The young man went on with more warmth:
"My plan, gentlemen, reduces itself to this: invent new shows that
are not common and ordinary, such as we see every day, and endeavor
that the money collected may not leave the town, and that it be not
wasted in smoke, but that it be used in some manner beneficial to all."
"That's right!" assented the youths. "That's what we want."
"Excellent!" added the elders.
"What should we get from a week of comedies, as the teniente-mayor
proposes? What can we learn from the kings of Bohemia and Granada, who
commanded that their daughters' heads be cut off, or that they should
be blown from a cannon, which later is converted into a throne? We
are not kings, neither are we barbarians; we have no cannon, and if
we should imitate those people, they would hang us on Bagumbayan. What
are those princesses who mingle in the battles, scattering thrusts and
blows about in combat with princes, or who wander alone over mountains
and through valleys as though seduced by the tikbalang? Our nature is
to love sweetness and tenderness in woman, and we would shudder at the
thought of taking the blood-stained hand of a maiden, even when the
blood was that of a Moro or a giant, so abhorred by us.
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