London
London 18 August 1888
My dear Friend,
I have not read a book like that of Weber for a long time until now and I owe you this opportunity. I have long wished to read in London a philosopher who was written impartially on religion. Those that I had read before were lighter like Voltaire, Cantú, Renan, and others. But in Karl Julius Weber I believe I have found the man that I was looking for. This writer belongs to that stock of wonderful scholars of the beginning of the century. Many thanks!
Last Monday I sent you by mail cigarettes and I hope you have received them. Later on I shall send you more.
I am sorry I cannot send a copy of Noli me tángere[1] to Desengaños. I myself have not even a copy. I will write to Spain to find out if there are still some there. I suppose that there must be still some in Madrid as I sent there 300 copies. With reference to the translation, I believe that, at least for the present, you ought not to publish it, because its publication might be prejudicial to you and indirectly to the Philippines also. Let us wait until the atmosphere becomes cool.
I am now very busy with Morga. I am planning to copy the entire work and present a new edition to the public, especially the Filipino public. Dr. Antonio Regidor[2] wishes to be my financier. What do you think? With the Morga I wish also to publish your Tribes of Mindanao as well as some new documents that I found in the British Museum. I hope you will help me in this undertaking. I need your advice and with your knowledge of things Philippine you can show me the right path so that I may not work in vain. I do this only for my country, because this work will not bring me either honor or money.
Dr. Regidor greets you. He is engaged in big business and so he cannot go to Karlsbad now. But he will make the trip as soon as he finds time for it and then he will visit you. We talk about you frequently. If you knew how he loves our native land! He is the only one who sacrifices everything for her — life, money, and health! I don’t know of any other compatriot as enthusiastic as he is.
I have not received any news from the Philippines, but some compatriots who have received letters from there say that things are going badly over there.
Greetings to Dr. Czepelack. I await impatiently your photograph. What happened to your picture? I fear that you might have forgotten it. My family would be very glad to be able to see your oil portrait together with mine.
Fond greetings to my friends on the banks of the Elbe.
Yours,
Rizal
03-325 [Reformists]
[1] Don’t touch me. From the Gospel of St. John, 20:17. The title of Rizal’s first novel.
[2] The patriot Dr. Antonio Ma. Regidor y Jurado (1845-1910) who, after his exile to the Mariana Islands on account of the events o f 1872, went to live in London.