The hero of the Filipinos The story of José Rizal, poet, patriot and martyr
Carnicero. Friend Rizal, these reforms of yours do not seem to me
at all bad; but you seem to forget that the friars have as much
influence in Madrid as in Manila, and for this reason it would be
practically impossible at this time to put these changes into
effect.
Rizal. Do not think so. The influence of the friars is waning in
all parts of the world. I am bold enough to assure you that
wherever a government, even a little advanced, would give a free
hand to five or six honest and patriotic men, the power of the
friars would disappear. In Madrid it is perfectly well known what
the friars are doing here. So true is this that in the first
interview I had with Pi y Linares Rivas, when he was a member of
the Liberal party of Spain, he told me of things in this country of
which, although I was born here, I had been in ignorance. I can
cite to you many other instances of men in Spain that have exact
data on the lives and characters of the friars in the Philippines.
These gentlemen said to me: “The bad governments that in Spain are
following one another are blamed for many abuses that in reality
are wrought by the religious corporations. On the day when things
change we shall not forget the real offenders.” Excuse me for
saying this to you, but the friars are not wanted in the
Philippines. Always they become more repugnant and hateful as
always they interfere the more in conditions and affairs that do
not belong to them. [185]
Where lay the sedition that Rizal plotted is evident from this report,
and equally evident what power pulled the strings behind puppet king
and manikin premier.
He must have had reason, even in far Dapitan, to wonder if there were
any place out of range of the malicious or the dull. Persons that
thought they had a call to reform him and other persons that believed
they had been appointed to torture him would not leave him alone even
here. It was a place with what was called a mail service; in the course
of time almost any letter that had passed the censor would come limping
in. Among such freight arrived one day a laborious effort from the
superior of the Jesuits in the Philippines, the Rev. Father Pastells,
in which he took occasion to offer disagreeable remarks. Rizal might
have responded in kind, if he had pleased; as to which, take note of
some of the sarcastic passages in “Noli Me Tangere.” Instead of
flouting his reverend critic, he chose to favor him with a serious
letter in which the faith that guided his course was set forth with the
eloquence of honesty. He wrote:
You exclaim: “What a pity that so gifted a youth should not have
used his talents in a better cause.” Possibly there are other
causes better than mine. But my cause is good, and that is enough
for me.
Others, perhaps, may gain more honors and greater glory. But I am
like the bamboo, which is also a native of this soil. It is used
for cottages of light material and not for heavy European
buildings. So I regret neither my humble cause nor its small
rewards. I only regret the little talent that God has given me to
use in its service. If instead of being weak bamboo I had been
solid hardwood, I should have been able to give better aid. But He
that made me what I am never makes mistakes in any of His acts. He
knows very well how useful are even the smallest cottages.
As to any fame, honor, or profit that I might have gained, I admit
all that to sound attractive, for I am a young man of flesh and
blood with a full share of human weaknesses. But no one chooses the
nationality or race into which he is born. With his birth he
profits by the privileges or suffers the disadvantages that race
and nationality bring. So I accept the cause of my country.
I have confidence that He that created me a Filipino will know how
to pardon in me mistakes due to our hard position and the poor
education we receive from our birth.
I am not working for fame or glory. I have no ambition to rival
others that are born into conditions very different from my own.
My only desire is to do all I can within the limits of my powers. I
wish most to do what is needed most. I have received a little
learning and I think I ought to teach it to my countrymen. Others
more fortunate than I may work for the great things. [186]
He had letters of a different tenor from members of his family, toward
whom he yearned all his life with an almost singular devotion; but for
his strong sense of family duty he might then be receipting for great
fees and living sweetly in Hong-Kong instead of facing the miseries of
Dapitan. Of this fact he never made a mention to any one, if he thought
of it himself. Among the letters from these relatives that he held so
dear came one from a nephew in Luzon to which he made the following
characteristic reply:
I think I ought to mention to you a slight fault that you have
committed in your letter. It is a little error that many in society
make.
One does not say, “I and my sister greet you,” but “my sister and I
greet you.” Always you have to put yourself last. You should say,
“Emilio and I,” “you and I,” and so on. For the rest, your letter
leaves nothing to be desired in clearness, conciseness, and
spelling. Then keep on advancing. Learn, learn, and think much
about what you learn. Life is a very serious matter. It only goes
well for those that have intelligence and heart. To live is to be
among men, and to be among men is to strive.
But this strife is not a brute-like, selfish struggle, nor with men
alone. It is a strife with them, and at the same time with one’s
own passions. It is a struggle with the proprieties, with errors,
with prejudices. It is a never ending striving, with a smile on the
lips and the tears in the heart.
On this battle-field man has no better weapon than his
intelligence. He possesses no more force than he has heart. Bring
it out, then. Improve it, keep it prepared, and strengthen and
educate yourself for this.
Upon such a spirit the horrors of exile must have weighed little. In a
region strange, at that time uncouth and, compared with many in “your
Oriental Eden Isles,” unattractive, he offers to the world an
unaccustomed figure of the outcast. He went without repining to regular
and useful work while he understood well enough that he was a
sacrificial offering and fated to be so; the hatred and contempt of the
reactionary Interests were concentrated upon him; he was victimized for
his countrymen. Only two privations seemed poignant to him. He longed
for his family; he missed his books. With these, it appears, he would
have been content, eying cheerfully the fate that seemed to have at
last defined his career; for he had little doubt he should end his days
on this lonely shore. For consolation in his spiritual lack, he turned
to his arts and modeled assiduously; some of the most marvelous of his
sculptures belong to this period. Among them the bust of Father
Guerrico [187] that was exhibited years afterward at the St. Louis
Exposition, and won a gold medal there. [188] He was the spontaneous
artist that without conscious effort descries beauty in commonplace
things. Opposite his dwelling a native woman, bent upon one knee, was
cleaning the street for a coming festival. Something in her pose and
garmenture struck him as a graceful characteristic; he modeled her as
she labored. [189] From memory he modeled busts and medallions of men
he had known in Europe and Asia; in his sketch-book he preserved
effects he noticed in sky, sea, and woods. He returned to poetic
composition and produced now some of the most beautiful of his works.
More than this in armor of patience the Stoics themselves could demand
nothing. How many Highland Scotch have stood upon the sands of France
and sighed away their souls northward? And how often have the
sympathetic thought with compassion of the English pioneers in early
America, of the Pilgrim fathers that first bleak winter, of Hugo in
Jersey and Napoleon chained to his rock? This man hunted out the
beauties of exile, made them his friends and companions, taught his
pupils, made poetry, carved statues, loved his fellows, and thanked
God.
CHAPTER XV
THE KATIPUNAN
To his father and mother he wrote urging them to come to Dapitan and
make their home on the land that he had bought. In this he must have
lightly estimated the rancor or the vigilance of his enemies, or have
been imperfectly informed about what was going on in Manila—or both. It
was a time when all suspected persons were to be watched with unusual
diligence, and of these the Rizal family came first. Meantime, the
exile’s fate, of which he was wont to take a somber view, shifted
somewhat its familiar aspect of misfortune and sent him one gleam of
happiness. In the midst of his lonely state and Promethean miseries
adroitly prepared for him, he met a woman that attracted him, and ended
by marrying her.
This came about after a strange fashion. All this time he had been
faithful to the memory of Leonora. [190] A few months after he had
taken up his residence in Dapitan there came thither a patient from
Hong-Kong named Taufer, an American engineer, blind, and drawn to
Dapitan by the fame of the great oculist. [191] He had with him his
adopted daughter Josefina, who promptly fell in love with Rizal. Her
real name was Josephine Bracken; her parentage was Irish. Her father
had been a non-commissioned officer in the British army and stationed
at Hong-Kong. When he died he left a large family in extreme poverty.
Taufer, who was a kindly man of some means, adopted the youngest child
as a matter of charity and then grew to love her as if she had been his
own daughter. For seventeen years she had been his daily companion; in
the long night of his blindness she was his guide and comforter.
If her portraits do her justice, Josephine must have had unusual
beauty, but her letters do not reveal in her the intellectual gifts
that would have made her an ideal companion for José Rizal. Yet she
must have been sympathetic, and he, solitary at the world’s outpost,
seems to have been fond of her. When he came to ask her hand in
marriage of her guardian, Mr. Taufer was overcome with grief. An hour
later, he attempted suicide. He was blind; the examinations of Rizal
had shown no chance that his eyesight could be restored; a daughter of
his had but lately left him to be married; he had lost his first wife;
his second marriage had not been happy; and he felt that without
Josephine there was nothing to live for. Rizal came upon him razor in
hand about to carry out his threat and narrowly rescued him from
himself. [192]
After this, a marriage seemed impossible, and Josephine returned to
Hong-Kong with Taufer.
But the affair had gone so far that already Rizal had made overtures to
the parish priest to perform the ceremony. The priest shook his head:
there were Rizal’s well known heresies in the way; he could not marry a
heretic. Rizal said that if by heresies his political opinions were
meant, nothing could induce him to profess any change in them; but if
the priest meant religious views, he was ready to declare that he was
and had been at all times a faithful son of the Catholic religion and
purposed so to remain. The priest thought a declaration to this effect
might win past the bishop, who now appeared as the chief obstacle; at
least he would send to Cebu to find out. The letter of inquiry he had
written and was about to despatch when news came that the engagement