He liked to spend the night in the open air, gazing at the innumerable stars and listening to the voice of the desert, so full of attractions for those who have grown to discern somewhat of Nature's hidden joys and sorrows.

South Africa became for him a second Motherland, and one which seemed to him to be more hospitable to his temperament than the land of his birth.

In South Africa he felt he could find more satisfaction and more enjoyment than in England, whose conventionalities did not appeal to his rebellious, unsophisticated heart.
He liked to roam about in an old coat and wideawake hat; to forget that civilisation existed; to banish from his mind all memory of cities where man must bow down to Mrs.Grundy and may not defy, unscathed, certain well-defined prejudices.
Yet Cecil Rhodes neither cared for convention nor custom.

His motto was to do what he liked and not to trouble about the judgments of the crowd.

He never, however, lived up to this last part of his profession because, as I have shown already, he was keenly sensitive to praise and to blame, and hurt to the heart whenever he thought himself misjudged or condemned.