| Dr. Antonio Maria Regidor. |
Rizal’s first letters home to his family speak of being in the free air of England and once more amidst European activity. For a short time he lived with Doctor Antonio Maria Regidor, an exile of ’72, who had come to secure what Spanish legal Business he could in the British metropolis. Doctor Regidor was formerly an official in the Philippines, and later proved his innocence of any complicity in the troubles of ’72.
A “Wheel of Fortune” Answer book arranged for the Rizal boys.
Doctor Rizal then boarded with a Mr. Beckett, organist of St. Paul’s Church, at 37 Charlecote Crescent, in the favorite North West residence section. The zoölogical Page 144gardens were conveniently near and the British Museum was within easy walking distance. The new member was a favorite with all the family, which consisted of three daughters besides the father and mother.
Rizal’s youthful interest in sleight-of-hand tricks was still maintained. During his stay in the Philippines he had sometimes amused his friends in this way, till one day he was horrified to find that the simple country folk, who were also looking on, thought that he was working miracles. In London he resumed his favorite diversion, and a Christmas gift of Mrs. Beckett to him, “The Life and Adventures of Valentine Vox the Ventriloquist,” indicated the interest his friends took in this amusement. One of his own purchases was “Modern Magic,” the frontispiece of which is the sphinx that figures in the story of “El Filibusterismo.”
| Dr. Reinhold Rost. |
It was Rizal’s custom to study the deceptions practiced upon the peoples of other lands, comparing them with those of which his own countrymen had been victims. Thus he could get an idea of the relative credulity of different peoples and could also account for many practices the origin of which was otherwise less easy to understand. His investigations were both in books and by personal research. In quest of these experiences he one day chanced to visit a professional phrenologist; the bump-reader was a shrewd guesser, for he dwelt especially upon Rizal’s aptitude for learning languages and advised him to take up the study of them.
Facsimile of a page of one of Andersen’s fairy tales, translated by Rizal for his nephews and nieces.