Page:The History of San Martin (1893).djvu/143

Rh diverted the course of the expedition, but the funds collected remained in the treasury.

Amid all the din of military preparation the material interests of the Province were not neglected. Education was studiously fomented, vaccination was introduced, much attention was bestowed upon the public promenades and upon the system of irrigation, and the most rigid economy was enforced in every branch of the administration. The people saw in San Martin a father whom they loved, and a ruler whom they respected. His manners contributed to his authority and to the popularity gained by his deeds. His austere figure aptly symbolised the paternal despotism he established, and gave him a certain mysterious prestige. Alone among many friends, but without one confidant, nor even a councillor, he looked after everything himself, with no more help than that of one secretary and two clerks. His want of education has caused some historians to decry his talents. It was the same with William of Orange and with Washington. They shone not by their intellect, but by their deeds and by their personal character. As Macaulay says of Cromwell, he spoke folly and did great things. Or, as Pascal says, the heart has reason of which reason knows nothing.

In San Martin the will was the dominant characteristic. He worked not by inspiration but by calculation, searching carefully first for the thing necessary to be done, and then doing it. It has been said of him that he was not a person but a system. He wore almost constantly the plain uniform of the mounted grenadiers, with the Argentine cockade on his cocked hat. He was an early riser, and usually spent all the morning at his desk. At mid-day he went to the kitchen, chose two plates of the food prepared, and frequently ate it there standing, washing it down with two glasses of wine. In the winter he would afterwards take a short walk and smoke a cigarette of black tobacco; in summer he would sleep for two hours on a skin stretched in the verandah. All the year round he drank coffee which Rh