Ii, 25, February 15, 1890 TO HIS EXCELLENCY MR, VICENTE BARRANTES Your Brealey: ‘The honor which Your Excellency bestows ona in bothering yourself with my person and with Noli me iangere in the Section on the Span- ish Colonies (La Espaia Moderna, January, 1890, Vol. XIII), and some innuendoes and at- tacks therein which were directed either against ‘me or against the ideas divulged in my book, give me the right to answer you, if only to defend myself and things in their tree light. Far from taking offense at the tone of your work, sometimes acrimonious, but always ‘condescending and even degenerating into the fanguage of a headmaster, I feet honored up to ‘acetfain point, for frankly, 1 expected a cruder and more vitriolic attack (though pethaps less malignant), considering the literary exchange ‘Your Excellency and I had previously and ac- customed, a 1am orea the licens in speech of journalists in my country. Your ponderous tone and your advice soften me and | find them ‘natural in one like Your Excellency, who is a) member ofthe Spanish Royal Academy andthe ‘Academy of History-two- which the insignificant writers like myself who, | Is onder ol ike sai 6 ie 5 on tongue, must appear like pygmies or ants. "Phe entire thesis and synitesis on pages 177, 178, 179, 180, and 181 are reduced to this: that {had indulged in inconsistencies, that | am “a bundle of inconsistencies,” because in one part ‘of my Noli me tangere, the Capiain-General was telling my hero that he was “the first man with ‘whom he had talked in that country” and that later, I, Rizal, in LA SOLIDARIDAD asked for reforms for my people. And for this, Your 7 You call me “a novelist of his own sins, a bundie of inconsistencies.” Your Excel- lency says that my style is very bad. Please note that these words are not mine. May God | pest me from becoming a “novelist of the sins” of Your Excellency! If Your Excellency, who tells me frankly that I have not cited more than one concrete son speaking of unjust friars, could not find in my writing any other inconsistency but this; in truth J should consider myself twice blessed: first for being more consistent than the Bible, the Gospels, the Popes, and all mortals; and second, for witnessing the miracle ofthe bresd and fishes corrected and augmented. | You Excellency makes of this what you call a “bun dle of inconsistencies.” If instead of being 2 writer Your Excellency were to be @ laborer or a manufacturer, Holy God, how ‘200d8 would be multiplied! But let us examine this terrible inconsist- ney: Your Excellency writes on page 17 * «+ + Even Quioquiap does not have such a low ‘egatd of Filipinos that you have, neither did he dare put into the mouth of the captain-general those cruel words addressed to the hero of the | Noli me tangere-'Mr. Ibarra, you are the first {/ Vv man 1 have talked to in this country.” You do, not even consider your countrymen as men, Mt zal! A. great injustice that, I repeat, a Span- iard would not commit or even less a Christian | sic.” (Is the best Christian less than the last Spaniard, Mr. Barrantes?) 1 ‘And Isay: such deduction a native, not even a Tagalog would obtain! Because in order to make a syllogism that will stand on four legs~ as the Dominicans say-and draw a conclusion ‘out of one premise, it is necessary to presume: (1) that the captain-general and I are equals (1 fam not trying to deprive Your Excellency of Ns, suprity) (2) tha! the captain-general had talked to all Filipinos before talking to Mr. Ibarra; (3) that in each conversation His Ex. cellency knew his interpreter very well; and (4) that His Excellency would never exaggerate. do not know, Your Excellency, if the acad- ‘emicians ambarum demorum have proclaimed & rule that the ideas expressed by the characters in.a novel must be precisely the same convic- tions the author and nif tose filed to them under the circumstances, beliefs, customs, (° education and feclings. ‘The good Father Jose | Rodriguez abounds in the ideas of Your Excel ; Tency or vice versa (the position of the factors | do not alter the product); but up to the present, the above-mentioned friar is not an academician that I know of, and even were he one, two academicians do not constitute a majority on leamed societies; and even if such a rule be made, it would not have an ex post facto appli- cation. 1 might well be that Your Excellency ‘acquired this literary conviction from your deal- ings with the friars since some ideas of yours, some phrases like those calling me an “ex- horter,” a “novelist of my sins,” etc., show traces of convent influence and seem to be the ‘same ones of Father Rodriguez himself. Still tunable to give liberties to my country, T gi them to my characters and I allow my captai general to say whatever he wishes to say with- Out fear of retaliation. Moreover, Ihave learned | from writers of prose and poetry rules of the | ype sey call mixed, whercin different charac | ters and the author ‘himself fuse and mingle. However, attribute to the characters what they | themselves say and fo me what I say in the nasrative. Give unto Caesar what is Maybe this is too much to ask. I shall be content I SzeS, February 15, 1390 is shops of Pacte” cn n fe folingy aerate acoraingio cn ae | deere to metn Ke Boho hoe of Sama Bon nat! tle tnacerind | ewes Steir tn ¥sot iranseat, Tet us adopt awhile the | i,iR¥ Province?” Your Excellency in another Rodriguez-Barrantes rule. | am the spin Lam | Ceylon andnow oe oie she same capaingeneral I aed toa the Fi | plebe romero dena nse pisos, J knew them and not until | talked to | heir bones mace #s your methou? Come now, oe prmelie Scingle man. Allright then, | has Your Excellency done it to put me in bad i read He satan genet cop ||| light betore my people er dose Pen Pee ee, *y sneOntrove fietainent th Beis apie Teney know how to read so that now you wish fxevilency read the succeeding lines, @out/\| {© 8Ppeara defender of the natives who remem would not have committed that ojostice ber tid things about Your Excellency? Thus 0 a you al jwoted Father Rodris rel follow- which s Spaniard) not even a Christian would | ing this method, eve the Hee Shen ent? commit,nor would he writesuch satementsthat | could come and-wiiteand leigh sotesee nie ate like digressions of those who write about | that he would be ertiaeea. "You Excellency ‘what does nat boon doubts my love of truth because in some thing fp fact Ibarra replics in the next paragraph: | am not in agreement wilh your Your Boca fy Lou Excellency has only seen those who | lency'in fact deals with vuth’oy your own way lve in the city; you have not seen the maligned | and you monopelice i hus in our towns. Your Excellency might kave But going back to the cruel words of my seen then real men, if to be a man, all that are ‘general, | shall admit that they are cruel, very. needed are a generous heart and simple cus- | cruel indeed, but they are not false to the cher, toms.’ acter of the one talking. Your Excellency talks _ Who for tbarra now, my good sir? ts_| with more cruelty on page 180 and in spite of it Your Excellency? If 50, then what of the fact that you are a Spaniard and a Christian Rodriguez Barrens rule? And why does Your |. ad desi te fect tht you sreadybave tbe xcellency say Inter, on page 180, that Ibarra({| /sarcasm of my general before your cyes, You 1 od Rizal are one aud the sce ag? AT | ay eas sdiata + [Brae we not? Ido not wishto-atntuteo bad | "Yaga mater of fac, though I sought t faith this manner of quoting which Your Excel- | lessly withthe same Diogenes lantern through lency employs, accusing me of unfairness and | out the Archipelago and with beller eyes, no keeping silent’ about the reply that is found | doubt, because of my knowledge than’ the precisely inthe next line. This is deceiving the | blessed General had, I found only one man and le, Pure and simple. Your Excellency had. | he was you sr ecaise bara and Real re one | Civil Governor and Director of the. and the same-identical,” istration in my country for many years; you | Let us end this: Did Your Excellency find have maturity, experience, and positions, and | him? Did you find more men? It Your Exeel- you belong fo the superior and privileged race; | lency found what you sought, why should we am an outcast, a poor expatriate, a poor writer | talk then of the titelessness of the very same witha very bad style, a “bundle of inconsisteq- | lantern of Diogenes (a common lamp used by ies and unexpevicced youlN OF an ensieed | the Cl Gust? AW iFyou eld got heen, raeeind in spite ofall this, I shall try to give | why talk of your superior sense of smell com? you an advice in exchange for those fatherly | pared to my gencral who was neither tireless nor ‘ones you give me: When one has the position | going about looking for his man all over the and the aspirations of Your Excellency onc | Archipelago, nor had he a lantern of even the must write with more honesty and sincerity; one | Middle Ages? Would Your Excellency have Should not adopt the tricks of the common man, | wished me to regard you as the {ype of my 12s Your Excellency says, “itis nol edu- | caplain-general? Why’ should we talk then of cation that is the best measure nor the exclusive | cruel words? Your Excellency who in all your attribute of man, but goodness and morality.” | works expressed the greatest hatred of my rece ‘What you say of man can also be applied to the | and my country; who always expressed joy in erie Sed eae ae ae sexing us suffer, would want ogame out now In the same manner | find highly objection- | a defender of the natives? To what Fag you say about me on page 17: tha | Bernd by tose who had nsled at Teal i sts of Santa Cruz ded by those who h intef pean Wes svgeod si? How could | Who is being inconsistent? If 1 am to be Your Excellency take we phrase “carpentcy- | called “a bundle of inconsistencies” perhaps itI, February 15, 1890 —_ er is because I have a good stock of yours in my mind tis strange that a captain-general who is used to spending his three years in an atmon ere of vanity and veneration, surrounded by rats and interested persons, ‘knows not the inhabitants of the country when you yourself, ia spite of your many accomplishments, donot know them~ Your Excellency who js not courted by friars but courted them? And tell ‘me wha isthe sane man who will want to place himself near a captain-general of the Philippines and talk freely and frankly with him whee he knows that the peace of his household can be upset by dysentery or a nervous indigestion of HRs Exceleney? “And mun be oases of that the Philippines, dysenteries and nervous. igestions are common among certain classes, know of a brother-in-law of mine who is now exiled for the second time without him or the neral having met once, without being in- formed ofthe acusation without Knowing what crime he had been charged save the fact that he is my brother-in-law. 1, myself, “the man,” the Ibarra of Your Excellency (I know not why you fake me so because I am neither rich, nor a mmestizo, nor orphan, nor do Ibarra's ideas co- incide with mine) on two occasions presented myself at the palace of Malacafiang; and did so to my regret. ‘The first time in 1880 because | was mauled and wounded one dark night by the Civil Guard. 1 passed by a bundle and did not salute; the bundle turned out to be 2 lieutenant who commanded the detachment. I was treach- erously wounded on the shoulder without a word of explanation. 1 went to Mr. Primo de Rivera; I neither saw His Excellency nor did 1 even receive redress, ... And the second time was in 1887 when I was called by Mr. Terrero to answer the accusations and charges that were being made against me for my work. Well then, how many thousands and thousands of persons, ‘more honorable and worthier that Ibarra and myself have seen even the tip of the hair or the bald pate of His Excellency? And you, Sir, who is regarded as one who knows the Archipelago- to how many have you spoken? Do you know the spirit of the naiion? “If you do, mach a cea Roa education” because ‘what in me is ali ‘since childhood—before I learned even a word of German. My soul is “perverted” because I was dueated”sesing injustices and abuses every- where; tease since hence fee fon many suffer meekly and because I, 100, “eed. My "tperveted soul” isthe Guten 0 ‘hat constant vision of an ideal morality that elds to a stark reality of abuses, arbitrariness, pocrisy, farce, violence, perfidy, and other ile passions. Thus “perverted” is my soul but So are the souls of hundred-thousands of Fili- pines wt have not as yet left their miserable who speak no timents, my Noli me tangere would, Sgn {0 their works, appear very small indeed. ‘Thgir volumes would suffice to build pyranitas ‘om the tombs of all tyrants... Poe ‘Yes, Sir, you are right:’ Noli me tangere is 8 satire and not an apology” Yen, | desorbed the social cancers of my country. There are depicted in it “despair and blackness” because | see much infamy in my country-there where the poor match the weak in umber. | confess that I found it painful to expose so much thal ‘was shameful and degrading but in making the || Ricture with my feart's blood, T wanted 10 | Correct the evils and save the rest. Quiog with whom Your Excellency compares me, 9 Iv ( 1 \ ‘ doubt in order to humiliate me and make me halefuT in the eyes of my ebuitryniet, described Aative customs to insult and humifidte an enibre iicul ad make fv of t-Tange Es }"¥oU"do, generalizations out of secondary and Temote premises. Butt the good alongside the bad. | described an a Teeter Cause Ti Eliases and the Tasios exist, exist, and exist, even if the thought pains you. Only you and your co-believers, fearing that the little good 1 described might entice the bad 10 reform themselves, ery out that itis false, etic, exaggerated, idealistic, impossible, Im- probable, ay know oe else. The) wid see only the bad so that the nation Be hurled sad hupaiatee bors eee ‘ise themselves they wish TO’have those around them sink, so that in this manner, they might appear great and exalted. There is, yes, much ‘corruption there, perhaps more than ia any other part of the world, but this is so because to the natural filth of the earth were added the wastes: of transient birds and the jetsam that the sea leaves on the shore. And Because this corrup- tion exists, I wrote my Noli me tangere; | nek for reforms so that the little good there is can. be saved and the bad, redeemed. mntry | were a sepublic like Plato's, I would not have written the Noli me tangere, nor would i have | achieved the success it had; neither woul é-* forms be necessary for who likes medicines when one feels well? ~ rat si But Your Excellency wanted to trap me by default with your invention on page 178, clain. ing that in my Noli me tangere there are no men who need the liberal reforms | ask in “The Phil- ippines a Century Hence.” 1 see that Your Ex. cellency has not read the whole book, but do not deplore because it was not written for | you. However, since you wished to be its critic and an infallible one, you should have read it | 67Hi, 25, February 15, 1890 all, in order not to waste time by Ag foolish have an idea of the number of consumers. westions. Your Excellency asks seriously: b m sia have you be eto ong "Win: | ay Ho you hss amet Tm « seats your wonders” © PPCaim tothe | Colony 4 mons you want m “The genet wonders the ¢ftrontery of your Din Yagees pean ines Your Fal the ath from sehen ag 204 kes | oppostc vies Or does Your Excellency natu: all inferences that accu to anyone should be made. ‘Well then, my dear Sir, those persons 1 talked about in “Th, Philippines a Century Hence” are found ts 290 and 291 and 1 do not quote ine ‘material here, for 1 do not wish to waste ie and paper. The whole world can read abort them. This movement which has reached even the remote corners of the provinces so that even the philosopher Tasio had noticed it ten sp twelve years ago-the time of my novel-has pro: duced the people of today, but this outceme, based on the chronology of events, Your Exest” lency refers toas inconsistent. Your Excellency has also called the natives of Ceylon, Malays, has placed Santa Cruz in Paete and Colomby { know not where. May Your Excellency profit from this procedure! Your Excellency ‘Anacleto del Rosario, ‘Wow cites the names of Isabelo de los Reyes, and Arellano. You could cite more, if you knew the country and the people better and would not le national glories. | could ion a Leon Guerrero, a Zamors Jose Luna,’ a Regine lar, Mariano Sevilla, Pedro Serrano, etc., but we are not concerned here with making a list of men who are worthy. There are and enough of them. Your Exce- leney asks for historians, independent thinkers, ‘and philosophers. Of the first, though they are ‘ot members of the Royal Academy of History, there are like Isabelo de los Reyes Who has not written Guerras Piraticas (Wars Against Pi- rales), but who, nevertheless, deserves credit we thoroughness of his works. AS for tell- ing you the name of the independent thinkers and phil may the Good Lord guard me {rom falling into the net. Rather! as the English Would says not even the name of the province. We know ‘well enough about the persecutions and malicious lies that Francisco Rodriguez NS the object of, while he was living and after tis death, because he had the reputation of being an “independent thinker.” oe a niney is quite tricky asking me for the works Bhilosophers. How about cansoratip? Werk fiat it might be abolished and I promise that the first ‘books will be dedicated to you. Inquire 2130 into the number of copies being sold of the CaS of Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, ilu, Sue, Dumas, Lamartine, Thiers, Aiguals ‘ele., and from the demand, you will “o ina novel should bein agreémont witht Qf.the author? ‘Then, id being a. “buridle of inconsistencies” and more. But Your Excellency, after having lished previously that poetry of Rodriguez! I'am glad that Your Excellency p Quioquiap far above me. Place him in the and in the heavens too. I shall never have his style. 1 shall keep my own wi extremely bad, like Your Excellency academic indeed, I shall accept my even pub- father laces ‘moon ire to ich is sayst icus Vincentius Barrantes dixit, ergo ita st. But no matter how bad it is, it will never ‘equal the wickedness of the abuses that tacks and I can say with Lista: OF my untrammeled Muse The echo never lulled tyrants, it at- Nor mean flatery poisoned its breath, It has never has it served to hide frauds, oppressed corrupted an administration nor id ex- ploited a trusting nation, Bad and all, my work Served the purpose | wanted it to serve. aot a conit bullet-nickel pated soo the sort an academician can hurl-but pebble picked up from the pee, hit its mark. 1 threw it’at a double. and corp inds; Ido not deny T'the the wound is there and so is death, de ‘weapon matter? Not able to deny ths ree events which takes hold of style and of civil admanistattor Tis tight ished, the dog bites the stone that woe 1. Morea: vent have eres nether Lack eulogists; the latter compensate for would be fool to mk the of to reward ime for telling him the bitter truths, myself fortunate that | am still alive, demigods ask that the hands that Kissed. What would have acer to hear, in place of the rumblings from the enemy camp, plaudits and J consider Only the strike be ‘me more is and curses congratula- tions, because then this would be root that the shot backfired. Since 1 wrote not for the purpose of knocking at the gates ‘Academy, but to: the, F myself nor of the ‘expose the abuses 22d unmask the hypocrites, | have achieved my alm, should I bother about anything else? My moreover has not been judged, because its effects still the people it strikes and the abuses it co Judged and cannot be When mbats |Il, 25, February 15, 1890 —_— PO disappeared from the polities of my cou ve then a new generation comes which wil Wy; Siadone crime and immorality; when Spain iis this strife by means of opeh-nearted ang FReral reforms; finally, when all of us have died ith us our pride, our vanity, and our petty jons, then Spaniards and Filipinos will be Phte to judge it with calmness and impartiality, athowt bias oF F@ncor. ae JOSE RIZAL AREPLY ‘Anticles Dedicated to Mr. Jose de Lacalle Ml Paragraphs 26, 27, and 28 follow. Paragraph 26: “And false titles you try to exhibit to your readers are not worth anything.” Paragraph 27: “If in spite of the disastrous campaign undcr- taken by your pen, you are a member of the Geographic and Economic Society, prize- awardee of our Exposition, you owe these justly to your unquestioned scientific merits and not to your literary nor your political works; and secondly, to what the itustrious Valera says that ‘we are ioday in such a dejected state that there is no person or object that does not aj to bs good, because ifs foreign and ot Span Paragraph 28: “You should not be boastful therefore of a kindness which we would bestow in the same manner to a beadle of the German universities.” ‘Thus the Spanish or Filipino reader has a testimony of the loyalty, patriotism, and Hispanism of Mr. Lacalle, The worst of all ‘mortal enemies of Spain would not have dared to defile the name of Spain as this miserable victim of blind and vengeful hatred di para- 28 of his letter. In this very regrettable ion of his vengeful susceptibility, Mr. Lacalle thinks to humiliate me by saying that the Geographic Commercial Society of Madrid, the Geographic Society, the Economic Societ} of Manila tneudges ofthe Philippine Expost- tion of Madrid would have granted to mere beadles of German universities the same rs, the same prizes that were given me by the above. mentioned national societies. And instead of humiliating or ridiculing my ni ishonors with his impertinence the societies Hh include in their memberships the most {{Rowaed names of his nation. This is the man iho recites ca ‘orations, who says in his s se alished in La Athambra last September hi laps that we are ungrateful sons of this beloved Mother that she sends us here?” n And the saddest part of all is that this insult to the Spanish name not only received the ap- proval of the careful censors, but paragraph 28 and even the flattery atthe end of paragraph 27 are also published by La Opinion, EI Eco de Panay, etc., and are hailed by the Spanish vol- unteers of Manila. Difficile est satiram non scibere. But Lam compelled to congratulate the censors for the care they have of gua prestige of the Spanish name. How good is the honorable lady of censorship! Spaniards, be at peace; censorship is the guardian of honor! ‘Those gods are very stupid; the weapons they use tc aftack me in their blind hatred also wound them; the mud they throw at me also soils their hands. Besides, Doctor Lacalle comes out rather late with his fine accusation; 1 have already re- ‘nounced my title of meritorious member of the Economic Society of Manila since last Novem- ber 17... In paragraph 30, Mr. Lacalle says: anything that resembles a mind his notable studies and erudite investiga- tions of Philippine races; I sincerely praise the ‘outstanding works of the professor and | am ‘opposed to ideas that would condemn what is good for science; I also oppose whatever is Contrary to the interests of Spain, the good name of her people and well-being of these races (naturally, to Mr. Lacalle, those races are not sons of the noble Mother}, who inspite of the defenders of brilliant Utopias, are full of love for the Mother who sacrificed blood, interests, and tranquility.” Here we have an oration that contains phrases enjoyed by all Quiog but it is no more than an oration. We, the Filipinos and |, fight “whatever is contrary to the interests of Spain, the good name of her people and the welfare of those races,” while Mr. Lacalle tries to silence us about the faults of the adminis- tration that put to shame the good Spanish name and embarrass the welfare of those races; while Mr. Lacalle attributes to very tionorable socie~ ties of his nation the wish to bestow their honors to beadles of German universities. I fight only those faults of his countrymen that, in our opin= ion embarrass the integrity ofthe country. Mr Lacalle should not make himself a defender of those races; this is a poor joke and badly pre- sented. Mr. Lacalle should not speak with immodesty and effrontery of only the sacrifices in blood, interests, and comforts of Spaniards; these sacrifices are mutually made and if today Spain sacrifices only blood for the Philippines, the Filipinos, on the other hand, sacrifice blood, interests, and tranquility, only to get insults