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.

On account of these characteristics, notwithstanding all his wonderful
faculties, Cecil Rhodes