottawa beautiful as a city as she is for the site of a capital.To him as to others, Rome, London, Paris, Vienna, Washington, shouldall in time be rivalled by Ottawa the magnificent. But the saw-millsurveyors of Ottawa spoiled that when they made no approach toParliament Hill to compare to the vista seen from the river. Ottawawas built for convenience: for opportunity: for expediency.
Parliament is its great show. Politicians are the actors. Time hasseen some interesting, almost baffling, dramas on that hill. No otherParliament stands midway of so vast a country. But there are peoplewho prefer Hull, P.Q., to Ottawa, Ont. We have had some mild Mephistosof strategy up there: some prophets of eloquence: some dreamers ofimagination: giants of creative energy scheming how to draw a young,vast country together into nationhood so that the show-men onParliament Hill might have an audience.
But the Ottawa of to-day is a strange spectacle for the prophets. Thegreat new Opera House is all but finished, when no seer can tellwhether the plays to be put on there by the parties of the future willbe as epical and worthwhile as those staged by the actors of the past.Imagination was not absent when Ottawa was created. But it needs morethan common imagination to foresee whether these political playboys ofthe northern world are going to be worthy of the great audience soon toarise in the country that converges upon Ottawa.
Sometimes in Parliament you catch the vibration of big momentums in anation's progress. Voices now and then arise in speech that reflectsome greatness of vision. More often the actors are sittingindolently, hearing the clack of worn-out principals whose struts andgrimaces and cadences are those of men whose cues should lead them tothe dressing rooms, or to the wings, or somewhere into the maze of theback drop where nobody takes part in the show. Or they listen to menwhose big informing idea constantly is that all we need to makeeconomic happiness for everybody is to turn out the company now in andget another from the furrows.