se 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 da