Such were the preoccupations, the intrigues and the
emotions which, all through that monotonous winter of 1900-1901, agitated
the inhabitants of and the visitors to Groote Schuur. Rhodes himself seemed
to be the one man who thought the least about them. It is certain that he
felt hurt in his pride and in his consciousness that the good which he had
wanted to do failed to be appreciated by those whom he had intended to
benefit. But outwardly he made no sign that the matter interested him
otherwise than from a purely objective point of view, that of the statesman
who thinks that it is part of his duty to put his services at the disposal
of his country whenever required to do so. He felt also slightly surprised
to find, once he had expressed his willingness to use the experience of
South African affairs which he had acquired and which no one in the Cape
possessed with such thoroughness, that the people who had appealed to him,
and whom he had consented to meet half-way, would not give him the whole of
their confidence; indeed, they showed some apprehension that he would use
his knowledge to their detriment.
When one reviews all the circumstances that cast such a
tragic shade over the history of these eventful months, one cannot help
coming to the conclusion that there was a good deal of misunderstanding on
both sides and a deplorable lack of confidence everywhere. Rhodes had
entirely lost ground among his former friends, and would not understand that
it was more difficult, even on the part of those who believed in his good
intentions, to efface the impression that he had been playing a double game
ever since the Raid had deprived him of the confidence and support which
previously were his all over Cape Colony.
The whole situation, as the new century opened, was a
game of cross purposes. Sir Alfred Milner might have unravelled the skein,
but he was the one man whom no one interested in the business wished to ask
for help. And what added to the tragedy was the curious but undisputable
fact that even those who reviled Rhodes hoped he would return to power and
assume the Premiership in place of Sir Gordon Sprigg.
In spite of the respect which Sir Gordon Sprigg
inspired, and of the esteem in which he was held by all parties, it was
generally felt that if Rhodes were once more at the helm he might return to
a more reasonable view of the whole situation. In such an office, too, it
was believed that Rhodes would give the Colony the benefit of his remarkable
gifts of statecraft, as well as wield the authority which he liked so much
to exercise, for the greater good of the country in general and of the
British Government in particular. I believe that if at that moment Cecil
Rhodes had become the head of the Cabinet not one voice, even among the
most fanatic of the Afrikander Bond, would have objected. Those most averse
to such a possibility were Rhodes' own supporters, a small group of men
whose names I shall refrain from mentioning.
All true friends of Rhodes, however, must surely have
felt a keen regret that he wasted his talents and his energy on those
entangled and, after all, despicable Cape politics. The man was created for
something better and healthier than that. He was an Empire Maker by nature,
one who might have won for himself everlasting renown had he remained "King
of Rhodesia," as he liked to call himself. There, in the vast solitudes
which by his enterprise and foresight had become a part of the British
Empire, he ought to have gone on uninterruptedly in the glorious task of
bringing civilisation to that hitherto unknown land. For such work his big
nature and strange character were well fitted, and his wide-ranging mind
appreciated the extent of the task. As he used to say himself sometimes, he
was never so happy and never felt so free and so much at peace with the
world and with mankind as among the Matoppo Hills.
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. The
class who entered politics had as little real solidity about them as the
houses and dwellings which were built at a moment's notice from corrugated
iron and a few logs. They thought that they understood how to govern a
nation because they had thoroughly mastered the mysteries of bookkeeping in
problematical financial undertakings.
I remember one afternoon when, talking with Rhodes in
the grounds of Groote Schuur, he took me to the summer-house which he had
built for himself, whence one had a beautiful view over the country toward
Table Mountain. He leaned on the parapet of the little observatory which
surmounted the summer-house and lost himself in a day dream which, though
long, I felt I had better not interrupt. I can see his face and expression
still as, with his arms crossed over his chest, he gazed into space,
thinking, thinking, and forgetting all else but the vision which he was
creating in that extraordinary brain of his. I am sure that he remained so
for over twenty minutes. Then he slowly turned round to me and said, with an
accent indescribable in its intensity and poignancy:
"I have been looking at the North, at my own country—"
"Why do you not always remain there?" I exclaimed
almost involuntarily, so painfully did the words strike me.
"Because they will not let me," he replied.
"They? Who?" I asked again. "Surely you can do what you
like?"
"You think so," he said, "but you do not know; there
are so many things; so many things. And they want me here too, and there is
this place …"
He stopped, then relapsed once more into his deep
meditation, leaving me wondering what was holding back this man who was
reputed to do only what he chose. Surely there would have been a far better,
far nobler work for him to do there in that distant North which, after all,
in spite of the beauties of Groote Schuur, was the only place for which he
really cared. There he could lead that absolutely free and untrammelled life
which he loved; there his marvellous gifts could expand with the freedom
necessary for them to shine in their best light for the good of others as
well as for his own advantage. In Rhodesia he was at least free, to a
certain extent, from the parasites.
How could one help pitying him and regretting that his
indomitable will did not extend to the courage of breaking from his past
associations; that he did not carry his determination far enough to make up
his mind to consecrate what was left of his life to the one task for which
he was best fitted, that of making Rhodesia one of the most glorious
possessions of the British crown. Rhodes had done so much, achieved so much,
had conceived such great things—as, for instance, the daring inception of
the Cape to Cairo Railway—that it surely could have been possible for him to
rise above the shackling weaknesses of his environment.
So many years have passed since the death of Rhodes
that, now, one can judge him objectively. To me, knowing him so well as I
did, it seem that as his figure recedes into the background of history, it
acquires more greatness. He was a mystery to so many because few had been
able to guess what it was that he really meant, or believed in, or hoped
for. 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. There in the silence of
the night or the dawn of early morning, when he started for those long rides
of which he was so fond, he became affectionate, kind, thoughtful and
tender. There he thought, he dreamt, he planned, and the result of these
wanderings of his mind into regions far beyond those where the people around
him could stray was that he revealed himself as God had made him and such as
man hardly ever saw him.
Rhodes had always been a great reader; books, indeed,
had a great influence over his mind, his actions and opinions. He used to
read slowly, and what he had once assimilated he never forgot. Years after
he would remember a passage treating of some historical fact, or of some
social interest, and apply it to his own work. For instance, the idea of
the Glen Grey Act was suggested to him by the famous book of Mackenzie
Wallace dealing with Russia,[1] in which he described the conditions under
which Russian peasants then held their land. When Rhodes met the author of
the aforementioned volume at Sandringham, where both were staying with the
then Prince and Princess of Wales, he told him at once, with evident
pleasure at being able to do so, that it was his book which had suggested
that particular bit of legislation.
Another occasion I remember when Rhodes spoke of the
great impression produced upon his opinions by a book called "The Martyrdom
of Man,"[2] the work of Winwood Reade, an author not very well known to the
general public. The essay was an unusually powerful negation of the
Divinity. Rhodes had, unfortunately for him, chanced across it just after he
had left the University, and during the first months following upon his
arrival in South Africa he read it in his moments of leisure between looking
for diamonds in the sandy plains of Kimberley. It completely upset all the
traditions in which he had been nurtured—it must be remembered that he was
the son of a clergyman—and caused a revolt against the teachings of his
former masters.
The adventurous young man who had left his native
country well stocked with principles which he was already beginning to find
embarrassing, found in this volume an excuse for becoming the personage
with whom the world was to become familiar later on, when he appeared on the
horizon as an Empire Maker. He always kept this momentous book beside him,
and used to read it when he wanted to strengthen himself in some hard
resolution or when he was expected to steel his mind to the performance of
some task against which his finest instincts revolted even whilst his sense
of necessity urged him onward.
Talking with me on the occasion I have referred to
above, in respect to this volume which had left such weeds in his mind, he
expressed to me his great enthusiasm about the ideas it contained, and spoke
with unmeasured approval of its strong and powerful arguments against the
existence of a Deity, and then exclaimed, "You can imagine the impression
which it produced on me when I read it amid all the excitement of life at
Kimberley not long after leaving Oxford University." And he added in a
solemn tone, "That book has made me what I am."
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.
1 "Russia" (Cassell).
2 Published in the U.S.A., 1875.
