Cecil Rhodes

“ The foregoing incident is enlightening as to the real nature of Cecil Rhodes. His great mistake was precisely in this conviction that he could order men at will, and that men would never betray him or injure him by their false interpretation of the directions which it pleased him to give them. He considered himself so entirely superior to the rest of mankind that it never struck him that inferior beings could turn upon him and rend him, or forget the obedience to his orders which he expected them to observe. ”

“ Here Cecil Rhodes lived for the greater part of ten years, finding time amid his work for dreams: living, in general, aloof from the men with whom he did his daily business, but laying here and there the foundations of a friendship which was to bear fruit hereafter. ”

“ Schreiner, Merriman, Hofmeyr, Sauer and other one-time colleagues, he carried his vindictiveness to an extent so terrible that more than once it led him into some of the most regrettable actions in his life.
Cecil Rhodes possessed a curious shyness which gave to his character an appearance the more misleading in that it hid in reality a will of iron and a ruthlessness comparable to a Condottiere of the Middle Ages. The fact was that his soul was thirsting for power, and he was inordinately jealous of successes which anyone but himself had or could achieve in South Africa. ”

“ Outside England none of our politicians, statesmen, or administrators impressed the imagination of the world half as deeply as Cecil Rhodes. For good or for evil he ranked among the dozen foremost men of his day. He was one of the few men neither royal nor noble by birth who rose by sheer force of character and will to real, although not to titular, Imperial rank. After the Pope, the Kaiser, the Tsar, there were few contemporary statesmen who commanded as much attention, who roused as much interest, as the man who has passed from our midst while still in his prime. ”

“ Even if Cecil discovered the instinct of the pioneer in him he would not listen to it, for he is very proud and very ambitious. When a man towers in an isolated field like Mr. Rhodes, every man who plants his heels in the same field in the same epoch is a moon to Jupiter. And no two men in a century will ever have all the gifts of the Empire-maker united in one brain. Cecil is highly gifted, and he has enormous energy, but his gifts are on the old conservative lines. ”

“ When forming an opinion on the doings and achievements of Cecil Rhodes one must make allowance for all the temptations which were thrown in his way and remember that he was a man who, if ambitious, was not so in a personal sense, but in a large, lofty manner, and who, whilst appropriating to himself the good things which he thought he could [20] grasp, was also eager to make others share the profit of his success. ”

“ The statesmanlike qualities which Cecil Rhodes undoubtedly possessed were weakened by contact with inferior people. It is impossible to create real politicians and sound ones at the same rapid pace as financial magnates sprang up at the Cape as well as in the Transvaal. ”

“ I see Cecil Rhodes has just been saying that he was a lucky man, inasmuch as such honours as are now being paid him generally come to a man after his death and not before it. This is all very well for a politician whose profession immerses him in public life, but the older I grow the more satisfied I am that there can be no greater misfortune for a man of letters or of contemplation than to be recognised in his own lifetime. Fortunately the greater man he is, and hence the greater the misfortune he would incur, the less likelihood there is that he will incur it. ”

“ Rhodes's success will come hand-in-hand with the death of the two republics. The life of the republics hinges on his failure, and good fortune has rarely deserted him.
Twenty-seven years ago Cecil Rhodes, then a tall, thin college lad, was directed by his physician to go to South Africa if he wished to live more than three years. He and his brother Herbert, the sons of the poor rector of Bishop Stortford, sailed for Durban, Natal, and reached that port while the diamond fever was at its height at Kimberley. ”

“ He then proceeded with the second plate, and said, 'That man is still here, and I see behind him a country road. I wonder what that means.' He went into the dark room, and presently came out and said, 'I see "road or roads." Do you know any one of that name?' 'Of course,' I said, 'Cecil Rhodes.' 'Do you mean him as died in the Transvaal lately?' said he. I said 'Yes.' 'Well,' he said, 'was he a man like that?' 'Well, he had a moustache,' I said. And sure enough, when the plate was developed, there was Cecil Rhodes looking fifteen years younger than when he died. ”

“ If Cecil Rhodes's vision could come true (which fortunately is increasingly improbable) , such countries as Persia or Arabia would simply be filled with ugly and vulgar fatalists in billycocks, instead of with graceful and dignified fatalists in turbans. The best Western idea, the idea of spiritual liberty and danger, of a doubtful and romantic future in which all things may happen—this essential Western idea Cecil Rhodes could not spread, because (as he says himself) he did not believe in it. ”

“ It was a sad sight to watch the ethical degradation of one of the most remarkable intelligences among the men of his generation; it was heartrending to see him [35] fall every day more and more into the power of unscrupulous people who did nothing else but exploit him for their own benefit. South Africa has always been the land of adventurers, and many a queer story could be told. That of Cecil John Rhodes was, perhaps, the most wonderful and the most tragic. ”

“ Many, for example, avowedly followed Cecil Rhodes because he had a vision. They might as well have followed him because he had a nose; a man without some kind of dream of perfection is quite as much of a monstrosity as a noseless man. ”

“ The Rhodes family can be traced back to sturdy English yeoman stock. In the eighteenth century they had held land in North London. Cecil's father was vicar of Bishop's Stortford, a quiet country town in Hertfordshire on the Essex border; he was a man of mark, wealthy, [349] liberal, and unconventional, with the rare gift of preaching ten-minute sermons which were well worth hearing. Of his eldest sons, Herbert went to Winchester, Frank to Eton; Cecil, the fifth son, born on July 5, 1853, was kept at home. ”

“ Cecil Rhodes was calm and cheerful, with no doubts as to the results of the war.
He welcomed the adventurers warmly, and heard the account of their travels with pleasure. The news they brought him also from the outside gave him great satisfaction.
“There is nothing else to be done now but to make ourselves as comfortable as possible here, and defend ourselves until we are relieved. We shall all have enough work to keep us from being dull.”
He was right, as our heroes found as the weeks rolled past. General Cronje and his army kept them in a constant state of attention and excitement. ”

“ Among the latter were Garstin and I. Another member was Hugh McLeod, who is, I fancy, still living at Kimberley. I struck my tent and went to live with the Rhodes brothers in theirs.
Everything connected with any phase in the life of a man such as Cecil John Rhodes is necessarily of interest, so I will endeavor to recall what I can of our mutual relations. ”

“ It has been said that every rich man is generally surrounded by parasites, and Cecil Rhodes was not spared this infliction. Only in his case these parasites did not apply their strength to attacks upon his purse; they exploited him for his influence, for the importance which it gave them to be considered by the world as his friends, or even his dependants. They appeared wherever he went, telling the general public that their presence had been requested by the "Boss" in such warm terms that they could not refuse. ”

“ The House in which Cecil Rhodes was born.
(By kind permission of Wm. Blackwood and Sons.)
Catholic Church? As to the others, these were merely vulgar fractions of a fraction. He respected them all with the wide tolerance of a Roman philosopher, but they neither kindled his enthusiasm nor commanded his devotion. The old faiths were dying out. If his life were to have a worthy goal, it must be among the living, not among the dead, with the future rather than the past. ”

“ Cecil Rhodes is a man who thinks sittings are superfluous. He gave a commission to Miss Carlisle—a clever portrait painter and miniaturist—to paint his portrait, but nothing could induce him to give a sitting. ”

“ In your United South Africa you want your people to be 'top dog' always, and as long as Rhodesia stands out there's a menace in the north. That's one reason why you want her! Rumour tells us there's a fine race of men up there, who don't mean to have any tongue but Cecil Rhodes's tongue taught in Cecil Rhodes's country, so it certainly is no place for you! You've got to learn more thoroughly what an Englishman means by 'cricket' before your overtures will be considered ”

“ Of the public enemies of Cecil Rhodes it will suffice to point out briefly that, without one exception and whatever their nationality, they are also the enemies of his country. It is noteworthy too that Cecil Rhodes himself seems to have an instinctive perception of real as distinguished from apparent or merely superficial hostility to the British Empire. ”

“ People always monologue in private life. Do go on.”
“You know I never had a morbid nor a hysterical moment; but there must come a time to all strong natures when all they have inherited and all they have been in their plastic years finds itself in violent conflict with an alien present. The problem would be solved if we could get away, if Cecil’s genius could make a leap into other lines. If I could only have [265] had a finger in the moulding of our two destinies Cecil would have been a great pioneer, an ‘Empire-maker,’ like Cecil Rhodes. ”

“ In the first place, until human nature has changed very considerably, it would be quite impossible for any man to have been so uniformly and so brilliantly successful as Cecil Rhodes has been without making plenty of enemies both private and public. ”

“ Rhodes was drawn to his last resting-place. The coffin was lowered into the tomb, the mourners, white and black, filed past the grave, and then a huge block of granite, weighing over three tons, sealed the mouth of the sepulchre from all mortal eyes. There, on the Matoppos, lies the body of Cecil Rhodes; but who can say what far regions of the earth have not felt, and will not hereafter feel, a thrill and inspiration of the mind which for less than fifty years sojourned in that tabernacle of clay? ”

“ No 'standard' or adequate biography of Rhodes has yet appeared. Sir Thomas Fuller's Cecil Rhodes: a Monograph and a Reminiscence (1910) is the most considerable study of the man and his career, and is a balanced and informed appreciation. The Life by Sir Lewis Michell, Rhodes's banker and one of his trustees (2 vols. 1910) , though painstaking, does not exhaust the authorities accessible, and is not authorised by the Rhodes trustees. ”

“ This category would include practically all the private and personal enemies of Cecil Rhodes save one. The exception is, I regret to say, a woman, and that is a fact which naturally blunts the pen of criticism when it is held in the hands of a man. ”

“ Mr. Rhodes was once thrown out of his berth on to the floor of his cabin. When he arrived in South Africa it was with the mark of death upon him. His evidence had to be taken at Groote Schuur; but he never showed any sign of regret that he had responded to the summons of the Courts. It was his duty, and he did it, and did it, as the result proved, at the cost of his life.
So it came to pass that he who had never harmed a woman in his life met his death in clearing his name from the aspersions of a woman whom, out of sheer good-heartedness, he had befriended in time of need. ”

“ Rhodes had not forgiven him for the upsetting of his apple-cart. But Mr. Rhodes was not a man who wore his heart upon his sleeve. He schooled himself to repress manifestations of affection, but an incident for which Lord Grey is my authority shows how unfounded were Dr. Jameson’s misgivings. If Mr. Rhodes loved anything in the world, he loved his house, and Groote Schuur was the nest which he had built for himself in the shadow of Table Mountain, which he had filled with all manner of historic and literary treasures. ”

“ The hour brings the man, but circumstances mould him and chance leads him to the fore, unless it be true that "there's a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will." In our own time we have seen how the greatest empire-builder of Victorian history, Cecil John Rhodes, came into prominence because he was sent to South Africa for the cure of weak lungs. ”

“ Not a religious man by any means, he yet possessed that religion of nature which pervades the soul of anyone who has ever lived for long face to face with grandeurs and solitudes where human passions have no entrance. It is the adoration of the Greatness Who created the beauty which no touch can defile, no tongue slander, and nobody destroy. Under the stars, to which he confided so much of the thoughts which he had kept for himself in his youth and early manhood, Rhodes became a different man. ”