"
"What Portuguese hero are you lecturing about now, uncle?" called back
Dwight, saucily, but was at once suppressed by his mother. Hope
answered lightly,
"We have found better heroes than those old Portuguese fighters, we
think; haven't we, Mr. Lawrence?"
"Yes. Still, there is one man whom I greatly admire, of this nation,
and I think we will visit his statue next. What do you know about Luiz
de Camoes, or, as we write it, Camoens, Dwight?"
"Gracious! Nothing at all; never heard of him. Was he a fighter?"
"Hardly. At any rate he did his fighting in a noble way--rather like
heaping coals of fire I should say. He was a writer."
"Oh, tell us about him, uncle."
"What! A lecture? But that is not admissible in polite society."
"Now, don't tease. You know we are all dying to hear about him.
Proceed!"
"Dying?" put in Mrs. Vanderhoff. "How extravagantly you talk, my son."
"Well, crazy, then."
She laughed hopelessly.
"Go on, pray," she said to her brother. "He simply leaps from the
frying-pan into the fire."
"De Camoens," he said, "was by no means without faults, but he was
gifted, generous, forgiving, and brave. He was foolish enough to love
a lady too near the throne, and on that account was banished, and
endured many hardships for years. Yet he did not let this dampen his
love of country, and his loyalty to the government. Though an exile,
he wrote a romantic epic extolling the deeds of his countrymen in all
ages, which has become a great classic, and has made both them and
himself immortal.
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