Page:Daughters of Genius.djvu/130

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122
THE PRINCESS LOUISE.

"She will soon be among you," said he, "taking all hearts by storm by the grace, the suavity, the sweet simplicity of her manners, life, and conversation. Gentlemen, if ever there was a lady who in her earliest youth had formed a high ideal of what a noble life should be—if ever there was a human being who tried to make the most of the opportunities within her reach, and to create for herself, in spite of every possible trammel and impediment, a useful career and occasions of benefiting her fellow-creatures, it is the Princess Louise, whose unpretending exertions in a hundred different directions to be of service to her country and generation have already won for her an extraordinary amount of popularity at home."

The people of Canada are to be congratulated upon having at the head of their government two individuals who are exempt from the harsh criticism to which partisan strife usually subjects party leaders. This, indeed, is one of the excellent points of their system; the head of the government being removed from party contests, not affected by party changes, not liable to party animosities, a center to which all eyes are directed with fondness and pride. The republicans of the future will probably have this advantage, without the inconveniences attached to hereditary rank. The French Republic enjoys it, in some degree, at the present moment, since the president governs through ministers, who go out of office when they cannot command a majority of the national legislature. Thus there is a happy blending of the fixed and the changeable; of the useful and the ornamental; of the conservative and the progressive.

It is not improbable that we may have something of the kind in due time; a president elected for a somewhat longer term than at present, not eligible for a second term, and governing through ministers sitting in the