Page:The History of San Martin (1893).djvu/449

Rh might have been better. The insurrection in South America was a spontaneous movement, resulting from historical antecedents and from the circumstances of the time, but the triumph would have been delayed, and the losses in the struggle would have been greater, but for the genius of San Martin and Bolívar, who directed the discordant elements to one definite end.

San Martin acted more from calculation than from inspiration, Bolívar more from instinct than from method, yet both were necessary, each in his own place. While they went with the current they were mere agents, but they laid hold of the forces that were in action, condensed them, and impelled them to act on one general plan by them devised, which was unseen by the masses. And they worked in concert, the idea of San Martin being carried to a successful ending by Bolívar. Neither could alone have achieved the emancipation of the Continent.

Now these two men were to meet for the first time, under the fiery arch of the Equator, with the ocean on one hand, on the other the giant range of the Andes. The world listens intently and hears nothing of what they say. One quietly disappears, saying words which have no meaning in them; the other as quietly takes his place. For twenty years all is mystery; then the veil is partially drawn aside, and it is seen that there is no mystery, that nothing had happened save what everyone knew was certain to befall. Only now that the masks have fallen we can read in the character of each one of them the motives which made the one relentless in his purpose and forced abdication on the other.

San Martin sent an auxiliary force to aid in the war in Quito without making conditions of any kind, and expected to receive help in Peru on the same terms, but after Pichincha, Bolívar was master of the situation, and could dictate his own terms. San Martin indulged the illusion that he was still one of the arbiters of South America, that Bolívar would share with him his political and his military power, and that in conference they would arrange together