A piece of the rope

Mark Twain on Cecil Rhodes:

In the opinion of many people Mr Rhodes is South Africa; others think he is only a large part of it. These latter consider that South Africa consists of Table Mountain, the diamond mines, the Johannesburg goldfields, and Cecil Rhodes… I admire him, I frankly confess it; and when his time comes I shall buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake.

from Following the Equator (1897), cited in “Kipling in South Africa” by Dan Jacobson in the London Review of Books, 7 Jun 2007