Married, she seems to resign herself contentedly to a purely domestic life; one enters homes in Brazil whose handsome hostess entertains delightfully, always exquisitely dressed, and sparkling with the big diamonds that are considered the simple right of every woman in Brazil—my washerwoman in Rio had a pair of brilliant earrings that cost three contos of reis, representing her life’s savings—but this same smiling hostess will never be seen outside her spacious home and gardens, except upon the formal occasions when she is obliged to make an appearance in public with her husband. She not infrequently displays a tendency to embonpoint early in life, the result of lack of exertion and the eating of the extraordinary and delicious doces (sweets and candies), the creation of which is a special art of Brazilian women, but she does not mind this at all, fearing a thin figure as the most terrible of disasters in this land where the highest compliment paid to a woman is: “How pretty and fat you are getting!” Gorda and bonita are indeed interchangeable terms.
She accepts her destiny as a mother of many children, and generally spoils them badly, at least in their infancy; the father is equally indulgent. A harsh parent is a rara avis, and nothing excites popular indignation in Brazil more than any story of hardship in which children are concerned. Passionately devoted to her babies, the Brazilian mother stays within her home, is the gracious sovereign of her circle, and seems little disturbed when it expands notably. This expansion is likely to happen if any relative either on her side or her husband’s falls upon evil days; in that case he will come with his family and camp out until fortune smiles again. There is no turning of the cold shoulder upon poor relations in Brazil—they are welcome to a share of the family fare, and to hammock space if beds are lacking in the case of poorer homes, secure in the knowledge that they in turn will repay this good deed with similar ones later on. The city centres have of course their more rigid social laws, but in the less restricted life of smaller towns or fazendas there is often encountered another variation from the harsher rules of some other lands: this is the placid acceptance into a home of children who do not claim the mistress of the house as mother, but who receive from her bed and board and a status little inferior to that of her own babies, regular members of society. Lapses from social law occur all over the world; they are punished to a greater or lesser degree everywhere, but in some countries the innocent suffer more than the guilty; unhappy and unwanted children bear a stigma against which they rebel in vain. Brazilian opinion does not spare offenders, but it does withhold any harsh hand from innocent children. Acknowledged and treated with affection, they are given a chance in life together with the more fortunate.
Life in the two chief cities of Brazil, Rio and São Paulo, takes its hue from the European capitals with which they are closely in touch, and from which they have derived mental food for many a generation. There is little about either of these fine cities, apart from the hot summers, the brilliant vegetation, their remarkable cleanliness and the Southern Cross overhead, to distinguish them from European cities; the clothes, amusements, buildings, and literature of the population is predominantly European, and there is not much to remind the visitor that he is in tropical South America. Rio is the “intellectual centre” of Brazil, and here are gathered the scores of good writers and poets, the artists and politicians, of the country; there is a profuse and characteristic literature. If the North American writer was correct in saying that “American literature is only a phase of English literature,” he would have been equally justified in saying that South American literature is a phase of French literature: yet in Brazil this would have less truth than in most parts of Latin America, because this country has so largely developed a series of writers who take native Brazilian life for their theme. There are long lists of Brazilian novels and poems which really reflect Brazil conditions in the very varied sections of the country; I know no other South American country whose literature is so emancipated, not from French style so much as from European subject matter. There is for instance the excellent work of the Visconde de Taunay, whose charming Innocencia is a picture of interior conditions, and has been translated into almost every language, not excepting Japanese. The books of José de Alencar form another series of provincial pictures; Machado de Assis wrote a number of historical novels of great merit and interest; Coelho Netto, Aluisio de Azevedo, J. M. de Macedo, Xavier Marques, are among a score of names of writers who have left records of Brazilian life. If I were advising the study of a brief list of such novels, this would be a preliminary dozen:—
Innocencia: by the Visconde de Taunay. Novel of fazenda life in the interior—a delicate and touching story.
Os Sertões: by Euclydes da Cunha. Powerful and vivid description of a page of national history, with a setting in the interior Brazilian uplands.
O Sertão: by Coelho Netto. Scene also laid in the interior, with its simple customs.
O Mulato: Aluisio de Azevedo. Deals with the position of the negro half-caste in Brazil.
O Gaucho: José de Alencar. Life of the Brazilian cowboy.
Os Praieiros: Xavier Marques. Life of the fisherfolk on islands near Bahia.
O Paroara: Rodolpho Theophilo. Exodus of the Cearenses to the rubber forests of the Amazon.