15 September 1886

Churruca, Madrid

Thanks Rizal for a copy of La Illustracion of Barcelona containing Rizal’s article on Juan Luna – Grateful for Rizal’s good opinion of his speech at the December 1885 banquet – Barcelona newspaper published Rizal’s article – Rizal is translating Wilhelm Tell in Tagalog

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4 (principal, left) Churruca, Madrid

15 September 1886

Mr. Jose Rizal

Leipzig, Germany

My dear Friend,

At last I can satisfy my desire to write you and answer your letter of 25 January inasmuch as I now have the assurance that you will remain one month in Leipzig. Our friend Julio assured me that you said so in your letter to him. Unfortunately what has been happening to me until now is that whenever I ask our friends for your address, it is at the time when you are about to change your residence, so that with the fear, on one hand, that my letter might not reach you before you start on your continual traveling, and on the other hand, waiting for an opportunity like the present to write you, I have postponed it until the present, with deep regret indeed. I repeat that my wish for a long time has been to reply to your Paris letter. Thus, I hope that now that you know the only reason why I have not written you before this, you will give up the opinion of my being inattentive that you might have informed of me on account of my silence.

Through Llorente, Leon, Veloso, Lete, I have news of you that I have asked repeatedly from them with interest. Through them I have learned that you are continually traveling through that country, viewing the poetic banks of the famous Rhine and admiring au naturel (permit me the phrase) the angelic Marguerites whose unaffected charms inspired Goethe and who seemed to him the most appropriate to place before the Mephistophelian designs of Faust. Be careful, my friend, do not make any of those Marguerites wither!

I received and I appreciated very much your New Year card you sent me from Paris; but above all I appreciated your kindness in having sent me a copy of the Barcelona newspaper in which your magnificent article appeared that I liked so much. Upon its receipt I requested Leon to give you my congratulations and my sincerest thanks.

I am glad that you liked my inaugural speech delivered at the banquet of last December. I appreciate your praises of it, though undeserved. Though it was rachitic and slovenly written, it was inspired by the sanest intention which I believe can be sufficiently glimpsed through the generalities with which I clothed it. The language was adapted to the circumstances of our situation, but I did not take into account that many of my listeners would not understand my meaning. Hence, later I had the sad realization that I had spoken only for a few who knew how to pick the grain from the chaff. I was not satisfied with my performance, not having worked on my speech until that same day of the 31st and finishing it at ten o’clock that night. On the other hand, I was exceedingly satisfied to hear Julio, Eduardo, Graciano, and your letter which was read by Leon in which you spoke to us of something that we could not understand perhaps due to the tears that you mentioned and which we really shed (though discreetly), wetting or dampening them with champagne.

I know already that you have finished the little work[1] and that you are now translating Schiller,[2] showing that you are not wasting time, on the contrary you are using it profitably well.

I am going to close this letter for I am going to visit a sick countryman whom I do not know if you have met: His name is Villaruz.

Farewell, dear. May you have good health and command your very affectionate friend and countryman who you know loves you,

Cauit[3]

03-170 [Reformists]