The Timaru Herald. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1907. POSTHUMOUS FAME.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIC, Issue 13397, 21 September 1907, Page 4

The Timaru Herald. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1907. POSTHUMOUS FAME.

It will be generally admitted that th-o promoters of the movement for erecting in Timavu a, memoiial to the hto Mr Seddon were wise and practical in .•selecting a form of monument which will bo of value to the community when probably tbo political leader whoao name it will bear ban caused to bo rerminbaied by succeeding generations. In the milst of all the .suggestions that havo been made up and down the colony to perpetuate hi;; name and his life's work, wo luvo often wondered whether Mr Seddon himself was ever anxious that posterity should have a reminder of tho place lis once tilled in tbo public affairs of N-tw' Zealand and of tho Empire, and so far as evidence is available, the conclusion iscevns to ba. forced/ that ho was content to let his reputation tako care of itis-elf when onca ho should havo been removed from the sphere of activity which he loved r.o , well. His biugrapheir, Mr James Drummond, tells us that Mr Seddon never found, or made, time to assist him. in the preparation of tho history of his life, and apart from his we know that hj? never took any steps tn erect a moiiu.mait to himself. In this respect we may contrast him with tho late Cecil Rhodes', in whom tha desire for posthumous fame was always :i it-iong passion. This intimate weakness of tho great African's character was disclosed i-:omo months ago by Lord ltosebovy when unveiling a memorial tablet in his honour. It was his great consolation in his days of trial, when peopla were, reviling him as a low money-grubber, and a. disgrace to the name of Britain in South Africa. It was at those times, Lord Rosibery tells us, that Rho'dos looked forward to posterity to do him justice. "All this docs not worry inei in the hast," he used to say. "I have my will here''—as if ho had it in his pocket—"l have my will here, and when people abu.sj me I think of it, and I know they will read it after I am gone, and will do nw justice when I am <lead." This thought was with him always, and Lord Rosebery's friendly banter could not shako him out of it. "" 1 used a .stock argument; I ««k? ,lhat i'amo was ehort, and that, in the case oi all but a very few people there was no fame to speak of, and e\vn with I hem it did not, last very long. I pointed to the millions of universes in the firmament, in each of which there may ba millions of insects like ourselves, striving for tho (same brief and futile hour of fanv.\ But Rhodes would none of it. He said:—' No, I don't agrea with'you at all. I havo given my name to this great region of Rhodesia, and in two or three hundred yeans my nama will still be there, and I shall be. remembered after two or three centuries." If Rhodes had probed his own motives doeper, ha would probably have confessed that tho strenuous life lie lived war; nob lived meiely that his name might bo on men's lips long after his body had crumbled to dust. For why should a rational man take satisfaction in the thought that a hundred Or a, thousand years after his dis-ath, his name will be- printed on maps, and his cteeds painfully committed to memory by boys at school? Fame, even in one's lifetime., ira surely an empty enough thing, the desire of which has surely not been the chief spring of action with really gmifc men. The. fulfilment of a. cherished pnrpow cornea first in their minds, their own association with it being a secondary consideration. With his last bivath, Cecil Rhodes lamented his inability to do more than touch the fringe of tho great Imperial work at which ho had laboured all his life. The glorification of his own name-did not enter his mind at that supreme monvrnt. And so we think it was with Mr Seddon. His days were, crammed full with legislative schemes, to the exclusion of all thought for what recognition posterity might pay him, but it is to the credit of \m friends that they aro taking steps to make his fame endure.