As one reads this, a fable comes to mind out of childhood days. What is this poem of the fly, but the tale of the man who killed the goose that laid the golden eggs, retold in verses admirable for colour, freshness,--for everything, indeed, except originality and feeling? Those critics are right who find in Machado de Assis a certain homiletic preoccupation; but he is never the preacher, and his light is cast not upon narrow dogmas, with which he had nothing to do, but upon the broad ethical implications of every life that seeks to bring something like order into the chaos we call existence,--a thing without rhyme or reason, as he would have agreed, but what would you? Every game has its rules, even the game of hide and seek. And if rules are made to be broken, part of the game is in the making of them. Companioning the search for roots of illusion is the theme of eternal dissatisfaction. This Machado de Assis has put into one of the most quoted of Brazilian sonnets, which he calls _Circulo Vicioso_ (Vicious Circle): Bailando no ar, gemia inquieto vagalume: --“Quem me dera que fosse aquella loura estrella Que arde no eterno azul, como una eterna vela!” Mas a estrella, fitando a lua, com ciume: --“Pudesse eu copiar o transparente lume, Que, de grega columna á gothica janella, Contemplou, suspirosa, a fronte amada e bella!” Mas a lua, fitando o sol, com azedume: --“Misera! tivesse eu aquelle enorme, aquella Claridade immortal, que toda a luz resume!” Mas o sol, inclinando a rutila capella: --“Pesa-me esta brilhante aureola de nume.… Enfara-me esta azul e desmedida umbella.… Porque não nasci eu um simples vagalume?”[4]