Note 203 — San Agustin’s Letter on the Filipinos

87. I confess for my part that, at the beginning, I was afflicted and was greatly tormented, until with the lapse of time I came to realize that such was their disposition and nature, and that these trees could give no better fruit. In time it became to me a motive for praising God to see the variety of conditions and203 customs which He has placed in human nature, which is so beautified with variety; and I took particular pleasure in seeing youths and boys doing all things backward—without any malice, and without having prompters, like actors; but moved only by that hidden peculiarity that makes them so different from all other nations, and so uniform among themselves, [a likeness] which is so great that any one who has seen one of these monopantos has seen them all. With these considerations I lived consoled, and succeeded in making of them wax and wick, as the saying is.204