Personally, though I found Montreal a delightful city, a city of vividness and vivacity, I was, in one sense, not sorry to leave it, for I felt myself rapidly disintegrating under the kindnesses showered upon us.
This kindness had its valuable experience: it brought us into contact with many of the men who are helping to mould the future of Canada. We met such capable minds as those who are responsible for the organization of such great companies as the Canadian Pacific and the Grand Trunk Railways. We met many of the great and brilliant newspaper men, such as Senator White, of the _Montreal Gazette_, who with his exceedingly able right-hand man, Major John Bassett, was our good friend always and our host many times. All these men are undoubtedly forces in the future of Canada. We were able to get from them a juster estimate of Canada, her prospects and her potentialities, than we could have obtained by our unaided observation. And, more, we got from contact with such men as these an appreciation of the splendid qualities that make the Canadian citizen so definite a force in the present and future of the world.
During his stay in Montreal the Prince was brought in contact with every phase of civic life. On Wednesday, October 29th, he went by train through the outlying townships on Montreal Island, calling at the quaint and beautifully decorated villages of the habitants, that usually bear the names of old French saints. The inhabitants of these places, though said to be taciturn and undemonstrative, met the train in crowds, and in crowds jostled to get at the Prince and shake his hand, and they showed particular delight when he addressed them in their own tongue.
On Thursday, October 30th, the Prince drove about Montreal itself, going to the docks where ocean-going ships lie at deep-water quays under the towering elevators and the giant loading gear. Amid college yells, French and English, he toured through the great universities of Laval and McGill--famous for learning and Stephen Leacock. He also toured the districts where the working man lives, holding informal receptions there.
He opened athletic clubs and went to dances. At the balls he was at once the friend of everybody by his zest for dancing and his delightfully human habit of playing truant in order to sit out on the stairs with bright partners.