In these words the purpose and ambition of the man appear. To be the “Pacificator and Regenerator” where Bolivar was the Liberator is worthy the ambition of any man; and he who will erect a statue of Washington as the ideal his people should carry in their minds cannot be without a good motive somewhere in his consciousness. Future historians, when they look back upon the career of Guzman Blanco, will be more generous than contemporaneous critics, and will forget that he erected these statues to himself. There are three statues to Guzman now standing in Caracas, but nobody would believe it if the number of tablets erected in his honor were told. You can scarcely look in any direction without being officially informed in letters carved in enduring marble that this, that, or the other thing was done by the order of, or under the administration of, that illustrious American, etc. One night all these statues and many of the tablets were pulled down. It is a curious story, and the United States has what the play-bills call a contemporaneous human interest in the affair, for the _casus belli_ was a Boston girl. Guzman, when he was President, had a nephew of whom he was very fond, and who was made by him the commander-in-chief of the Venezuelan army. He was engaged to an American girl, whose parents lived in Caracas then, but now in Boston. For some reason the girl’s father and the President had a violent quarrel, and the former was notified that it would be to his welfare to leave the country. In these Spanish-American countries a man who values his life never awaits a second invitation of this sort, and the Boston gentleman, with his family, took the next steamer. They were accompanied to La Guayra by the young general, who made no secret of his sympathy with the father of his _fiancée_, and expressed his views of the President’s tyranny in a very emphatic manner. Guzman sent for the young man, and advised him to hold his tongue and let the girl go. The passionate lover gave his uncle some very plain words, which ended in his being offered a choice between his commission in the army and his North American sweetheart. He broke his sword over his knees, threw the severed blade at Guzman’s feet, and tore off his epaulettes. That night all the statues of Guzman fell down. It was discovered that the bronze had been sawed where the feet met the pedestals, and a rope used to tumble them over. Of course the young general was suspected, and he followed his girl to Boston to escape his uncle’s wrath. The romance ended in a marriage, as all good love stories do, and after residing in Boston the couple returned to Caracas, where they now live--she one of the most attractive and accomplished ladies in the city, and he an exporter of coffee and chocolate. Guzman has never forgiven him, and some of his friends think his life is not safe there, but he laughs at their timidity. [Illustration: AN OLD PATIO.]