Dozens are
stretched on the floor of the club rooms. Some steady-going gentlemen
of abstemious habit are unprejudiced enough to allow themselves to be
found under the tables wrapped in slumber as profound as that of
infancy.
In contrast to my feelings of yesterday I am almost joyous. But for
poor impetuous Jameson and the newly dead and wounded of Doornkop, I
could laugh again.
The women are going back to the mines. Many brave little men who have
remained in the shade to comfort their wives now step boldly to the
front and tell us what they would have done if it had really come to a
question of fighting. There is so much talk of _moral courage_ from
these heroes, I fear it is the only kind of courage which they
possess. One gentleman, not conspicuous for his bravery during the
preceding days, gravely said to me: 'If there had been war, I wonder
if I should have had the moral courage to keep out of the fight?' I
looked into his face, and, seeing there his character, answered with
dryness, 'Oh! I suspect you would.' He was too complaisant to
appreciate the sarcasm. God made little as well as great things! I
suppose we should love all humanity, even if it be in the spirit of a
collector of curios.
The protracted excitement has caused several deaths from heart
failure, and I heard of two cases of acute mania. There would
doubtless have been a far greater mortality but for the fact that
Johannesburg is populated by young and, for the most part, vigorous
men and women.
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