| I know quite well that whether Mr. Rhodes is the lofty and worshipful
patriot and statesman that multitudes believe him to be, or Satan come again,
as the rest of the world account him, he is still the most imposing figure
in the British empire outside of England. When he stands on the Cape of
Good Hope, his shadow falls to the Zambesi. He is the only colonial in the
British dominions whose goings and comings are chronicled and discussed
under all the globe's meridians, and whose speeches, unclipped, are cabled
from the ends of the earth; and he is the only unroyal outsider whose arrival
in London can compete for attention with an eclipse. - Following the Equator |
 Cecil John Rhodes South African statesman 1853-1902 |
...he wants the earth and wants it for his own, and that the belief that he
will get it and let his friends in on the ground floor is the secret that rivets
so many eyes upon him and keeps him in the zenith where the view is unobstructed.
- Following the Equator
He raids and robs and slays and enslaves the Matabele and gets worlds of Charter-Christian applause for it. He has beguiled England into buying Charter waste paper for Bank of England notes, ton for ton, and the ravished still burn incense to him as the Eventual God of Plenty. He has done everything he could think of to pull himself down to the ground; he has done more than enough to pull sixteen common-run great men down; yet there he stands, to this day, upon his dizzy summit under the dome of the sky, an apparent permanency, the marvel of the time, the mystery of the age, an Archangel with wings to half the world, Satan with a tail to the other half.
I admire him, I frankly confess it; and when his time comes I shall buy a piece
of the rope for a keepsake.
- Following the Equator
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