Note 18 — Chapter II · SCHOOL-DAYS AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS

It has become a habit among some writers and speakers to look upon Rizal as a kind of superman, a creature of abnormal gifts, a brilliant exception to the common endowment of the Filipino. Some have described him as a bright, strange meteor flashing against a background of Malayan incapacity.18 As this narrative of a wonderful life unfolds it will probably show that the man thus pedestaled was only human and that the secret of his great works, enduring influence and pre-eminence in so many walks was nothing mysterious but plainly understandable. He had a twofold inspiration. First, he developed a habit of ceaseless industry, carefully ordered, carefully followed. Second, and even better than this, from his youth he had been overmastered, fired and whirled along by a vision of his people redeemed. So then to their redemption he consecrated his life. He did it in his closet, quietly, without theatrics and without telling anybody. Macaulay’s theory that every great man has something of the charlatan in him falls short in this instance. For him the grand stand never existed. Whatever he did was dedicated first in his heart to Filipinas; whatever he thought, planned, dreamed, or hoped for had some reference to her and her service, and now when he studied it was to fit himself to serve her better.