History of Philippine press / Carson Taylor.

History of the Philippine Press

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occupied, or still occupy, high and honorable positions in
various activities. Those young men were not professional
writers who labored for a stipend-they were geniuses, artisans, builders of national sentiment who chose the mass of
the public for their material to mold it into a worthy race
of heroes and patriots; they wrote for the joy of writing
and the propagation of their patriotic ideals, through the
channels of thought suggested to each by his individual temperament and literary tastes. One (like Manuel S. Guerrero) was a bomb, who, with the dynamic satire of his sarcastic words, would relegate to scorn and contempt the high
dignitaries, be they whosoever they might, who in that.epoch
were the staff and support of the anti-patriots; another was
a Tito-Tato, who incited laughter and reflection by his smart
and witty jokes; or perhaps it was a Fulvio Gil who, with
the inspiration of a meridional dreamer, chanted of the
beauty of our sugar-cane groves and our Maria Claras; or
he was a Solon, who, in his elegant and pure idiom, exacted
the grandeur of his native land, the beauty of its fair
maidens and the valor of its heroes; perhaps it was a Catulo,
who, by the warm glow of his free-flowing verse, evoked
memories of a far-away loved one, or the shadow of a sad
and weeping fatherland; or perchance it was a brave Palma,
in whom a keen eye could perceive, even then so long ago,
the silhouette of the astute and clever politician, with the
mystery of a sphinx in his impenetrable and enigmatic
laugh; or, mayhap, it was an Abreau, of pleasing and gallant
speech, who enchanted his readers by his stories of a future
impenitent bachelor, or, lastly, he might have been a Pepe
Palma, with a soul of the finest texture and the tender heart
of a child, as responsive and delicate as the cords of an
Aeolian harp, singing sweet melodies, now to the virgen of
his dreams, now to the beloved country of his birth; —and
all of them, all of the galaxy of brilliant young men, directed
and guided by a man of genius, by an eminent strategist, a
soul of prompt and decisive action, by an Antonio Luna."
The literary Renaissance of the revolutionary period is
a land-mark that stands alone in the history of these Islands.
What the North American poetess, M. N. Norton, wrote
about the prose of one of the editors of La Independencia,
might aptly be applied to a description of the writings of
that epoch. She said: "They were writings imbued with
the inspiration of youth, with that indefinite something of
springtime fragance that will never return but to memory."
La. Independencia was the La Solidaridad revived; Luna was
fond of saying so. In fact three editors and collaborators