he
majestic beauty of the St Lawrence and citadel-crowned Quebec had won
his heart. Like a wise man and a Christian, he looked forward to the
end; and he imagined that the memory of the sights and sounds he had
grown to love would soothe his dying moments. He left Canada for
service in India, like Dufferin and Lansdowne, and never returned. His
grave is at Dhurmsala {160} under the shadow of the Himalayas. It is
marked by an elaborate monument surmounted by the universal symbol of
the Christian faith; but a nobler and more lasting memorial is the
stable government he gave to 'that true North.'

[1] See _The Seigneurs of Old Canada_, chap. iv.

{161}

EPILOGUE

The twelve years that followed Elgin's regime saw the flood-tide of
Canada's prosperity. Apart altogether from the advantage of the
Reciprocity Treaty, the country flourished. The extension of railways,
the influx of population, developed rapidly the immense natural
resources of the country. Politically, however, things did not move so
well. The old difficulties had disappeared, but new difficulties took
their place. There was no longer any question of the constitution, or
the relation of the governor to it, or of orderly procedure in the
mechanics of administration; but there was violent strife between
parties too evenly balanced. The remedy lay in the formation of a
larger unity, and, in 1867, the four provinces effected a
confederation, which was soon to embrace half the continent from ocean
to ocean. Dominion Day 1867 was the birthday of a new nation, and a
true poet has precised {162} Canada's relation to Britain and the world
in a single stanza.

A Nation spoke to a Nation,
A Throne sent word to a Throne:
'Daughter am I in my mother's house,
But mistress in my own!
The doors are mine to open,
As the doors are mine to close,
And I abide by my mother's house,'
Said our Lady of the Snows.

_Quis separabit_? The confident prophecies of 'cutting the painter'
have all come to naught. In the supreme test of the Great War, Canada
never for a moment faltered. She gave her blood and treasure freely in
support of the Empire and the Right. No severer trial of those bonds
that knit British peoples together can be imagined. To look back upon
the time when British soldiers had to be sent to suppress a Canadian
insurrection from a time when French Canadians and English Canadians
are fighting side by side three th