their elbows. Take away the friar, gentlemen, and you will see how the
Philippine edifice will totter; lacking robust shoulders and hairy
limbs to sustain it, Philippine life will again become monotonous,
without the merry note of the playful and gracious friar, without
the booklets and sermons that split our sides with laughter, without
the amusing contrast between grand pretensions and small brains,
without the actual, daily representations of the tales of Boccaccio
and La Fontaine! Without the girdles and scapularies, what would you
have our women do in the future--save that money and perhaps become
miserly and covetous? Without the masses, novenaries, and processions,
where will you find games of _panguingui_ to entertain them in their
hours of leisure? They would then have to devote themselves to their
household duties and instead of reading diverting stories of miracles,
we should then have to get them works that are not extant.

"Take away the friar and heroism will disappear, the political virtues
will fall under the control of the vulgar. Take him away and the Indian
will cease to exist, for the friar is the Father, the Indian is the
Word! The former is the sculptor, the latter the statue, because all
that we are, think, or do, we owe to the friar--to his patience,
his toil, his perseverance of three centuries to modify the form
Nature gave us. The Philippines without the friar and without the
Indian--what then would become of the unfortunate government in the
hands of the Chinamen?"

"It will eat lobster pie," suggested Isagani, whom Pecson's speech
bored.

"And that's what we ought to be doing. Enough of speeches!"