The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Masques of Ottawa, by Domino

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Title: The Masques of Ottawa

Author: Domino

Release Date: April 2, 2007 [eBook #20961]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASQUES OF OTTAWA***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

Transcriber's note:

"Domino" is the pseudonym of Augustus Bridle (1869-?)

THE MASQUES OF OTTAWA

by

"DOMINO"

"_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.

THE PLAY-HOUSE CALLED OTTAWA.

Do not imagine that I spend much time at once in Ottawa. I have never
liked the kind of play-house that politicians have made on that
glorious plateau in a valley of wonderland with a river of dreams
rolling past to the sea. Where under heaven is any other Capital so
favoured by the great scenic artist? On what promontory do
parliamentary towers and gables so colossally arise to enchant the
vision? The Thames draws the ships of the world and crawls muddily and
lazily out to sea wondering what haphazard of history ever concentrated
so much commerce, politics and human splendour on the banks of one
large ditch. Ottawa's house of political drama overlooks one of the
noblest rivers in the world, that takes its rise in everlasting hills
of granite and pines.

One, Laurier, used to dream that he would devote his declining days to
making Ottawa beautiful as a city as she is for the site of a capital.
To him as to others, Rome, London, Paris, Vienna, Washington, should
all in time be rivalled by Ottawa the magnificent. But the saw-mill
surveyors of Ottawa spoiled that when they made no approach to
Parliament Hill to compare to the vista seen from the river. Ottawa
was built for convenience: for opportunity: for expediency.

Parliament is its great show. Politicians are the actors. Time has
seen some interesting, almost baffling, dramas o