A mutual friend at Carlsbad introduced me to Mr. Beit, the great South African millionaire. He adored Cecil Rhodes, and so did I. Beit, so I was told, had got it into his head that I somewhat resembled his dead friend, and he talked to me on one occasion about Rhodes until 3 a.m. after dining together. Beit begged me to come and see him on my return to London at his house in Park Lane, just then finished, but I never did for I was vastly busy then. I was troubled on all sides, like St. Paul.
“Without were fightings, and within were fears.” Fighting outside the Admiralty, and fears inside it.
He really was a dear man, was Beit.
Of course I don’t know anything about his business character. Apparently there is a character a man puts on in business, just as a man does in politics, and it may be quite different from his character as a gentleman.
Beit every year made a pilgrimage to Hamburg, to see his old mother, who lived there, and it much touched me, his devotion to her. But our bond of affection was our affection for Rhodes.
The German Emperor sent for Beit, for I gathered that Beit saw how peace was threatened. I don’t know if this was the reason of the interview. In this Imperial conversation my name turned up as Lord Esher had made a statement that by all from the German Emperor downwards I was the most hated man in Germany. The German Emperor did say to Beit that I was dangerous, and that he knew of my ideas as regards the Baltic being Germany’s vulnerable spot, and he had heard of my idea for the “Copenhagening” of the German Fleet. But this last I much doubt. He only said it because he knew it was what we ought to have done.
With regard to saying anything more of that interview I prefer to keep silent. In an Italian book, printed at Brescia in A.D. 1594, occur these words of Steven Guazzo;
“They should know,” says Anniball, “that it is no lesse admirable to know how to holde one’s peace than to know how to speake. For, as wordes well uttered shewe eloquance and learning, so silence well kept sheweth prudence and gravitie!”
I wish Beit could have read Stead’s splendid appreciation of Cecil Rhodes, who describes him as a Titan of intrinsic nobility and sincerity, of innate excellence of heart, and immense vitality of genius, and describes the splendid impulsiveness of his generous nature. I am told that Rhodes’s favourite quotation was from Marcus Aurelius:
“Take care always to remember you are a Roman, and let every action be done with perfect and unaffected gravity, humanity, freedom and justice.”