20 June 1887

Madrid

Madrid, 20 June 1887

Dear Pepe,

I receive your letter with real sorrow and I say sorrow because it is a farewell letter and believe me I would have liked to see you here again. I comply with your request to give your farewell greetings to our friends and I thank you for the picture. I send you mine which is certainly pretty bad and I am sorry that the time is so short that I cannot send you yours in crayon, as you ask me. I promise to send them to you to Manila by the mail-boat leaving before your departure.

I congratulate myself heartily that you have succeeded to drive away your sadness. I deplore your thinness.

And very sincerely I appreciate your good wishes for me. Much glory, perhaps and without perhaps, I may not have. My encouragements are few, though not my good intentions. The best glory for me is that which I may win in working for our country. The inconstancy, incivility, and susceptibility of the fools cost me a good many displeasures; we are many censuring and giving lessons and few working. Graciano went as far as to accuse me of trying to establish castes and distinctions; what should we do with him?

In exchange for his infamous accusations I have made concessions. Unless he does not care whether we are friendly with him or not, like Rojas, or he who…Enough of puerilities.

I don’t know if you received with the prospectuses from the Exposition[1] some pictures in crayon that I was sending you. Neither do I know if you received my card on your saint’s day.

You told me in one of your previous letters that the Motherland would reward me for being inside the Exposition. Let the personal articles in El Liberal and the articles published in España en Filipinas, based on data furnished by me, speak if I have not; let the article on the kicks of Ortuoste, whose barbarity I answered publicly, speak if I have not; let the Igorots and other people whom I have taught not to lift up their hats or kiss the hand of anyone and who I believe will go home feeling and thinking as I do, speak if I have not. For their sake I am dubbed filibustero[2] in Spain and pointed at with the finger and driven to the extreme of quarreling with the very same Ortiga[3] who confessed to me frankly that he did not ask for such men and that the sending of ignorant, unintelligent laborers or artisans was the work of authorities in Manila. I publish an article in this issue. How could I have done anything like this if I were not inside? How could we have avoided such mishaps, since the harm was already done? No one could have watched over them. Being inside the premises and isolated they would have been the object of all kinds of abuse by the people…even by persons with common sense and education. By saying that the Igorots would have followed me wherever I told them to go, I have said everything, and I have justified myself. If this is treason to the Motherland, let God come and see it.

Within the limited space of a letter I cannot tell you everything I want. I should like to give a moment of my life to speak with you a few hours about all that had occurred in the colony[4] and the exposition during your absence; but it cannot be and in truth I deplore it.

All will think better of our country as we do.

To what is due your hasty departure? Can you not confide it to me?

I believe that you cannot complain about my writings considering the temper of the magazine.[5] Tell me your opinion, above all on my article “Recuerdos y Esperanzas” [Remembrances and Hopes], which certainly did not please Evaristo. And I hope that from Manila you will not fail to write me recounting to me everything about political life in our country, that you will not fail to send me some news as well as serious articles for publication in the magazine. Bear in mind that we are few and poor in writing. Likewise I have no doubt that there [the Philippines] you will look for someone who understands economic and governmental matters, for here we have none. The only one who did was Govantes, who committed the stupidity of withdrawing, our grave defect being our inability to lay aside personal preferences for the sake of the common endeavor. My own discouragement is not little in view of the lack of abnegation and civic courage.

Likewise here almost nobody pays punctually, so that if you do send us money, I don’t know what is going to happen to the magazine; and I mean money of your friends and people who are lovers of the progress of the Philippines, for I believe this is the mission of everyone.

With regard to the good luck and money that you wish me, I will tell you that they do not depend upon me.

Due to my articles on the Chinese—with which I don’t know if you will agree—the Chinese Embassy has subscribed to the magazine by letter.

I am no in correspondence with Blunetritt, who is certainly a gentleman I admire. Moreover, he is extremely amiable.

He is a very good friend of Antonio Luna, Vivencio del Rosario, fellows who are most clever and very valuable.

The Tagalog girls who came on the Tabaclera[6] steamship are good-looking and educated. They honor us; I want to say that they will know how to repel an assault or an offense.

I don’t understand why our countrymen at Barcelona do not subscribe to the magazine, nor even want to receive it. The Paternos have withdrawn their subsidy without giving reason for it.

Oh patriotism!

Certainly I have learned through a third person that Don Pedro[7] has said that if he looks like a Filipino, it is not by choice but because of his color that he cannot erase…!

In speaking to me about the magazine you call it in two letters already, La Valiente [The Courageous]. Do you say it ironically? Be frank.

Concerning your friendly complaint against me, I tell you that it is unfair, for I wrote the item to inform the public about the appearance of the book;[8] and as you asked me for a serious and critical review, I postponed my criticism until after I had read it carefully. I did not dare express further any opinion, except at random, considering my incompetence. Moreover…that should be dispassionate and sincere.

Never was there an attempt to do you harm, so much less when your work pleased all who had read it. When I published the item, I had not yet read it, as I had just received it, and I only wanted to say this, which perhaps I expressed badly. I would discuss the book when I should have “time to examine it carefully” (I believe I said that), for how could I discuss a book that I have not even begun to leaf through? In the meantime, we give you our most sincere….

The courteous item, as you say, did not mean that we did not intend to take up the book, for the opinion on it that appeared in the magazine belies such an erroneous belief. The author[9] of the item had not yet read the book though…though I called it “social cancer,” these words being taken by deduction from a perusal of the prologue.

Friend Pepe: Don’t complain against me. It will be a real pleasure for me to review your book in which I shall pour all my love and humble knowledge, unless Julio insists on doing it. You are right; I will not only prevent anyone from hurting you, but I will defend you as if you were myself should some newspaper try to do it.

You do well to clear me for the acceptance of D’Ayot’s bombastic article, but I am satisfied that I did not write it…

With the respect to your novel I have not yet read it all. The magazine and the examinations on Natural Law have robbed me of much time. In it you show yourself to be a good observer and a better painter. The description of a feast and the characters of the curates and Tiago turns out to be faithful. I was exceedingly pleased by the cruel delirium that you describe of which Ibarra was a victim at his house after he heard the story of his father. The contrasts are very effective. I repeat that I can tell you nothing. I like its theme and the local flavor. The….I find until now somewhat careless perhaps for the haste, and the military man swears too much. When I say this, I am such a prattler, just imagine. In some points you turn out to be too tendentious; in others no. Another scene I remember at this moment between a mother and her son at the cemetery is described with a masterly hand. That of the chicken’s neck at the supper is superb. There is moreover some unnecessary details like the evil….the breeze that blew Sinang’s hair. To what is due the imprecation that you make at the end of page 28, saying “We…?”[10]

The idyll that you describe between the lovers on the river bank when the children were bathing making wreaths does not seem to me very realistic. You have allowed yourself to be carried away certainly by your poetic imagination.

I will talk about it more carefully in another letter. To me its eminently political, social, and patriotic tendency and objective are truly interesting.

I conclude, friend Pepe, because I have no more time.

Friend Luna sends you his picture. Evaristo, as he has not yet one ready, will send you his by mail to Calamba.

Casalis [is] calling today a meeting for the purpose of holding a banquet, using a pretext the opening of the Exposition, to express to the press our attitude. I hope he will not get angry for we are not in favor of this idea.

I criticized what he said about the Tagalog writing being like the Arabic but in spite of it, he did not change it.

That of the Pasig being a white phantom was signed by D’Ayot so that he alone is responsible for it.

Farewell; have a good trip and believe me that you leave here a true friend and countryman who sends you a fraternal embrace.

Eduardo Lete

03-244 [Reformists]