But let us go back to our Virginia, the one who lives across the street. Now the naturalist writer shall paint her. This man begins with the most extraordinary action: he goes to see her!

Do not laugh: the simple fact of going to see Virginia when intending to describe Virginia, this is a revolution in Art! The entire Cartesian philosophy is here: it means that only the observation of phenomena gives us the science of things. That man goes to see Virginia, studies her figure, her ways, her voice; examines her past, enquires over her education, studies the environment in which she lives, the influences that surround her, the books she reads, the gestures she makes — and finally delivers a Virginia who is no Cordelia, no Ophelia, who is not St Augustine nor Clare of Burgundy — but who is this lady living in downtown Lisbon, in the year of our Lord 1879. Dear fellow-citizen, to which man do you give your preference? The first man lied to you. The Virginia before you is a vague being, made up of phrases, fleshless and boneless, and, consequently she cannot interest you, as she does not belong to the mankind to which you belong. She is a chimera, not a living being. Nothing of what she says, thinks or does brings you a line closer to knowing passion and mankind.

Such a Virginia cannot remain as a document about a society, in a definite period of time: it is a useless book.

What you have before you is a forged coin.

The second author gives you a lesson on social life: he puts before your eyes, in a nutshell, what are the Virginias of this time; he gives you to understand the core, the nature, the character or the woman with whom you must live. If Virginia, in conclusion, is not good — you shall ensure that your daughter be not like her; you may prepare yourself from this very moment for the daughter-in-law that awaits you; it is a lesson on the present and, for the future, it will stay as a document of history.

It is a verification of nature.

And this is for you, dear fellow-citizen, reduced to a familiar formula, within the grasp of your comprehension and disrobed of philosophical mists, what is naturalism, in painting, in romance and in drama.

Bristol, 1879