For years many have doubted whether it was possible to delve into the private history of Brazilians from previous centuries by reading their personal journals, considered nonexistent. However, recent research has demonstrated that the desire to reveal oneself to others by keeping diaries and other personal records also existed in Brazil in the 19th century. In this article we contend that the insufficiency or lack of visibility of diaries in Brazil resulted mainly from choice by our ancestors, who often opted to destroy such personal records to avoid having others shuffle curiously through their private lives. In other cases, archivists and researchers neglected to acknowledge and classify such documents as historical sources. More specifically, we analyze the diary of José Vieira Couto de Magalhães (1837-1898), an important 19th century Brazilian politician and intellectual, in the attempt to perceive to what extent the author's communication of himself also conveyed a little of the world in which he viewed himself, or how he related to it. Referring to the time he spent in London (1880-1887), the diary records his belittlement of women, his homoerotic dreams, his preening, his dread at the thought of falling ill, and other topics, thus constituting an excellent opportunity to highlight the legitimacy of sexuality as an object of research and reflection by the Social Sciences.
Personal diary; sexuality; Couto de Magalhães; intimacy