José Rizal

Monasticism’s record in the Philippines presents no new general fact to the eye of history. The attempt to eliminate the eternal feminine from her natural and normal sphere in the scheme of things there met with the same certain and signal disaster that awaits every perversion of human activity. Beginning with a band of zealous, earnest men, sincere in their convictions, to whom the cause was all and their personalities nothing, it there, as elsewhere, passed through its usual cycle of usefulness, stagnation, corruption, and degeneration.

‘Fire you, you say, and water we,

Then as you wish, so let it be;

But let us live in peace and right,

Nor shall the fire e’er see us fight;

So joined by wisdom’s glowing flame,

That without anger, hate, or blame,

We form the steam, the fifth element,

Progress and light, life and movement.’ ”

The legend states that Doña Jeronima was so fat that she had to turn sidewise to get into it.

“Have you lost anything?” inquired Mr. Leeds.

“The mirrors, Mister, where are the mirrors?”

“I don’t know where yours are—mine are at the hotel. Do you want to look at yourself?

rights

Dedication
To My Country
In the catalog of human ills there is to be found a cancer so malignant that the least touch inflames it and causes agonizing pains; afflicted with such a cancer, a social cancer, has your dear image appeared to me, when, for my own heart’s ease or to compare you with others, I have sought, in the centers of modern civilization, to call you to mind.

Now, desirous of your welfare, which is also ours, and seeking the best cure for your ills, I shall do with you what was done in ages past with the sick, who were exposed on the steps of the temple so that the worshippers, having invoked the god, should each propose a remedy.

To this end, I shall endeavor to show your condition, faithfully and ruthlessly. I shall lift a corner of the veil which shrouds the disease sacrificing to the truth everything even self-love—for, as your son, your defects and weaknesses are also mine.

The Author,

Europe, 1886

“What has your Reverence decided to do?” he asked.

“To die! Ah, what else can I do?

One great virtue Doña Consolation possessed, and this was that she had evidently never looked in a mirror

“But I hope for something better.”

“What, then?”

“Some thunderbolts that will kill people and burn down houses,”

poverty obliges one to sin!