settlement of South African affairs.  This conviction, which was carefully nourished from the outside, evoked in his mind an absurd and silly rage to which no man of common sense, unblinded by vanity, could have fallen victim.  I would not be so foolish as to deny to the famous Life Governor of De Beers either abundant common sense or outstanding intelligence, but here was a man gifted with genius who, under the impulse of passion, could act and speak like a child.

Rhodes looked upon the High Commissioner as a nuisance unfortunately not to be set aside.  What exasperated him, especially in regard to the High Commissioner, was the fact that he knew quite well that Sir Alfred Milner could assume the responsibility for concluding peace when that time arrived.  Rhodes always hoped that his personal influence on the English, as well as among the Bond party, would enable him to persuade the leaders of the rebel movement in Cape Colony to lay down their arms and to leave their interests in his hands.  Should such a thing have happened, Rhodes thought that such a success as this would efface the bad impression left by the Raid.  He grudgingly admitted that that wild adventure had not pleased people, but he always refused to acknowledge that it was the one great and unredeemable mistake of his life.  I remember once having quoted to him the old French motto which in the Middle Ages was the creed of every true knight: 

                   “Mon ame a Dieu,
                    Mon bras au roi,
                    Mon coeur aux dames,
                    L’honneur a moi!”

“Ah, yes!  In those times one could still think about such things,” he simply remarked, which proved to me that he had no comprehension of the real sense of the beautiful words.  The higher attributes of mind did not trouble him either in the hours of his greatest triumphs or in the moments when Fortune ceased to smile upon him.  He thought he had something far better:  ambition, love of domination, the desire to eclipse everybody and everything around him.  I do not mention money, because Rhodes did not care for money intrinsically.

Yet the man was great in spite of all his defects.  Particularly in the rein he gave to his thoughts during nights spent in the solitude of the karroo, when the stars were almost the only things which he could look upon, their immensity the only companion worthy of himself.  One could almost believe Cecil Rhodes was possessed of a dual personality.  At one moment he lived in the skies in regard to his own future prospects and the great deeds he wished to perform, about which he never ceased to think.  The next he was on this earth, dabbling in the meannesses of humanity, taking a vicious pleasure in noticing the evil about him and too frequently succeeding, somehow, in wounding the feelings of those who liked him best, and then wondering how it happened that he had so few friends.