Diario las Américas Newspaper, December 2, 1956, Page 22

Sees Ae te POPE SiS Le ar etn f SS ean Bie TS eR Se al ees ee le Pee ee eee ** wre he Mee toads oasis |B ya) The. Versatile Andrés Bello A VENEZUELAN WHOSE INFLUENCE SPREAD THROUGHOUT TWO CONTINENTS BY ERNESTO ARDURA IN DECEMBER 1855 the Chil- ean Congress approved a Civil Cede for the young republic. A . hundred years have passed, and — with the modifications that time has naturally. made necessary — it is still in effect. There could be ne better proof of the accomplish- ment of its Venezuelan-born au- thor, Andrés Bello. Bello’s Code put an end to an era of juridical anar¢hy in Chile. So numerous and sometimes so comtradictory, were the laws Spain had decreed for its colonies that it was difficult to tell which were in force, particularly when to this confusion was added the abun- dance of laws passed by Chilean legislators after the independence. The influence of the Code on other American countries was, according to Bello’s biographer Pedro Lira Urquieta, “almost comparable to that of the Napoleonic Code on Europe,” and several of them, im- eluding Colombian and Ecuador, adopted it. * But Andrés Bello was not only a lawmaker. Teacher, grammarian, literary and historical scholar, poet with Hemisphere-wide influence, he may well be called the “civilizer of America.” His position in Span- ish American culture is one of bal- ance and synthesis. A contemporary, friend, amd . teacher of Simén Bolivar, Bello was personally Bolivar’s ‘exact op- posite. The one was ruled by heroic fire the other by intellectual rest- lessness. They were fighters of dif- ferent tempers, but with a single objective: freedom for Ameri- cans. Bolivar sought it amid the thunder and lightning of battles, Bello in spiritual labors, in the task of civilization. His whole life was marked by the serenity, the hard-won inner harmony, that we notice in the portrait of him at the National Library in Caracas, attri- buted to the French painter Mon- voisin. Bello was born in 1781, into a modest Caracas family. His father was an inspector with the Treasury and was fond of music — two quite antithetical activities. What he earned could barely support a fam- ily of eight children. If it was dome at all it was owing to the house- keeping. skill of Ana Antonia Lé- pez de Bello, an intelligent and spirited woman, who taught her children their letters and gave them their early religious training. Andrés proved such a diligent student that his parents put his education imto the hands of Friar Crist6bal de Quesada, librarian of the near-by Convent of La Merced. From Friar Cristobal, a man of vast learning whose library was an active intellectual center, Bello received a solid foundation. He learned Spanish and Latin, and even translated Virgil. By the time Friar Cristébal died in 1796, young Andrés was familiar with the classics and alive with the in- tellectual curiosity his teacher had instilled. He continued. his studies with Father José Montenegro, who once observing him absorbed in a tra- gedy of Racine’s, said in reproof: “It is a great pity, my friend, that you should havé learned French.” This language was at the time the principal vehicle for revolutionary amd liberal ideas. Bello has. access to them early, and they made a profound impression on him. In the final examinations, Bello won the prize for oratory and re- ceived high praise from the board. At sixteen he entered the Univer- sity of Caracas to study almost its Reprinted from AMERICAS, monthly magazine published by the Pan American Union in English, Spanish and Portu- guese, SRT SRD OR ORE RONG SSIES EAE ESN TIO HES entire curriculum: philosophy, law, and medicine. Like a man of the Renaissance, he wanted to learn and know everything. He took his degree in philosophy and studied law for two years, until he received a government appointment. About this time Bello met at the house of his friend the Marquis of Ustariz, two European scholars who influenced him greatly: Hum- boldt and Bonpland. Always in- terested in geography, he may have accompanied them on their excursions and given them in- formation about the region. He is said to have gone to Mt. Avila with them but to have been too exhausted to complete the climb. What is certain is that he was de- veloping the love of American nat- ure of which he was later to sing in his poetry. Despite his sthymess and re- ticence, the young student had romantic episodes. He. was always very discreet in such matters, but evidence is provided by some of his verses, such as this one addres- sed to a blond girl in whose arms he wanted to die: Felice yo si en este albergue muero, y al exhalar mi aliento fugitive, sello en tus labios el adiés postrero! Happy would I be in this shelter to die And, on exhaling my AAC breath, To seal,on your lips my last goodbye! These compliments seem not to have been convincing; the lady ap- parently disdained him. Instead of the romantie death he had aspir- ed to, he found himself with a life before him to be filled with ef- ean avoOEk be f ge fort, struggle, defeat, experiences of every kind. He relieved his anxieties through poetry, that fa- vorit confidant in romantic mat* ters. In April 1810, an opportunity arose for him to go in search of new horizons. The Spanish Gover- nor was overthrown, and the Re- volutionary Junta the first inde- pendent government in Spanish The America, appointed Bello secret- ary of a mission to London charged with securing recognition of the new regime. Simon Bolivar and Luis Lépez Méndez were also on the committee. Uu a point, Eng- land looked with favor on the re- bellion of the Spanish colonies, be- cause it would open their ports to trade; at the same time, the British did not want to make an open enemy of Spain when the two countries were fighting a com- mon enemy, Napoleon. Therefore, though the Venezuelan mission was received courteously, it could not obtain the support it sought. If anything at all was achieved, it was the aid offered to Bolivar and to Francisco de Miranda, which en- abled them to return to America to go on with the work of emancipa- tion. Bello and Lopez Méndez re- mained in London to continue the negotiations. : But soon the Revolutionary Jun- ta found itself in difficulties. The Spanish armies had fought their way to Caracas‘ and, taking advant- age of a calamitious earthquake that left the city in ruins, defeated the patriots and reestablished the colonial government. For Bello this left only one choice. In Venezuela there was war, for which his temperament was not suited; in London there was peace and work, if nothing more. He remained there nine- teen years, from 1810 to 1829, giv- ing Spanish lessons, working in the Andrés Bello was born in this house in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1781, “PIG. 6 0=C~C~s*s—‘“‘“‘“‘“‘“‘“i‘“i‘“i‘i‘;TOCO!;!WOOUOUOUOOOOOOCN“SMISP ERE ee a RAE Chilean and Colombian legations, frequenting the libraries, and pre- paring himself through study and meditation for his future missicn as teacher of Chile and of Ameri- ca. The humanistic education ac- quired in his boyhood now receiv- ed the impact of Anglo-Saon em- Piricism, principally that of Locke. influence of these ideas is evident in a textbook he later wrote: Filosofia del Entendimien o (Philosophy of Understanding), considered by Meméndez y Pele o “the most important work of ‘is kind in American literature.” Ex- pounding in it the principles of psychology and logic; Bello follo-v- ed the English authors almost en- tirely. His thought combined t-e influences of the Enlightenment the ideological foundation of the liberal movement in America with the experimentalism of the English philesophers. The result was a mature judgment and keen insight into the problems of his time. He was married twice, both times to Englishwomen: first to May An- ne Boyland, who died very young and left him with two children; and second, with better luck, to Elizabeth Dunn. The marriage was a happy one, though the Bellos’ financial difficulties multiplied as their family increased. Adapted by now to life in Eng- land, Bello had not forgotten Ame- rica. He was attentive to every- thing that happened in his distant country. Perceiving more and more clearly that the best contribution he could make to the American cause would be in the spreading of culture and the awakening of minds, he contributed to magazines that served these aims, such as El Censor Americano, Biblioteca Americana, and El Repertorio Ame ricano. These were all short-lived, but Bello’s work on them was . fruitful and he published some of his research in them. This was the period when he wrote his American-inspired poetry — the “Alocucién a la Poesia” and the “Silva a la Agricultura de la Zona Torrida”. From the early age he had been drawn to poetry. Simple, bucolic themes inspired his first compositions: the ballad “AL Anauco,” in which he sang, with mythological allusions, of the tran- quil life along the river beside which he was born; the Arcadian lyric “A un Saman,” dedicated to a giant Venezuelan tree; the son- net “Mi Deseo,” about the delights of coumtry life in the company of that blond lady who seems to have been the muse of his youth in Cae racas. But actually these were mere babblings. Not till the two silva did his poetry reach a high point The silvas were intended to be pavb SUNDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1956.