is art, as in the conduct of life, he
practised a rigorous self-control. He printed nothing previous to 1855,
and the first of his poems to appear in a separate form was _La Lata_,
in 1860. In 1862 he left Coimbra for Beja, where he was appointed editor
of _O Bejense_, the chief newspaper in the province of Alemtejo, and
four years later he edited the _Folha do Sul_. As the pungent satirical
verses entitled _Eleicoes_ prove, he was not an ardent politician, and,
though he was returned as Liberal deputy for the constituency of Silves
in 1869, he acted independently of all political parties and promptly
resigned his mandate. The renunciation implied in the act, which cut him
off from all advancement, is in accord with nearly all that is known of
his lofty character. In the year of his election as deputy, his friend
Jose Antonio Garcia Blanco collected from local journals the series of
poems, _Flores do campo_, which is supplemented by the _Ramo de flores_
(1869). This is Joao de Deus's masterpiece. _Pires de Marmalada_ (1869)
is an improvisation of no great merit. The four theatrical
pieces--_Amemos o nosso proximo_, _Ser apresentado_, _Ensaio de
Casamento_, and _A Viuva inconsolavel_--are prose translations from
Mery, cleverly done, but not worth the doing. _Horacio e Lydia_ (1872),
a translation from Ronsard, is a good example of artifice in
manipulating that dangerously monotonous measure, the Portuguese
couplet. As an indication of a strong spiritual reaction three prose
fragments (1873)--_Anna, Mae de Maria_, _A Virgem Maria_ and _A Mulher
do Levita de Ephrain_--translated from Darboy's _Femmes de la Bible_,
are full of significance. The _Folhas soltas_ (1876) is a collection of
verse in the manner of _Flores do campo_, brilliantly effective and
exquisitely refined. Within the next few years the writer turned his
attention to educational problems, and in his _Cartilha maternal_ (1876)
first expressed the conclusions to which his study of Pestalozzi and
Froebel had led him. This patriotic, pedagogical apostolate was a
misfortune for Portuguese literature; his educational mission absorbed
Joao de Deus completely, and is responsible for numerous controversial
letters, for a translation of Theodore-Henri Barrau's treatise, _Des
devoirs des enfants envers leurs parents_, for a prosodic dictionary
and for many other publications of no literary value. A copy of verses
in Antonio Vieira's _Grinalda de Maria_ (1877), the _Loas