Leitmeritz, Austria
Greetings and Christmas gifts – Reply to a letter of La-calle – Blumentritt’s article on previous censorship – I must say that I like del Pilar better; he is serene and a politician ought to be serene before anything else – Meyer marvels at the “phenomenal gifts of your mind.”
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Leitmeritz, Austria
2 January 1890
Professor Ferdinand Blumentritt
Dearest Friend and Brother,
Your letter has freed me from the fear that you might be sick. I appreciate very sincerely your New Year greetings. My children are jubilant that “Uncle” Rizal still remembers their names. My wife sends you many regards; she is very much interested in everything that concerns you and in what you write. I have to read to them everything, your letters as well as your articles.
A thousand thanks for the gifts that I shall perhaps receive [in] tomorrow’s mail. But, what should I do? I have nothing with which to return these loving gifts. I must postpone my revenge to a later date.
Neither do I receive letters from the Philippines. I will write Balaguer today or tomorrow asking him to free the Spanish Philippine postal service from the suspicion of having stolen my letters.
I have several copies of Lacalle’s letter.[1] I have the same opinion as you do with regard to his merit, or rather lack of merit, and I have already written a brief reply which I have sent to Pilar with the request that it be published in La Solidaridad in January. I am going to revise once more that article. I do not know which of my writings will be published in La Solidaridad of the 31st – perhaps the article on previous censorship, which you will surely like. I beg you earnestly to publish in La Solidaridad for the 15th my letters to Weyler and Verdugo. I entreat you to do so very earnestly, because I suspect that upon receiving my letters these fellows may say nothing and pay no attention to me and then come out first with the letters. But if my letters come out in La Solidaridad for 15 January, this will prove that I am the one who has renounced. I beg you to do me this friendly turn.
For 14 days I have not received letters from Pilar and Ponce. Why did Lopez Jaena withdraw from the management of La Solidaridad? I must say that I like Pilar better; he is serene, and a politician ought to be serene before anything else. An impassioned policy is nothing more than a castle of fire – a minute of light and afterwards again a dark night.
For some time the attacks of the chulocracia of Mania have not disgusted me; there are men who cannot retain their urine… I am fighting with all my heart in the ranks of the Filipinos and I believe all of us are not writing in vain. Today I received a long letter of Jovellar, after a long time, since October. He writes very amicably. I am carrying on a very lively correspondence with Azcarraga. I have not yet written to Fr. Fernandez.
Hofrath Meyer likes very much your observations on Morga; he marvels at the phenomenal gifts of your mind. A thousand regards from all of us and above all of
Yours faithfully,
F. Blumentritt.
03-486 [Refromists]
[1] Jose de L acalle y Sanchez was a Spanish m ilitary doctor of long residence in the Philippines . He was the author of Tierras y razas del archipelago Filipino (Manila, 1886) and La emigracion espanola y el archipelago Filipino (Granada, 1881).