He was constantly planning, constantly dreaming of wider areas to conquer and to civilise.

The possession of gold was for him a means, not an aim; he appreciated riches for the power they produced to do absolutely all that he wished, but not for the boast of having so many millions standing to his account at a bank.

He meant to become a king in his way, and a king he unquestionably was for a time at least, until his own hand shattered his throne.
His first tenure of the Cape Premiership was most successful, and even during the second term his popularity went on growing until the fatal Jameson Raid--an act of folly which nothing can explain, nothing can excuse.

Until it broke his political career, transforming him from the respected statesman whom every party in South Africa looked up to into a kind of broken idol never more to be trusted, Rhodes had enjoyed the complete confidence of the Dutch party.

They fully believed he was the only man capable of effecting the Union which at that time was already considered to be indispensable to the prosperity of South Africa.