England knows now what those men strove to do for her, and the names of Washington and Franklin will ever stand high in honor where the English tongue is spoken. The names of Hutchinson, and North, and Grafton are not forgotten also; it might be well for them if they were!
Do not say to us: “You are Englishmen; when the war is over, you can wrap the mantle of our imperial glory round you and walk about boasting that the victory is yours.”
We could never wrap that mantle round us again. We have worn it with pride. We could never wear it then. There would be blood upon it, and the blood would be our brothers’.
We put it to the men of England.[118] In that day where should we be found; we who have to maintain English honor in the South? Judge for us, and by your judgment we will abide. Remember, we are Englishmen!
Looking around to-day along the somewhat over-clouded horizon of South African life, one figure strikes the eye, new to the circle of our existence here; and we eye it with something of that hope and sympathy with which a man is bound to view the new and unknown, which may be of vast possible good and beauty.
What have we in this man, who represents English honor and English wisdom in South Africa? To a certain extent we know.
We have a man honorable in the relations of personal life, loyal to friend,[119] and above all charm of gold; wise with the knowledge of books and men; a man who could not violate a promise or strike in the dark. This we know we have, and it is much to know this; but what have we more?
The man of whom South Africa has need to-day to sustain England’s honor and her Empire of the future, is a man who must possess more than the knowledge and wisdom of the intellect.
When a woman rules a household with none but the children of her own body in it, her task is easy; let her obey nature and she will not fail. But the woman who finds herself in a large strange household, where children and step-children are blended, and where all have passed the stage of childhood and have entered on that stage of adolescence where coercion can no more[120] avail, but where sympathy and comprehension are the more needed, that woman has need of large and rare qualities springing more from the heart than from the head. She who can win the love of her strange household in its adolescence will keep its loyalty and sympathy when adult years are reached and will be rich indeed.