THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JULY 30, 1907. CECIL RHODES' FAME.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8498, 30 July 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JULY 30, 1907. CECIL RHODES' FAME.

Unveiling a tablet in memory of Cecil Rhodes at Oxford, England, few weeks ago, Lord Rosebery gave his hearers some interesting glimpses of the very human workings of the great Empire-builder's mind. The idea of the scholarship scheme, which would combine his Imperial ideals with his affection for Oxford, was a constant solace and inspiration to Cecil Rhodes in his last years. lie once said to Lord Rosebery: "When I find myself in uncongenial company or when people are playing thengames, or when I am alone in way carriage, I shut my eyes and think of my great idea. I turn' it over in my mind and try to get a new light on it; it is the pleasantest companion I have." It was not merely a companion to him, observed Lord Rosebery; it was a solace, and it was a protection. "I have my will here," Rhodes used to say, "and when they abuse me I think of it, and I know they will read it after 1 am gone, and will do me justice when I am dead." The two friends used sometimes to discuss the subject of fame. Rhodes' ambition was not impersonal, lie had at one time a strong desire for posthumous fame. Lord Rosebery argued on the other side, urging that fame was short, and that in the case of but very few people there was no fame to speak of, and even with them it did not last very long. He j pointed to the millions of universes in the firmament, in each of which there may be millions of insects like ourselves striving for the same brief and futile hour of fame. But Rhodes would have none of it. "No," he said, "I don't agree with you at all. I have given my name to this great region of Rhodesia,

and in two or three hundred years my name will still be there, and I shall be remembered. After two or three centuries what does it matter?" Thus with him, even then, it was only a question of degree. The last time Lord Rosebery saw him, when the hand of death was upon him, and when sentence of death had already probably been pronounced to him, the Empire-builder was in a very different mood. "Well, after all," he said, "you are right; everything in this world is too short, life and fame a"d achievement, everything is too short," and he gave a groan as he thought of his own career, and his own ambition cut short. "Perhaps he and I were both wrong, "isaid Lord Rosebery. "I think his fame will survive his own . anticipations and mine also. He has dug deep, he has dug broad the foundations of his own reputation. In South Africa, that region of perplexity which will, at any rate, remain for all time a monument of British gensrosity, and, I hope, of British wisdom, the name of Rhodes will always be preserved."