“Yes, I am very fond of the old place,” he replied, his eyes kindling with interest. “I am proud of it. You have noticed that all of the woodwork is black walnut, which was the prevailing mode in interior decorations in the early part of the nineteenth century. I have permitted nothing to be changed. I am fond of old things, perhaps, because I am old myself.”
“Your activities make it rather difficult to believe that statement,” I said.
“Well, I have always tried to retain a youthful spirit,” answered Professor Smith, with the engaging smile which is characteristic of him, “and I have been able to keep a fair amount of physical vigor by means of plenty of exercise and regularity in my mode of living. I have always been very fond of walking, and have done a great deal of it. While I am not as industrious in this respect as I used to be, I make a point of driving out in my carriage every afternoon. I rarely let anything interfere with this, because it has a tendency to give me new vitality both in spirit and body.”
“While your house is old, Professor Smith,” I remarked, “this country in which you live, Canada, is young.”
“Yes, we have not progressed as rapidly as the United States; we are yet, in many respects, a people of beginnings. Canadians look forward to the future with very optimistic spirit. We see possibilities of great industrial and agricultural development.”
“The average Canadian does not look as far into the future as you do yourself.”
“No, perhaps not,” smilingly replied Professor Smith. “I believe that the great majority of our people are not at all in sympathy with my opinion that Canada will eventually become a part of the United States. I have, however, long held this belief. It has been my idea for many years that the whole continent of North America should be, and will be eventually, given up to republican institutions. It has been said of me that I left Great Britain in order to be able to live in the republican atmosphere of the New World. While this is not altogether true, I am wonderfully interested in the great experiment of a government by the people which is now being tried by the United States.
“I think the experiment will prove a success, and that in the end all of the commonwealths on this side of the Atlantic will come sufficiently under the influence of this form of government to embrace it. The Old World powers are by degrees losing their dependencies in the New World. I long ago said, for example, that Spain’s hold upon Cuba was becoming weaker and weaker, and would sooner or later become altogether relaxed. I believe that this is likewise true of Great Britain in her relationship with Canada. A wide ocean divides the mother country from her great colony in North America, while merely an artificial boundary line divides us from the powerful republic to the South.
“The bond between Canada and the United States is gradually becoming closer in spite of the little intervening frictions which from time to time arise. I am aware that many Canadians express an antipathy for the United States, but this amounts to little more than talk. Young Canadians have been for many years seeking opportunities in the United States, and at the present time many thousands of agriculturists from the Western States are annually migrating into our Northwest to take advantage there of the productivity of the virgin soil. Numerous American capitalists are investing their money on our side of the line, and thus the commercial connection is constantly becoming closer.