The creation of Caeiro and of the discipleship of Reis and Campos seems, at first sight, an elaborate joke of the imagination. But it is not. It [is] a great act of intellectual magic, a magnum opus of the impersonal creative power.

I need all the concentration I can have for the preparation of what may be called, figuratively as an act of intellectual magic - that is to say, for the preparation of a literary creation in a, so to speak, fourth dimension of the mind.