ed the
room, murmured something about the doubtful propriety of making a
social call upon one whom he felt it his duty to oppose in the recent
contest. Sir John Macdonald held out both hands saying, 'My dear sir,
I forgive you everything for your splendid defence of the Empire,'
alluding to his attacks on Home Rule. This remark and the conversation
which ensued made quite clear where Sir John Macdonald stood on the
question of Home Rule--a position which he never compromised by any
word or act. To assert the contrary implies a charge of opportunism;
but Goldwin Smith himself, when calmly analysing Macdonald's character
sixteen years after his death, deliberately asserted that 'if he [Sir
John] was partisan, he was not opportunist.'[3] Goldwin Smith knew
right well that Sir John Macdonald was just as resolutely opposed as he
was himself to the establishment of a separate parliament in Dublin
with an executive responsible thereto. On the evening of the day just
mentioned {156} Macdonald dined with Goldwin Smith. As we drove to
'The Grange' Sir John asked me if I had ever been there before. I had
not.

'Well,' said he, 'you are going to a very interesting house with a
charming host, but notice Mr Smith's habit of interlarding his
otherwise agreeable conversation with tiresome references to the
nobility. Why, to hear him talk, you would imagine he never consorted
in England with anybody under the rank of an earl.' Later that
evening, as we went to the station to take our train, Sir John said,
'Did you observe what I told you? That's why Dizzy in _Lothair_ called
him a social parasite. Strange that so brilliant a man, who needs no
adventitious aids, should manifest such a weakness.'

In the autumn of 1886 Sir John Macdonald, accompanied by four of his
colleagues--Chapleau, White, Thompson, and Foster--made a tour of the
province of Ontario, towards the close of which he wrote thus to Sir
Charles Tupper:

I am on my way back to Ottawa after a successful tour in Western
Ontario. We have made a very good impression, and I think will hold
our own in the Province. {157} We have, however, lost nearly the whole
of the Catholic vote by the course of the _Mail_, and this course has
had a prejudicial effect not only in Ontario but throughout the
Dominion, and has therefore introduced a great element of uncertainty
in a good many constituencies.

In Nova Scotia the outlook is bad, and the only hope of our holding ou