One of the great secrets of the enormous influence which the Colossus had acquired lay in the fact that he had never spared his money when it was a question of thrusting his will in directions favourable to his interest.  None of those who aspired to take his place could follow him on that road, because none were so superbly indifferent to wealth.  Cecil Rhodes did not care for riches for the personal enjoyments they can purchase.  He was frugal in his tastes, simple in his manners and belongings, and absolutely careless as to the comforts of life.  The waste in his household was something fabulous, but it is a question whether he ever participated in luxuries showered upon others.  His one hobby had been the embellishment of Groote Schuur, which he had really transformed into something absolutely fairylike as regards its exterior beauties and the loveliness of its grounds and gardens.  Inside, too, the house, furnished after the old Dutch style, struck one by its handsomeness, though it was neither homelike nor comfortable.  In its decoration he had followed the plans of a clever architect, to whose artistic education he had generously contributed by giving to him facilities to travel in Europe, but he had not lent anything of his own personality to the interior arrangements of his home, which had always kept the look of a show place, neither cared for nor properly looked after.

Rhodes himself felt happier and more at his ease when rambling in his splendid park and gazing on Table Mountain from his stoep than amidst the luxury of his richly furnished rooms.  Sometimes he would sit for hours looking at the landscape before him, lost in a meditation which but few cared to disturb, and after which he invariably showed himself at his best and in a softer mood than he had been before.  Unfortunately, these moments never lasted long, and he used to revenge himself on those who had surprised him in such reveries by indulging in the most caustic and cruel remarks which he could devise in order to goad them out of all patience.  A strange man with strange instincts; and it is no wonder that, once, a person who knew him well, and who had known him in the days of his youth when he had not yet developed his strength of character, had said of him that “One could not help liking him and one could not avoid hating him; and sometimes one hated him when one liked him most.”

Sir Alfred Milner had neither liked nor hated him, perhaps because his mind was too well balanced to allow him to view him otherwise than with impartiality and with a keen appreciation of his great qualities.  He would have liked to work with Rhodes, and would gladly have availed himself of his experience of South Africa and of South African politicians.  But Sir Alfred refused to be drawn into any compromises with his own conscience or to offend his own sense of right and wrong.  He was always sincere, though he was never given credit for being so in South Africa.  Sir Alfred Milner could not understand why Rhodes, instead of resolutely asserting that he wanted to enter into negotiations with the Bond in order to win its co-operation in the great work of organising the new existence of South Africa on a sound and solid basis, preferred to cause promises to be made to the Bond which he would never consent to acknowledge.