[12] Oh, Lord, I feel and well you see that I am dying as I breathe this air; let me live, O Lord, let me feel, once again the joys of my native hearth. I would sleep in the shade of the cocoa-trees with their leaves as my canopy; and see whether I could catch the white butterfly that flies in the orchard. I want to sit beside the little stream at the fall of dusk, alone in the twilight filled with dreams of the future. Give me the sweet spots where I romped with the other children, let me see once again the sky of my fatherland, the skies of my Brazil. My grave will be among the mango-trees, bathed in the light of the moon. And there I shall sleep contentedly in the shadow of my hearth. The waterfalls will weep in deep-felt grief because I died so soon, while I in my sepulchre shall dream of my loves, in the land where I was born. [13] With respect to a related subject Verissimo has uttered words quite as wise, in harmony with the esthetic view of nationalism. “In no other Brazilian poets do I find, together with a banal facility in versification, the eminent qualities of poetry.… Another salient quality of these poets (that is, of those whom Verissimo groups into the second Romantic generation, including Gonçalves Dias, Alvares de Azevedo, Casimiro de Abreu, Junqueiro Freire, Laurindo Rabello) is their nationalism. Not that factitious nationalism of duty or erudition, in which intention and process are clearly discernible, but the expression--unconscious, so to say--of the national soul itself, in its feeling, its manner of speech, its still rudimentary thought. They are not national because they speak of _bores_, _tacapes_ or _inubias_, or sing the savages that rove these lands. With the exception of Gonçalves Dias, none of them is even ‘Indianist.’ Casimiro de Abreu, upon whom Gonçalves Dias made so great an impression, whose nostalgia derives largely from the _Cançõ do Exilio_ (Song of Exile) no longer sings the Indian. Neither do Alvares de Azevedo, Laurindo or the others.” _Estudos_, II, Pages 19-20. [14] See _Historia da Litteratura Brasileira_ Vol. II, pages 476-601. [15] See, in Part Two of this book, the chapter devoted to Castro Alves. [16] Benedicto, Costa, _Le Roman au Brésil_. P. 70. [17] Carvalho, Op. Cit. P. 263. Yet many will refuse to believe that Alencar’s Indians are natural. Indeed, Alencar himself has repudiated any realistic intention. [18] From a document first published by the author’s son, Dr. Mario de Alencar of the Brazilian Academy, in 1893, twenty years after it was written, under the title _Como E Porque Sou Romancista_ (How And Why I Became a Novelist). I have translated these excerpts from the article as reprinted in João Ribeiro’s _Auctores Contemporaneos_, 6a Edição, Refundida, Rio de Janeiro, 1907. [19] _The American Novel_, New York, 1921. [20] Op. Cit. Pp. 77-78. CHAPTER V CRITICAL REACTION (1870-1900)