I think, however, that Rhodes exaggerated in attaching such influence to Reade’s essay.  He was very interested in the supernatural, a feature which more than once I have had occasion to observe in people who pretend that they believe in nothing.  I suspect that, had he been able to air the doubts which must have assailed him sometimes when alone in the solitudes of Rhodesia, one would have discovered that a great deal of carelessness, of which he used to boast in regard to morality and to religion, was nothing but affectation.  He treated God in the same offhand way he handled men, when, in order to terrify them, he exposed before their horrified eyes abominable theories, to which his whole life gave the lie.  But in his inmost heart he knew very well that God existed.  He would have felt quite content to render homage to the Almighty if only this could have been done incognito.  In fact, he was quite ready to believe in God, but would have felt extremely sorry had anyone suspected that such could be the case.  The ethical side of Cecil Rhodes’ character remained all through his life in an unfinished state.  It might perhaps have been the most beautiful side of his many-sided life had he not allowed too much of what was material, base and common to rule him.  Unwillingly, perhaps, but nevertheless certainly, he gave the impression that his life was entirely dedicated to ignoble purposes.  Perhaps the punishment of his existence lay precisely in the rapidity with which the words “Rhodesian finance” and “Rhodesian politics” came to signify corruption and bribery.  Even though he may not have been actually guilty of either, he most certainly profited by both.  He instituted in South Africa an utter want of respect for one’s neighbour’s property, which in time was a prime cause of the Transvaal War.  Hated as he was by some, distrusted as he remained by almost everybody, yet there was nothing mean about Cecil Rhodes.  Though one felt inclined to detest him at times, yet one could not help liking and even loving him when he allowed one to see the real man behind the veil of cynicism and irony which he constantly assumed.

With Rhodes’ death the whole system of Rhodesian politics perished.  It then became relatively easy for Sir Alfred Milner to introduce the necessary reforms into the government of South Africa.  The financial magnates who had ruled at Johannesburg and Kimberley ceased to interest themselves politically in the management of the affairs of the Government.  They disappeared one after the other, bidding good-bye to a country which they had always hated, most of them sinking into an obscurity where they enjoy good dinners and forget the nightmare of the past.

The Dutch and the English elements have become reconciled, and loyalty to England, which seemed at the time of the Boer War, and during the years that had preceded it, to have been confined to a small number of the English, has become the rule.  British Imperialism is no mere phantom:  the Union of South Africa has proved it to have a very virile body, and, what is more important, a lofty and clear-visioned soul.