Cecil Rhodes had little sympathy with other people’s woes unless these found an echo in his own, and the callousness which he so often displayed was not entirely the affectation it was thought by his friends or even by his enemies.  Great in so many things, there were circumstances when he could show himself unutterably small, and he seldom practised consistency.  Frank by nature, he was an adept at dissimulation when he thought that his personal interest required it.  But he could “face the music,” however discordant, and, unfortunately for him as well as for his memory, it was often so.

The means by which Cecil Rhodes contrived to acquire so unique a position in South Africa would require volumes to relate.  Wealth alone could not have done so, nor could it have assured for him the popularity which he gained, not only among the European colonists, but also among the coloured people, notwithstanding the ruthlessness which he displayed in regard to them.  There were millionaires far richer than himself in Kimberley and in Johannesburg.  Alfred Beit, to mention only one, could dispose of a much larger capital than Rhodes ever possessed, but this did not give him an influence that could be compared with that of his friend, and not even the Life Governorship of De Beers procured for him any other fame than that of being a fabulously rich man.  Barney Barnato and Joel were also familiar figures in the circle of wealthy speculators who lived under the shade of Table Mountain; but none among these men, some of whom were also remarkable in their way, could effect a tenth or even a millionth part of what Rhodes succeeded in performing.  His was the moving spirit, without whom these men could never have conceived, far less done, all that they did.  It was the magic of Rhodes’ name which created that formidable organisation called the De Beers Company; which annexed to the British Empire the vast territory known now by the name of Rhodesia; and which attracted to the gold fields of Johannesburg all those whom they were to enrich or to ruin.  Without the association and glamour of Rhodes’ name, too, this area could never have acquired the political importance it possessed in the few years which preceded, and covered, the Boer War.  Rhodes’ was the mind which, after bringing about the famous Amalgamation of the diamond mines around Kimberley, then conceived the idea of turning a private company into a political instrument of a power which would control public opinion and public life all over South Africa more effectually even than the Government.  This organisation had its own agents and spies and kept up a wide system of secret service.  Under the pretext of looking out for diamond thieves, these emissaries in reality made it their duty to report on the private opinions and doings of those whose personality inspired distrust or apprehension.