“He was born in Bahia, the region of so many excellent talents; the Brazilian Athens that does not weary of producing statesmen, orators, poets and warriors. “I might add that he is the son of a noted physician. But why? The genealogy of poets begins with their first poem. And what is the value of parchments compared with these divine seals?… “Sr. Castro Alves recalled that I had formerly written for the theatre. Appraising altogether too highly my experience in this difficult branch of literature, he wished to read me a drama, the first fruits of his talent. “This production has already weathered the test of competent audiences upon the stage.… “_Gonzaga_ is the title of the drama, which we read in a short time. The plot, centered about the revolutionary attempt at Minas,--a great source of historical poetry as yet little exploited,--has been enriched by the author with episodes of keen interest. “Sr. Castro Alves is a disciple of Victor Hugo, in the architecture of the drama, as in the coloring of the idea. The poem belongs to the same ideal school; the style has the same brilliant touches. “To imitate Victor Hugo is given only to capable intelligences. The Titan of literature possesses a palette that in the hands of a mediocre colorist barely produces splotches.… “Nevertheless, beneath this imitation of a sublime model is evidenced an original inspiration that will later form the literary individuality of the author. His work throbs with the powerful sentiment of nationality, that soul of the fatherland which makes great poets as it makes great citizens.… “After the reading of his drama, Sr. Castro Alves recited for me some of his verses. _A Cascata de Paulo Affonso_, _As duas ilhas_ and _A visão dos mortos_ do not yield to the excellent examples of this genre in the Portuguese tongue.… “Be the Virgil to this young Dante; lead him through the untrodden ways over which one travels to disillusionment, indifference and at length to glory,--the three vast circles of the _divine comedy_ of talent.” The reply from Machado de Assis came eleven days later. He found the newcomer quite as original as José de Alencar had made him out to be. Castro Alves possessed a genuine “literary vocation, full of life and vigour and revealing in the magnificence of the present the promise of the future. I found an original poet. The evil of our contemporary poetry is that it is imitative--in speech, ideas, imagery.… Castro Alves’s muse has her own manner. If it may be discerned that his school is that of Victor Hugo, it is not because he copies him servilely, but because a related temperament leads him to prefer the poet of the _Orientales_ to the poet of _Les Méditations_. He is certainly not attracted to the soft, languishing tints of the elegy; he prefers the live hues and the vigorous lines of the ode.”