Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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We Do
Not Find Among The Natives Of Spanish Origin, That Cold And
Assuming Air Which The Character Of Modern
Civilization seems to
have rendered less common in Spain than in the rest of Europe.
Conviviality, candour, and great simplicity
Of manner, unite the
different classes of society in the colonies, as well as in the
mother-country. It may even be said, that the expression of vanity
and self-love becomes less offensive, when it retains something of
simplicity and frankness.
I found in several families at Caracas a love of information, an
acquaintance with the masterpieces of French and Italian
literature, and a marked predilection for music, which is greatly
cultivated, and which (as always results from a taste for the fine
arts) brings the different classes of society nearer to each other.
The mathematical sciences, drawing, and painting, cannot here boast
of any of those establishments with which royal munificence and the
patriotic zeal of the inhabitants have enriched Mexico. In the
midst of the marvels of nature, so rich in interesting productions,
it is strange that we found no person on this coast devoted to the
study of plants and minerals. In a Franciscan convent I met, it is
true, with an old monk who drew up the almanac for all the
provinces of Venezuela, and who possessed some accurate knowledge
of astronomy. Our instruments interested him deeply, and one day
our house was filled with all the monks of San Francisco, begging
to see a dipping-needle.
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