They watched over him like a policeman who took good care no foreign influence should venture to approach.
The end of all this was that Rhodes resented the truth when it was told him, and detested any who showed independence of judgment or appreciation in matters concerning his affairs and projects.

A man supposed to have an iron will, yet he was weak almost to childishness in regard to these flattering satellites.

It amused him to have always at his beck and call people willing and ready to submit to his insults, to bear with his fits of bad temper, and to accept every humiliation which he chose to offer.
Cecil Rhodes never saw, or affected never to see, the disastrous influence all this had on his life.
I remember asking him how it came that he seldom showed the desire to go away somewhere quite alone, if even for a day or two, so as to remain really tete-a-tete with his own reflections.

His reply was most characteristic: "What should I do with myself?
One must have people about to play cards in the evening." I might have added "and to flatter one," but refrained.

This craving continually to have someone at hand to bully, scold, or to make use of, was certainly one of the failings of Rhodes' powerful mind.