Lineage, Life and Labors of José Rizal, Philippine Patriot
And when its sound seems but to fling
A jest at its own low lament;
So in sad isolation pent,
My soul can neither feel nor sing.
There was a time--ah, 'tis too true--
But that time long ago has past--
When upon me the Muse had cast
Indulgent smile and friendship's due;
But of that age now all too few
The thoughts that with me yet will stay;
As from the hours of festive play
There linger on mysterious notes,
And in our minds the memory floats
Of minstrelsy and music gay.
A plant I am, that scarcely grown,
Was torn from out its Eastern bed,
Where all around perfume is shed,
And life but as a dream is known;
The land that I can call my own,
By me forgotten ne'er to be,
Where trilling birds their song taught me,
And cascades with their ceaseless roar,
And all along the spreading shore
The murmurs of the sounding sea.
While yet in childhood's happy day,
I learned upon its sun to smile,
And in my breast there seemed the while
Seething volcanic fires to play.
A bard I was, and my wish alway
To call upon the fleeting wind,
With all the force of verse and mind:
"Go forth, and spread around its fame,
From zone to zone with glad acclaim,
And earth to heaven together bind!"
But it I left, and now no more--
Like a tree that is broken and sere--
My natal gods bring the echo clear
Of songs that in past times they bore;
Wide seas I cross'd to foreign shore,
With hope of change and other fate;
My folly was made clear too late,
For in the place of good I sought
The seas reveal'd unto me naught,
But made death's specter on me wait.
All these fond fancies that were mine,
All love, all feeling, all emprise,
Were left beneath the sunny skies,
Which o'er that flowery region shine;
So press no more that plea of thine,
For songs of love from out a heart
That coldly lies a thing apart;
Since now with tortur'd soul I haste
Unresting o'er the desert waste,
And lifeless gone is all my art.
In Madrid a number of young Filipinos were intense enthusiasts over
political agitation, and with the recklessness of youth, were careless
of what they said or how they said it, so long as it brought no danger
to them. A sort of Philippine social club had been organized by older
Filipinos and Spaniards interested in the Philippines, with the idea
of quietly assisting toward improved insular conditions, but it became
so radical under the influence of this younger majority, that its
conservative members were compelled to drop out and the club broke
up. The young men were constantly holding meetings to revive it, but
never arrived at any effective conclusions. Rizal was present at some
of these meetings and suggested that a good means of propaganda would
be a book telling the truth about Philippine conditions and illustrated
by Filipino artists. At first the project was severely criticised;
later a few conformed to the plan, and Rizal believed that his scheme
was in a fair way of accomplishment. At the meeting to discuss the
details, however, each member of the company wanted to write upon the
Filipino woman, and therest of the subjects scarcely interested any of
them. Rizal was disgusted with this trifling and dropped the affair,
nor did he ever again seem to take any very enthusiastic interest in
such popular movements. His more mature mind put him out of sympathy
with the younger men. Their admiration gave him great prestige, but
his popularity did not arise from comradeship, as he had but very
few intimates.
Early in his stay in Madrid, Rizal had come across a second-hand
copy, in two volumes, of a French novel, which he bought to improve
his knowledge of that language. It was Eugene Sue's "The Wandering
Jew," that work which transformed the France of the nineteenth
century. However one may agree or disagree with its teachings and
concede or dispute its literary merits, it cannot be denied that it
was the most powerful book in its effects on the century, surpassing
even Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which is usually credited
with having hurried on the American Civil War and brought about
the termination of African slavery in the United States. The book,
he writes in his diary, affected him powerfully, not to tears, but
with a tremendous sympathy for the unfortunates that made him willing
to risk everything in their behalf. It seemed to him that such a
presentation of Philippine conditions would certainly arouse Spain,
but his modesty forbade his saying that he was going to write a book
like the French masterpiece. Still, from this time his recollections
of his youth and the stories which he could get from his companions
were written down and revised, till finally the half had been prepared
of what was finally the novel "Noli Me Tangere."
Through Spaniards who still remembered Jose's uncle, he joined a
lodge of Masons called the "Acacia." At this time few Filipinos in
Spain had joined the institution, and those were mostly men much more
mature than himself. Thus he met leaders of Spanish national life who
were men of state affairs and much more sedate, men with broader views
and more settled opinions than the irresponsible class with whom his
school companions were accustomed to associate. A distinction must
be made between the Masonry of this time and the much more popular
institution in which Filipinos later figured so largely when Professor
Miguel Morayta became head of the Grand Lodge which for a time was
a rival of that to which the "Acacia" owed allegiance, and finally
triumphed over it.
In 1884 Rizal had begun his studies in English; he had been studying
French during and since his voyage to Spain; Italian was acquired
apparently at a time when the exposition of Genoa had attracted Spanish
interest toward Italy, and largely through the reading of Italian
translations of works which he knew in other languages. German, too,
he had started to study, but had not advanced far with it. Thus Rizal
was preparing himself for the travels through Europe which he had
intended to make from the time when he first left his home, for he
well knew that it was only by knowing the language of a country that
it would be possible for him to study the people, see in what way
they differed from his own, and find out which of their customs and
what lessons from their history might be of advantage to the Filipinos.
A feature in Rizal's social life was a weekly visit to the home of
Don Pablo Ortigas y Reyes, a liberal Spaniard who had been Civil
Governor of Manila in General de La Torre's time. Here Filipino
students gathered, and were entertained by the charming daughter of
the home, Consuelo, who was the person to whom were dedicated the
verses of Rizal usually entitled "a la Senorita C. O. y R."
In Rizal's later days he found a regular relaxation in playing chess,
in which he was skilled, with the venerable ex-president of the
short-lived Spanish republic, Pi y Margal. This statesman was accused
of German tendencies because of his inclination toward Anglo-Saxon
safeguards for liberty, and was a champion of general education as
a preparation for a freer Spain.
Rizal usually was present on public occasions in Filipino circles
and took a leading part in them, as, for example, when he delivered
the principal address at the banquet given by the Madrid Filipino
colony in honor of their artist countrymen, after Luna and Hidalgo
had won prizes in the Madrid National exposition. He was also at the
New Year's banquet when the students gathered in the restaurant to
bid farewell to the old and usher in the new year, and his was the
chief speech, summarizing the remarks of the others.
In 1885, having completed the second of his two courses, with his
credentials of licentiate in medicine and also in philosophy and
literature, Rizal made a trip through the country provinces to
study the Spanish peasant, for the rural people, he thought, being
agriculturists, would be most like the farmer folk of his native
land. Surely the Filipinos did not suffer in the comparison, for the
Spanish peasants had not greatly changed from the day when they were
so masterfully described by Cervantes. It seemed to Rizal almost like
being in Don Quixote's land, so many were the figures who might have
been the characters in the book.
The fall of '85 found Rizal in Paris, studying art, visiting the
various museums and associating with the Lunas, the Taveras and
other Filipino residents of the French capital, for there had been
a considerable colony in that city ever since the troubles of 1872
had driven the Tavera family into exile and they had made their home
in that city. In Paris a fourth of "Noli Me Tangere" was written,
and Rizal specialized in ophthalmology, devoting his attention to
those eye troubles that were most prevalent in the Philippines and
least understood. His mother's growing blindness made him covet the
skill which might enable him to restore her sight. So successfully
did he study that he became the favorite pupil of Doctor L. de
Weckert, the leading authority among the oculists of France, and
author of a three-volume standard work. Rizal next went to Germany,
having continued his studies in its language in the French capital,
and was present at Heidelberg on the five hundredth anniversary of
the foundation of the University.
Because he had no passport he could only attend lectures, but could
not regularly matriculate. He lived in one of the student boarding
houses, with a number of law students, and when he was proposed for
membership in the Chess Club he was registered in the Club books as
being a student of law like the men who proposed him. These Chess
Club gatherings were quite a feature of the town, being held in the
large saloons with several hundred people present, and the contests
of skill were eagerly watched by shrewd and competent judges. Rizal
was a clever player, and left something of a record among the experts.
The following lines were written by Rizal in a letter home while he
was a student in Germany:
To the Flowers of Heidelberg
(translation by Charles Derbyshire)
Go to my native land, go, foreign flowers,
Sown by the traveler on his way;
And there beneath its azure sky,
Where all of my affections lie;
There from the weary pilgrim say,
What faith is his in that land of ours!
Go there and tell how when the dawn,
Her early light diffusing,
Your petals first flung open wide;
His steps beside chill Neckar drawn,
You see him silent by your side,
Upon its Spring perennial musing.
Saw how when morning's light,
All your fragrance stealing,
Whispers to you as in mirth
Playful songs of love's delight,
He, too, murmurs his love's feeling
In the tongue he learned at birth.
That when the sun on Koenigstuhl's height
Pours out its golden flood,
And with its slowly warming light
Gives life vale and grove and wood,
He greets that sun, here only upraising,
Which in his native land is at its zenith blazing.
And tell there of that day he stood,
Near to a ruin'd castle gray,
By Neckar's banks, or shady wood,
And pluck'd you from beside the way;
Tell, too, the tale to you addressed,
And how with tender care,
Your bending leaves he press'd
'Twixt pages of some volume rare.
Bear then, O flowers, love's message bear;
My love to all the lov'd ones there,
Peace to my country--fruitful land--
Faith whereon its sons may stand,
And virtue for its daughters' care;
All those beloved creatures greet,
That still around home's altar meet.
And when you come unto its shore,
This kiss I now on you bestow,
Fling where the winged breezes blow;
That borne on them it may hover o'er