As I said, I was ten years old, and I was also kneeling in the chapel where the imposing sculpture is venerated. While my companions gave thanks for the pleasure of life with fervent piety, I remember that I was brooding, very much in disharmony

with the thankful actions of those people.

Those early hours of the 24th of July! The morning twilight in the East, the birds psalming the orb as it awakens from under the crimson fringes of its bed of gold and sapphires! And I, on the fourth flight of the “stairway of the senses” with my back rreverently turned on Solomon, and my eyes filled with beauty, beyond, gazing on the fulcrum on which the invisible hand of

the supreme Architect was resting the axle that turns the earth!...

(No Bom Jesus do Monte, 1864)

On Saturday I will go to Bom Jesus – the Hotel do Parque. I choose this inn because it is frequented by idiots. The other has an aristocratic clientele that irritates me – too many viscounts who might eclipse my crown.

(Letter to Ricardo Jorge, undated)

The Camilo Castelo Branco Garden I feel a great need for the air and the solitude of Bom Jesus.

(Letter to Bernadina Amélia, undated)

It was at “Our Lord of the Mount” that I heard the first speech by D. João de Azevedo on spiritualism, the literary trends of the world, the miserable reach of Portuguese letters, the gangrene of the human heart, and, to top it all off, the ladies of Braga. Afterwards, we each inscribed our poetry on the wall of the chapel of the ascension of Christ, in the Yard of the Evangelists. D. João’s poetry was a Farewell to Hope.

(No Bom Jesus do Monte, 1864)