London
Mr. Jose Rizal
My dear Friend,
I have just received your esteemed letter of the 8th.
I have nothing to say concerning the Association except that I am convinced your resignation has nothing to do with the excommunication of the president and that, as you must have seen, what I said in my previous letter referred to the faithful over there.
I do not find in your letter an explanation of the cause of the preoccupation that you say my letter has given you, much less can I explain the very bitter flavor you have found in it. I would have wished that with that frankness that you say is inherent in you, you had told me the details in my letter that you have found bitter, why and in what sense, because in truth I don’t know now by what to abide. I do not know if you are simply echoing the bitterness with which my letter brimmed or you are complaining that I have shown myself bitter towards you. And behold that now in my turn I am preoccupied, because with the doubt your letter has given me I cannot but be distressed that perhaps some phrase of mine, on account of you excessive delicacy or susceptibility (I cannot attribute it to any other thing) has seemed to you to be offensive to you inasmuch as it embitters you. Though confusedly, I still remember the principal paragraphs of my letter. I assure you that I am still dominated by the idea and temper that I had when I wrote you my previous letter, and frankly my conscience is clear. Now as at that time you are one of my friends who have distinguished me with true friendship and with whom I have the most affinity. So that for my part I have to tell you, though it may only be once, that I feel towards you true affection, sympathy, and admiration. How have I hurt you? Read once more my letter, my friend, and complain against me openly if you believe I deserve it.
According to you previous letter, you were a completely passive entity with regard to the periodical to whom its management has been offered by some and which you had clearly declined. I deduced this from your letter and you can tell me if I am right. You did not tell me more than that you had declined the post for the same reasons that you did the membership on the boards of directors of the Association; because you saw divisions and you did not want to incline one way or another; and you suggested to me that I propose a manager who would be satisfactory to all. For me then you were discarded from the question by your own will. You simply, absolutely, did not want to be manager. This being so, how could anyone here suppose that you have an ambition for honors, or you would contest the post with Lete? Are you jealous, yes or no? What you lacked was a little more frankness to tell me everything as you are doing now, though you concealed the questions of substitution that was intended to be given to me, as it suited you to conceal it from me. What you told me was your agreement with Regidor to terminate the division that they told you existed in the colony. What you did not tell me was that, having declined beforehand the post, you were ready, as you now say, to accept it if the colony insisted on electing you. And as you are aware of having made this statement, that I did not know, I understand that you suspect perhaps that I would come to suppose it, as I did not know it, and hence you give to my phrases a meaning that they could not have. You feared that I might suppose you to be ambitious, or interested in the question, but nothing of the kind, friend; I confess to you sincerely. It did not think that you would become manager, because I could see that you did not want to be.
I found nothing unpleasant in your previous letter except the news of our wretchedness that was unknown to me. If my letter was bitter, it was because so much bickering distresses and even [?] sickens me, and they accuse us of divisions and other excess, and for what motives, with what improper means! I am tired of seeing the colony being made a plaything of children, that the work that interests us most is adultered and falls to the ground due to our debased habits. How do you want me not to disregard this nor refuse to be mixed up in questions that do not favor us?
Once it can be allowed to pass, but again and again is too much for one who has already reached the age of desiring to have things done with more sense and less pirouettes. Dominated by this displeasure I wrote you my previous letter and I said that over there they may fix things as they please. For the rest, I reiterate that I am the last one to know, and the [?] is through you, that the question of the periodical and its management was being discussed. Those who have discussed this question have completely left me out. And I am not saying this as a complaint but to justify that. Inasmuch as I was not included in it, I have now no reason to meddle in it. How can I tolerate patiently that it be said again and again that here we are divided like sheep without a shepherd? Therefore, I said to you that I was not involved in any question. I am in good terms with everybody and I have no need of putting myself in bad with any one. How can any common undertaking of ours prosper since there is never a lack of excuses to disturb it? Who is the perfect man who can satisfy all?
Do you know why Llorente became disgusted with the periodical? Because there appeared in it an article of Mr. Manuel Regidor criticizing the attacks of Figueroa on the painting of Enriquez at the Philippine Exposition – not permissible attacks within the bosom of the jury but outside of it. The excuse given was that it was an attack on a Filipino, not on a Filipino jury, as if it were not the defense of the work of a Filipino which we ought to respect because it was attacked by those who attack us; as if it were not the defense of a Filipino artist. Do you know why they say that Antonio Luna was displeased with the periodical and has declared war against Lete? For the laudatory articles of other artistic works which were not by his brother, and because he had a quarrel with him in a café on whether one ate macaroni and the other prosaic kidneys. If this is true, are they not trifles? Who will be disheartened in pondering on them? Well everything for the style.
I am also frank and maybe my frankness this time may seem to you rude. Therefore, I have told you, being uninvolved in the factions here, my naked estimate of the exceptional situation in which Lete – the unfortunate Lete – is placed, whom I pity because he has not become congenial to all. But this estimate is only from me to you, because I love justice and in the bosom of friendship at least I should say my frank opinion. As to the rest, and above all to Lete, I hold back; on the contrary, I try to convince Lete (although I understand his reason, because I put myself in his place) that the life of the periodical is first, that he ought not to separate from us, and that he should not have the pretension that a work of common interest will fail on his account nor is it tied to him. In view of this state of things, I am in favor of noninterference. If I do not intervene in the conflict… of the periodical, if it is revived and prosper, as I wish. You have known me for a long time and I believe you will do me justice. I do not know if I have told you in a previous letter, but I tell you now that I should like every Filipino here to have or to manage a periodical, not to wage war in them, but to avoid what is now appearing and all of them jointly undertake a great work that in general is so difficult to realize.
That I am a little discouraged should not surprise you. You yourself upon arriving from the Philippines wrote me discouraged, and, Julio and you too, according to him, as I have told you in my previous letter, did not trust much in our common enterprises.
Finally, my friend, may God draw us out of our blindness and in one way or another may resolutions and opportunities favorable to a holy enterprise, certainly longed by all, be not rendered barren. Amen.
Give my regards to friend Regidor.
You know your affectionate friend esteems you truly,
Cauit
03-348 [Reformists]