intention, owing in no small measure to a lack of self-discipline and an artistically unripe sincerity. _Urupês_ was soon followed by _Idéas de Jéca Tatú_, his Jéca Tatú being a fisherman of Parahyba, a “cobrizo,” first introduced in the preceding book and symbolizing the inertia of the native. In the second book, however, the ideas are anything but those of inertia; Lobato has got into the skin of the fisherman and produced a series of admirable essays and critiques. Of similar nature are the chapters embodied in _Cidades Mortas_. _Negrinha_ is a collection of short stories. In addition to being the author of these books, he is the editor of a splendid magazine, _Revista do Brazil_, the publisher of volumes by the rising generation of literary redeemers, instructor to his nation in hygiene, and his energies flow over into yet other channels. He is also the writer of several books for children. The best known of these is _Narizinho Arrebitado_ or, as who should say _Little Snub-Nose_, and with an appropriate blush I confess that the little girl’s adventures among the flowers and creatures of her native land were responsible for the theft of some hours from the study of fatter, less childish, tomes. As one who would renovate the letters of his nation, Lobato naturally has much to say, inside of Brazil and outside, of the former and present figures of the country’s literature. His work in every phase is first of all an act of nationalism. From the exclusive stylistic standpoint Lobato is terse, vigorous, intense, to the point. The chapters devoted to the creation of a style (in _Jéca Tatú_) form a valid plea for a genuinely autochthonous art, and it is instructive to see how he treats the question in its relation to architecture. Brazil has native flora, fauna and mythology which its writers are neglecting for the repetition of the hackneyed hosts of Hellas. (Yet Lobato nods betimes and sees the Laocoön in a gnarled tree.) He is an “anti-literary” writer, scorning the finer graces, yet, besides betraying acute consciousness of being a writer, he employs situations that have been overdone time and again, and worse still, in plots that are no more Brazilian than they are Magyar or Senegalese. Thus, in _O Bugio Moqueado_ we encounter a tale of a woman forced daily to eat a dish prepared by her vindictive husband from the slain body of her lover. It is characteristic that the Brazilian author heaps the horror generously, without at all adding to the effect of the theme as it appears in Greek mythology or in the lore of old Provence.