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Úrsula
MARIA FIRMINA DOS REIS
"- My friend, please accept this little gift that I bring to you, and buy your freedom with it.
Túlio, therefore, received through money what God had given him, as to all the living beings. He was free as air, as his parents had been, back in those Africa's arid backlands; and, as if he were the shadow of his young protector, he was willing to follow him everywhere… Freedom was all Tulio aspired to; he had it, he was happy!"
"I love solitude; because the voice of the Lord reigns there; because there the heart is stripped of the pride of society, which dulls it, which rots it, and freed from that shameful chain, it returns to God and seeks and finds it; because with the gift of ubiquity He is there!"
MARIA FIRMINA DOS REIS
"The African lady wiped her face with her hands, and a moment later exclaimed:
- Yes, what are these tears for?!... You say it well! They are useless, my God; but it is a tribute of nostalgia, which I cannot fail to render to everything that was dear to me! Freedom! Freedom… ah! I enjoyed it in my youth!"
MARIA FIRMINA DOS REIS
"The pain of losing one's homeland, loved ones, and freedom was suffocated on this trip by the constant horror of such atrocities."
MARIA FIRMINA DOS REIS
"And the poor man suffered; because he was a slave, and slavery had not brutalized his soul; because the generous feelings, which God implanted in his heart, remained intact and pure as his soul. He was unhappy but he was virtuous; and therefore his heart softened in the presence of the painful scene, which offered itself to his view."
MARIA FIRMINA DOS REIS
"his wife and daughter tried in their extreme kindness to make us forget our past misfortunes! Túlio, my son, I love them with all my heart, and I am thankful but the pain that I have in my heart, only death can erase! - my husband, my daughter, my land … my freedom …"
MARIA FIRMINA DOS REIS