Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot - Austin Craig
In the Museum of Art at Dresden, Rizal saw a painting of "Prometheus
Bound," which recalled to him a representation of the same idea
in a French gallery, and from memory he modeled this figure, which
especially appealed to him as being typical of his country.
In Austrian territory he first visited Doctor Ferdinand Blumentritt,
whom Rizal had known by reputation for many years and with whom he had
long corresponded. The two friends stayed at the Hotel Roderkrebs,
but were guests at the table of the Austrian professor, whose wife
gave them appetizing demonstrations of the characteristic cookery
of Hungary. During Rizal's stay he was very much interested in a
gathering of tourists, arranged to make known the beauties of that
picturesque region, sometimes called the Austrian Switzerland, and
he delivered an address upon this occasion. It is noteworthy that
the present interest in attracting tourists to the Philippines, as
an economic benefit to the country, was anticipated by Doctor Rizal
and that he was always looking up methods used in foreign countries
for building up tourists' travel.
One day, while the visitors were discussing Philippine matters with
their host, Doctor Rizal made an off hand sketch of Doctor Blumentritt,
on a scrap of paper which happened to be at hand, so characteristic
that it serves as an excellent portrait, and it has been preserved
among the Rizal relics which Doctor Blumentritt had treasured of the
friend for whom he had so much respect and affection.
With a letter of introduction to a friend of Doctor Blumentritt in
Vienna, Nordenfels, the greatest of Austrian novelists, Doctor Viola
and Doctor Rizal went on to the capital, where they were entertained
by the Concordia Club. So favorable was the impression that Rizal
made upon Mr. Nordenfels that an answer was written to the note of
introduction, thanking the professor for having brought to his notice
a person whom he had found so companionable and whose genius he so
much admired. Nordenfels had been interested in Spanish subjects,
and was able to discuss intelligently the peculiar development of
Castilian civilization and the politics of the Spanish metropolis as
they affected the overseas possessions.
After having seen Rome and a little more of Italy, they embarked for
the Philippines, again on the French mail, from Marseilles, coming
by way of Saigon, where a rice steamer was taken for Manila.
CHAPTER VII
The Period of Propaganda
The city had not altered much during Rizal's seven years of
absence. The condition of the Binondo pavement, with the same holes
in the road which Rizal claimed he remembered as a schoolboy, was
unchanged, and this recalls the experience of Ybarra in "Noli Me
Tangere" on his homecoming after a like period of absence.
Doctor Rizal at once went to his home in Kalamba. His first operation
in the Philippines relieved the blindness of his mother, by the removal
of a double cataract, and thus the object of his special study in
Paris was accomplished. This and other like successes gave the young
oculist a fame which brought patients from all parts of Luzon; and,
though his charges were moderate, during his seven months' stay
in the Islands Doctor Rizal accumulated over five thousand pesos,
besides a number of diamonds which he had bought as a secure way of
carrying funds, mindful of the help that the ring had been with which
he had first started from the Philippines.
Shortly after his arrival, Governor-General Terrero summoned Rizal by
telegraph to Malacanan from Kalamba. The interview proved to be due
to the interest in the author of "Noli Me Tangere" and a curiosity
to read the novel, arising from the copious extracts with which the
Manila censors had submitted an unfavorable opinion when asking for
the prohibition of the book. The recommendation of the censor was
disregarded, and General Terrero, fearful that Rizal might be molested
by some of the many persons who would feel themselves aggrieved by his
plain picturing of undesirable classes in the Philippines, gave him for
a bodyguard a young Spanish lieutenant, Jose Taviel de Andrade. The
young men soon became fast friends, as they had artistic and other
tastes in common. Once they climbed Mr. Makiling, near Kalamba,
and placed there, after the European custom, a flag to show that
they had reached the summit. This act was at first misrepresented by
the enemies of Rizal as planting a German banner, for they started
a story that he had taken possession of the Islands in the name of
the country where he was educated, which was just then in unfriendly
relations with Spain over the question of the ill treatment of the
Protestant missionaries in the Caroline Islands. This same story was
repeated after the American occupation with the variation that Rizal,
as the supreme chief and originator of the ideas of the Katipunan
(which in fact he was not--he was even opposed to the society as it
existed in his time), had placed there a Filipino banner, in token
that the Islands intended to reassume the independent condition of
which the Spanish had dispossessed them.
"Noli Me Tangere" circulated first among Doctor Rizal's relatives;
on one occasion a cousin made a special trip to Kalamba and took
the author to task for having caricatured her in the character of
Dona Victorina. Rizal made no denial, but merely suggested that the
book was a mirror of Philippine life, with types that unquestionably
existed in the country, and that if anybody recognized one of the
characters as picturing himself or herself, that person would do well
to correct the faults which therein appeared ridiculous.
A somewhat liberal administration was now governing the Philippines,
and efforts were being made to correct the more glaring abuses in
the social conditions. One of these reforms proposed that the larger
estates should bear their share of the taxes, which it was believed
they were then escaping to a great extent. Requests were made of the
municipal government of Kalamba, among other towns, for a statement
of the relation that the big Dominican hacienda bore to the town,
what increase or decrease there might have been in the income of the
estate, and what taxes the proprietors were paying compared with the
revenue their place afforded.
Rizal interested the people of the community to gather reliable
statistics, to go thoroughly into the actual conditions, and to leave
out the generalities which usually characterized Spanish documents.
He asked the people to cooeperate, pointing out that when they
did not complain it was their own fault more than that of the
government if they suffered injustice. Further, he showed the folly
of exaggerated statements, and insisted upon a definite and moderate
showing of such abuses as were unquestionably within the power of
the authorities to relieve. Rizal himself prepared the report, which
is an excellent presentation of the grievances of the people of his
town. It brings forward as special points in favor of the community
their industriousness, their willingness to help themselves, their
interest in education, and concludes with expressing confidence
in the fairness of the government, pointing out the fact that they
were risking the displeasure of their landlords by furnishing the
information requested. The paper made a big stir, and its essential
statements, like everything else in Rizal's writings, were never
successfully challenged.
Conditions in Manila were at that time disturbed owing to the
precedence which had been given in a local festival to the Chinese,
because they paid more money. The Filipinos claimed that, being in
their home country, they should have had prior consideration and were
entitled to it by law. The matter culminated in a protest, which was
doubtless submitted to Doctor Rizal on the eve of his departure from
the Islands; the protest in a general way met with his approval, but
the theatrical methods adopted in the presentation of it can hardly
have been according to his advice.
He sailed for Hongkong in February of 1888, and made a short stay in
the British colony, becoming acquainted there with Jose Maria Basa, an
exile of '72, who had constituted himself the especial guardian of the
Filipino students in that city. The visitor was favorably impressed by
the methods of education in the British colony and with the spirit of
patriotism developed thereby. He also looked into the subject of the
large investments in Hongkong property by the corporation landlords
of the Philippines, their preparation for the day of trouble which
they foresaw.
Rizal was interested in the Chinese theater, comparing the plays with
the somewhat similar productions which existed in the Philippines;
there, however, they had been given a religious twist, which at
first glance hid their debt to the Chinese drama. The Doctor notes
meeting, at nearby Macao, an exile of '72, whose condition and patient,
uncomplaining bearing of his many troubles aroused Rizal's sympathies
and commanded his admiration.
With little delay, the journey was continued to Japan, where Doctor
Rizal was surprised by an invitation to make his home in the Spanish
consulate. There he was hospitably entertained, and a like courtesy
was shown him in the Spanish minister's home in Tokio. The latter
even offered him a position, as a sort of interpreter, probably,
should he care to remain in the country. This offer, however, was
declined. Rizal made considerable investigation into the condition
of the various Japanese classes and acquired such facility in the
use of the language that with it and his appearance, for he was "very
Japanese," the natives found it difficult to believe that he was not
one of themselves. The month or more passed here he considered one of
the happiest in his travels, and it was with regret that he sailed
from Yokohama for San Francisco. A Japanese newspaper man, who knew
no other language than his own, was a companion on the entire journey
to London, and Rizal acted as his interpreter.
Not only did he enter into the spirit of the language but with
remarkable versatility he absorbed the spirit of the Japanese artists
and acquired much dexterity in expressing himself in their style,
as is shown by one of the illustrations in this book. The popular
idea that things occidental are reversed in the Orient was amusingly
caricatured in a sketch he made of a German face; by reversing its
lines he converted it into an old-time Japanese countenance.
The diary of the voyage from Hongkong to Japan records an incident to
which he alludes as being similar to that of Aladdin in the Tagalog
tale of Florante. The Filipino wife of an Englishman, Mrs. Jackson,
who was a passenger on board, told Rizal a great deal about a
Filipino named Rachal, who was educated in Europe and had written a
much-talked-of novel, which she described and of which she spoke in
such flattering terms that Rizal declared his identity. The confusion
in names is explained by the fact that Rachal is a name well known
in the Philippines as that of a popular make of piano.
At San Francisco the boat was held for some time in quarantine because
of sickness aboard, and Rizal was impressed by the fact that the
valuable cargo of silk was not delayed but was quickly transferred to
the shore. His diary is illustrated with a drawing of the Treasury
flag on the customs launch which acted as go-between for their boat
and the shore. Finally, the first-class passengers were allowed to
land, and he went to the Palace Hotel.
With little delay, the overland journey was begun; the scenery through
the picturesque Rocky Mountains especially impressed him, and finally
Chicago was reached. The thing that struck him most forcibly in that
city was the large number of cigar stores with an Indian in front of
each--and apparently no two Indians alike. The unexpressed idea was
that in America the remembrance of the first inhabitants of the land
and their dress was retained and popularized, while in the Philippines
knowledge of the first inhabitants of the land was to be had only
from foreign museums.
Niagara Falls is the next impression recorded in the diary, which has
been preserved and is now in the Newberry Library of Chicago. The
same strange, awe-inspiring mystery which others have found in the
big falls affected him, but characteristically he compared this
world-wonder with the cascades of his native La Laguna, claiming for
them greater delicacy and a daintier enchantment.
From Albany, the train ran along the banks of the Hudson, and he was
reminded of the Pasig in his homeland, with its much greater commerce
and its constant activity.
At New York, Rizal embarked on the City of Rome, then the finest
steamer in the world, and after a pleasant voyage, in which his spare
moments were occupied in rereading "Gulliver's Travels" in English,
Rizal reached England, and said good-by to the friends whom he had
met during their brief ocean trip together.
Rizal's first letters home to his family speak of being in the free
air of England and once more amidst European activity. For a short
time he lived with Doctor Antonio Maria Regidor, an exile of '72,
who had come to secure what Spanish legal Business he could in the
British metropolis. Doctor Regidor was formerly an official in the
Philippines, and later proved his innocence of any complicity in the
troubles of '72.
Doctor Rizal then boarded with a Mr. Beckett, organist of St. Paul's
Church, at 37 Charlecote Crescent, in the favorite North West residence
section. The zooelogical gardens were conveniently near and the British
Museum was within easy walking distance. The new member was a favorite
with all the family, which consisted of three daughters besides the
father and mother.
Rizal's youthful interest in sleight-of-hand tricks was still
maintained. During his stay in the Philippines he had sometimes amused
his friends in this way, till one day he was horrified to find that
the simple country folk, who were also looking on, thought that he
was working miracles. In London he resumed his favorite diversion, and
a Christmas gift of Mrs. Beckett to him, "The Life and Adventures of
Valentine Vox the Ventriloquist," indicated the interest his friends
took in this amusement. One of his own purchases was "Modern Magic,"
the frontispiece of which is the sphinx that figures in the story of
"El Filibusterismo."
It was Rizal's custom to study the deceptions practiced upon the
peoples of other lands, comparing them with those of which his
own countrymen had been victims. Thus he could get an idea of the
relative credulity of different peoples and could also account
for many practices the origin of which was otherwise less easy to
understand. His investigations were both in books and by personal
research. In quest of these experiences he one day chanced to visit
a professional phrenologist; the bump-reader was a shrewd guesser,
for he dwelt especially upon Rizal's aptitude for learning languages
and advised him to take up the study of them.
This interest in languages, shown in his childish ambition to be
like Sir John Bowring, made Rizal a congenial companion of a still
more distinguished linguist, Doctor Reinhold Rost, the librarian of
the India Office. The Raffles Library in Singapore now owns Doctor
Rost's library, and its collection of grammars in seventy languages
attests the wide range of the studies of this Sanscrit scholar.
Doctor Rost was born and educated in Germany, though naturalized
as a British subject, and he was a man of great musical taste. His
family sometimes formed an orchestra, at other times a glee club, and
furnished all the necessary parts from its own members. Rizal was a
frequent visitor, usually spending his Sundays in athletic exercises
with the boys, for he quickly became proficient in the English sports
of boxing and cricket. While resting he would converse with the father,
or chat with the daughters of the home. All the children had literary
tastes, and one, Daisy, presented him with a copy of a novel which
she had just translated from the German, entitled "Ulli."
Some idea of Doctor Rizal's own linguistic attainments may be gained
from the fact that instead of writing letters to his nephews and nieces
he made for them translations of some of Hans Christian Andersen's
fairy tales. They consist of some forty manuscript pages, profusely
illustrated, and the father is referred to in a "dedication,"
as though it were a real book. The Hebrew Bible quotation is in
allusion to a jocose remark once made by the father that German was
like Hebrew to him, the verse being that in which the sons of Jacob,
not recognizing that their brother was the seller, were bargaining
for some of Pharaoh's surplus corn, "And he (Joseph) said, How is
the old man, your father?" Rizal always tried to relieve by a touch
of humor anything that seemed to him as savoring of affectation,
the phase of Spanish character that repelled him and the imitation
of which by his countrymen who knew nothing of the un-Spanish world
disgusted him with them.
Another example of his versatility in language and of its usefulness
to him as well, is shown in a trilingual letter written by Rizal in
Dapitan when the censorship of his correspondence had become annoying
through ignorant exceptions to perfectly harmless matters. No Spaniard
available spoke more than one language besides his own and it was
necessary to send the letter to three different persons to find out
its contents. The critics took the hint and Rizal received better
treatment thereafter.
Another one of Rizal's youthful aspirations was attained in London,
for there he began transcribing the early Spanish history by Morga of
which Sir John Bowring had told his uncle. A copy of this rare book
was in the British Museum and he gained admission as a reader there
through the recommendation of Doctor Rost. Only five hundred persons
can be accommodated in the big reading room, and as students are
coming from every continent for special researches, good reason has
to be shown why these studies cannot be made at some other institution.
Besides the copying of the text of Morga's history, Rizal read
many other early writings on the Philippines, and the manifest
unfairness of some of these who thought that they could glorify Spain
only by disparaging the Filipinos aroused his wrath. Few Spanish
writers held up the good name of those who were under their flag,
and Rizal had to resort to foreign authorities to disprove their
libels. Morga was almost alone among Spanish historians, but his
assertions found corroboration in the contemporary chronicles of
other nationalities. Rizal spent his evenings in the home of Doctor
Regidor, and many a time the bitterness and impatience with which his
day's work in the Museum had inspired him, would be forgotten as the
older man counseled patience and urged that such prejudices were to be
expected of a little educated nation. Then Rizal's brow would clear as
he quoted his favorite proverb, "To understand all is to forgive all."
Doctor Rost was editor of Truebner's Record, a journal devoted to the
literature of the East, founded by the famous Oriental Bookseller and
Publisher of London, Nicholas Truebner, and Doctor Rizal contributed
to it in May, 1889, some specimens of Tagal folklore, an extract from
which is appended, as it was then printed:
Specimens of Tagal Folklore
By Doctor J. Rizal
Proverbial Sayings
Malakas ang bulong sa sigaw, Low words are stronger than loud words.
Ang laki sa layaw karaniwa 'y hubad, A petted child is generally naked
(i.e. poor).
Hampasng magulang ay nakataba, Parents' punishment makes one fat.
Ibang hari ibang ugail, New king, new fashion.
Nagpuputol ang kapus, ang labis ay nagdurugtong, What is short cuts
off a piece from itself, what is long adds another on (the poor gets
poorer, the rich richer).
Ang nagsasabing tapus ay siyang kinakapus, He who finishes his words
finds himself wanting.
Nangangako habang napapako, Man promises while in need.
Ang naglalakad ng marahan, matinik may mababaw, He who walks slowly,
though he may put his foot on a thorn, will not be hurt very much
(Tagals mostly go barefooted).
Ang maniwala sa sabi 'y walang bait na sarili, He who believes in
tales has no own mind.
Ang may isinuksok sa dingding, ay may titingalain, He who has put
something between the wall may afterwards look on (the saving man
may afterwards be cheerful).--The wall of a Tagal house is made of
palm-leaves and bamboo, so that it can be used as a cupboard.
Walang mahirap gisingin na paris nang nagtutulogtulugan, The most
difficult to rouse from sleep is the man who pretends to be asleep.
Labis sa salita, kapus sa gawa, Too many words, too little work.
Hipong tulog ay nadadala ng anod, The sleeping shrimp is carried away
by the current.
Sa bibig nahuhuli ang isda, The fish is caught through the mouth.
Puzzles
Isang butil na palay sikip sa buony bahay, One rice-corn fills up
all the house.--The light. The rice-corn with the husk is yellowish.
Matapang ako so dalawa, duag ako sa isa, I am brave against two,
coward against one.--The bamboo bridge. When the bridge is made of
one bamboo only, it is difficult to pass over; but when it is made
of two or more, it is very easy.
Dala ako niya, dala ko siya, He carries me, I carry him.--The shoes.
Isang balong malalim puna ng patalim, A deep well filled with steel
blades.--The mouth.
The Filipino colony in Spain had established a fortnightly review,
published first in Barcelona and later in Madrid, to enlighten
Spaniards on their distant colony, and Rizal wrote for it from the
start. Its name, La Solidaridad, perhaps may be translated Equal
Rights, as it aimed at like laws and the same privileges for the
Peninsula and the possessions overseas.
From the Philippines came news of a contemptible attempt to reach
Rizal through his family--one of many similar petty persecutions. His
sister Lucia's husband had died and the corpse was refused interment
in consecrated ground, upon the pretext that the dead man, who had been
exceptionally liberal to the church and was of unimpeachable character,
had been negligent in his religious duties. Another individual with
a notorious record of longer absence from confession died about
the same time, and his funeral took place from the church without
demur. The ugly feature about the refusal to bury Hervosa was that the
telegram from the friar parish-priest to the Archbishop at Manila in
asking instructions, was careful to mention that the deceased was a
brother-in-law of Rizal. Doctor Rizal wrote a scorching article for
La Solidaridad under the caption "An Outrage," and took the matter
up with the Spanish Colonial Minister, then Becerra, a professed
Liberal. But that weakling statesman, more liberal in words than in
actions, did nothing.
That the union of Church and State can be as demoralizing to religion
as it is disastrous to good government seems sufficiently established
by Philippine incidents like this, in which politics was substituted
for piety as the test of a good Catholic, making marriage impossible
and denying decent burial to the families of those who differed
politically with the ministers of the national religion.
Of all his writings, the article in which Rizal speaks of this
indignity to the dead comes nearest to exhibiting personal feeling and
rancor. Yet his main point is to indicate generally what monstrous
conditions the Philippine mixture of religion and politics made
possible.
The following are part of a series of nineteen verses published in
La Solidaridad over Rizal's favorite pen name of Laong Laan:
To my Muse
(translation by Charles Derbyshire)
Invoked no longer is the Muse,
The lyre is out of date;
The poets it no longer use,
And youth its inspiration now imbues
With other form and state.
If today our fancies aught
Of verse would still require,
Helicon's hill remains unsought;
And without heed we but inquire,
Why the coffee is not brought.
In the place of thought sincere
That our hearts may feel,
We must seize a pen of steel,
And with verse and line severe
Fling abroad a jest and jeer.
Muse, that in the past inspired me,
And with songs of love hast fired me;
Go thou now to dull repose,
For today in sordid prose
I must earn the gold that hired me.
Now must I ponder deep,
Meditate, and struggle on;
E'en sometimes I must weep;
For he who love would keep
Great pain has undergone.
Fled are the days of ease,
The days of Love's delight;
When flowers still would please
And give to suffering souls surcease
From pain and sorrow's blight.
One by one they have passed on,
All I loved and moved among;
Dead or married--from me gone,
For all I place my heart upon
By fate adverse are stung.
Go thou, too, O Muse, depart,
Other regions fairer find;
For my land but offers art
For the laurel, chains that bind,
For a temple, prisons blind.