Behind the tall pillars runs another inscription—'Dedicated to the Spirit and Life Work of Cecil John Rhodes.' The paradox to this will be found in the statue, or bust, of Cecil John, to be placed by the trustees in the niche below. It is in the nature of man to embody, allegorically, in human form, virtues and vices, but surely it were better to leave the good deeds of the man, which belonged to the Spirit, in the care of this wonderful grey granite temple. To the Life and Spirit! Few bodies make temples worthy of the Spirit, and Cecil John failed to prove the rule. But 'how truly great is the Actual, is the Thing, that has rescued itself from bottomless depths of theory and possibility, and stands as a definite indisputable fact ...' and the Knowledge and the Practice, which are the elements of the mighty Physical Energy, hang over the abyss of the Known, the Practicable.
The man and his life 'rest on solidity and some kind of truth.'
So we came down from the heights.
CHAPTER IV
'PARADISE' AND THE BARNARDS
From Newlands we rode, one glorious afternoon, up a small, conical hill at the back of Fernwood, or the old homestead 'Boshof.' There are several ways of arriving, but we, full of enthusiasm, chose to take a stony path hedged by scented wild-geraniums and ripening blackberry hedges, along which more than a hundred years ago a big wagon had rolled, dragging up the hill, as far as the ravines and rocks would allow, two occupants—Mr. Barnard, His Excellency's secretary, and Lady Anne, his wife.
There has been a great 'Barnard' cult of late, and the people who have wondered at the romantic and witty correspondence of Lady Anne and the Secretary of State for War, Lord Melville, have perhaps gained some geographical knowledge of the Cape Peninsula one hundred years ago. I adore Anne for her sense of humour; Marinus adores her for her faithfulness to Barnard, whom for various reasons I have depicted to him as a dullish and obliging man.
THE SOUTHERN PART OF THE FALSE BAY, WITH CAPE HANGCLIP
Behind this overgrown hill at the top of the Newlands Avenue lies 'Paradise,' where Anne Barnard lived during the summer, and which she called her Trianon!