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 the rest 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 Page 122second-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 José’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 Page 123largely 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.

Don Pablo Ortigas y Reyes.

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 “á la Senorita C. O. y R.”

In Rizal’s later days he found a regular relaxation in Page 124playing 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 Page 125Page 126in 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 Page 127one 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 ruined castle at Heidelberg.

The following lines were written by Rizal in a letter home while he was a student in Germany:

From Heidelberg he went to Leipzig, then famous for the new studies in psychology which were making the science of the mind almost as exact as that of the body, and became interested in the comparison of race characteristics as influenced by environment, history and language. This probably accounts for the advanced views held by Rizal, who was thoroughly abreast of the new psychology. These ideas were since popularized in America largely through Professor Hugo Munsterberg of Harvard University, who was a fellow-student of Rizal at Heidelberg and also had been at Leipzig.

A little later Rizal went to Berlin and there became acquainted with a number of men who had studied the Philippines and knew it as none whom he had ever met previously. Chief among these was Doctor Jagor, the author of the book which ten years before had inspired in him his life purpose of preparing his people for the time when America should come to the Philippines. Then there was Doctor Rudolf Virchow, head of the Anthropological Society and one of the greatest scientists in the world. Virchow was of intensely democratic ideals, Page 130he was a statesman as well as a scientist, and the interest of the young student in the history of his country and in everything else which concerned it, and his sincere earnestness, so intelligently directed toward helping his country, made Rizal at once a prime favorite. Under Virchow’s sponsorship he became a member of the Berlin Anthropological Society.

Dr. Rudolf Virchow.

Rizal lived in the third floor of a corner lodging house not very far from the University; in this room he spent much of his time, putting the finishing touches to what he had previously written of his novel, and there he wrote the latter half of “Noli Me Tangere” The German influence, and absence from the Philippines for so long a time, had modified his early radical views, and the book had now become less an effort to arouse the Spanish sense of justice than a means of education for Filipinos by pointing out their shortcomings. Perhaps a Spanish school history which he had read in Madrid deserves a part of the credit for this changed point of view, since in that the author, treating of Spain’s early misfortunes, brings out the fact that misgovernment may be due quite as much to the hypocrisy, servility and undeserving character of the people as it is to the corruption, tyranny and cruelty of the rulers.

The house where Rizal completed “Noli me Tangere.”

Page 131The printer of “Noli Me Tangere” lived in a neighboring street, and, like most printers in Germany, worked for a very moderate compensation, so that the volume of over four hundred pages cost less than a fourth of what it would have done in England, or one half of what it would cost in economical Spain. Yet even at so modest a price, Rizal was delayed in the publication until one fortunate morning he received a visit from a countryman, Doctor Maximo Viola, who invited him to take a pedestrian trip. Rizal responded that his interests kept him in Berlin at that time as he was awaiting funds from home with which to publish a book he had just completed, and showed him the manuscript. Doctor Viola was much interested and offered to use the money he had put aside for the trip to help pay the publisher. So the work went ahead, and when the delayed remittance from his family arrived, Rizal repaid the obligation. Then the two sallied forth on their trip.

After a considerable tour of the historic spots and scenic places in Germany, they arrived at Dresden, where Doctor Rizal was warmly greeted by Doctor A. B. Meyer, the Director of the Royal Saxony Ethnographical Institute. He was an authority upon Philippine matters, for some years before he had visited the Islands to make a study of the people. With a countryman resident in the Philippines, Doctor Meyer made careful and thorough scientific investigations, and his conclusions were more favorable to the Filipinos than the published views of many of the unscientific Spanish observers.

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. Page 132

In Austrian territory he first visited Doctor Ferdinand Page 133Blumentritt, 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.

Pencil sketch of Dr. F. Blumentritt by Rizal.

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 Page 134Page 135note 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. Page 136

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 Malacañan 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, Page 137José 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.

José T. de Andrade, Rizal’s bodyguard.

“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 Doña 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 Page 138the 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 coöperate, 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 Page 139Filipinos 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.

Jose Maria Basa, of Hongkong.

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 Page 140hospitably 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 Page 141Page 142by 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 Page 143voyage, 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.

Dr. Antonio Maria Regidor.

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 zoölogical Page 144gardens 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.”

Dr. Reinhold Rost.

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 Page 145Page 146companion 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 Page 147by 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 Page 148Page 149Page 150early 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.