Dapitan
Gift of books by famous authors received from Dr. Meyer – Zoological specimens for Heinszen – Another box of desiccated insects and animals – Unwilling to reply to Dr. Joest until the task is thoroughly completed – “Do you want ethnological collections?” – Rizal says all the specimens he can send him will not be enough to pay for the books he has received.
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Dapitan, 10 April 1894
DR. A. B. MEYER
MY ESTEEMED DOCTOR AND DISTINGUISHED COLLEGUE,
Some days ago I received your letter together with a manuscript on the preparation of vertebrates and I thank you for it. Through today’s mail I received with immense pleasure many books by Gogol, Turgenev, Danilewsky, Bismarck, Sophokles, and Aeschylus, and in expressing to you my thanks, I am now the one who finds himself pressed in paying you for them, for as you must have learned, their payment was lost in the boat that carried it, according to Schadenberg.
When I received your instructions that I ought to contact Mr. Heinszen, I had already sent another box to Mr. Schadenberg. The next time I shall follow your instruction.
Do not mind the cost of this. This and what I shall send you later will not be sufficient to pay for the books that you have sent me. I send you dead nature and you in exchange send me your spirit, the geist in the pages of the books. Henceforth, I shall send you what I can; you will appraise it and you send me its equivalent in scientific and literary works. When I have more freedom, I will look for skulls of mountain people for you.
Dr. Joest has written me, but if you know him and see him, please tell him that I do not write him yet because I want to inquire thoroughly into the matter that he is consulting me about. One day is not enough. Do you want ethnological collections?
Wishing to serve you always, I am your attentive, faithful servant and friend who kisses your hand,
JOSE RIZAL
04-815 [Misc.]