As a rule, he wore a black frock coat with vest, the lapels lined with a white frill. His collar was straight and high, while his tie was so big and broad that you could not see his shirt. It literally choked up the opening of his vest with its splendour. The creases of his trousers were always perfect. His boots were the old-fashioned elastic-sided ones.
Strangers coming into the gallery of the House of Commons for the first time always looked for Laurier. He knew it and rather enjoyed the limelight. It was his custom to enter the House just a moment before opening hour, and as he passed down the corridors of Parliament on the way from his office to the Chamber it was frequently through a lane of people, every one of them watching him intently. He would pass along straight as a guardsman, serene, dignified and quite unmoved.
In the Chamber he was much given to visiting. From his seat in the front row, immediately opposite his Parliamentary opponent, Sir Robert Borden, he would move back among his more humble supporters and spend hours in earnest conversation with them. He knew his men individually, as none but Sir John Macdonald ever knew a following. Laurier had undoubtedly learned much from his former great rival. There were little mannerisms and tricks of speech and gestures that old-timers around Parliament declared he got only from Sir John.
He loved to use that word “Grit,” especially in rural ridings, where he knew its effect on old-time voters. And he took a sort of impish delight in always characterizing his political opponents as “Tories,” rather than as Conservatives, or even as Liberal-Conservatives. He knew that in the minds of some of his hearers the use of the word “Tory” would convey an idea of class privilege and opposition to democratic ideas and movements. It was surprising, too, how he would adapt his utterances to his audience. It might be the same speech he had given elsewhere the day before, but he knew that his audience would differ, and little touches were added here and there that gave it individuality and touched responsive chords in his hearers. When stumping the country in an election campaign his stories and illustrations were always simple. The historical comparisons and the more subtle quotations were reserved for Parliament. When he spoke in Woodstock in the election of 1911, he told a story of an Irish friend of his, a conductor on the Montreal-Quebec train, for whom he brought a black thorn from Ireland in 1897. He had the conductor friend’s name put on it and when they met, presented him with the shillelah.
“He was profuse in his thanks,” said Sir Wilfrid, and he wound up by saying, “May Heaven be your bed, but may you be kept long out of it.”
“Now I hope that some day heaven may be my bed,” added the Liberal Chieftain, “but I don’t think I am ripe for it yet. I hope Heaven won’t be my bed until I have one more tussel with the Tories.”
There were two Tory rural members of the House of Commons, for whom Sir Wilfrid always had a tender spot in his heart. One of these was the late Mr. Peter Elson, member for East Middlesex. The Liberal leader would frequently cross over the floor of the House for a chat. The other was Mr. Oliver Wilcox, member for North Essex, also since passed away. Mr. Wilcox had a rollicking manner in his Parliamentary debating that would at times convulse the whole House, and those who were there in those days, will long recall the way in which he would point a finger at the Liberal leader, refer to him always as “My honorable friend, the leader of the Liberal Opposition,” and endeavour to convince Sir Wilfrid that he was a hopeless political sinner. Sometimes after one of these encounters they would meet outside in the corridor and walk away arm in arm.
Speaking to a young newspaper friend, he said, “Every young man ought to read the works of Gibbon.” He was enthusiastic, too, when he spoke of Parkman’s writings. “Read Parkman, and you will be proud of both races in Canada,” was his comment.
There were dull hours in the House of Commons when Sir Wilfrid had to remain on duty, ready for any emergency. Hours that were tedious, or would have been tedious, but for his little custom of sending to the Parliamentary Library for the English dictionary. The House used to smile when the page would come in with the big volume and place it on Sir Wilfrid’s desk. He would open it at a certain page and then begin to run down the columns carefully and slowly, adding to his store of English words. Is it any wonder that he possessed such command of the English tongue in public utterances? He rarely read anything but the dictionary in the House of Commons, not even the newspapers; but it was very evident that outside of the House he looked over all the important dailies and read widely in general literature. A newspaper friend, who called on him the day after the landslide of 1911, found him seated comfortably in his room, reading a life of the Dowager Empress of China. She, too, had known the experience of power passing away, and perhaps, the Liberal Chieftain was finding some of the philosophy of the Orient applicable to his own situation.