Page:Bal Gangadhar Tilak, his writings and speeches.djvu/23

 one of the brightness, sharpness and perfect temper of a fine sword bidden in a sober scabbard. As- he emerged on the political field, his people saw more and more clearly in him their representative man, themselves in large, the genius of their type. They felt him to be of one spirit and make with the great men who had made their past history, almost belived him to be a reincarnation of one of them returned to carry out his old work in a new form and under new conditions. They beheld in him the spirit of Maharashtra once again embodied in a great individual. He occupies a position in his province which has no parallel in the rest of India.

On the wider national field also Mr. Tilak has rare qualities which fit him for the hour and the work. He is in no sense what his enemies have called him, a demagogue : he has not the loose suppleness, the oratorical fervour, the fslile appeal to the passions which demagogy requires ; his speeches are too much made up of hard and straight thinking, he is too much a man of serious and practical action. None more careless of mere effervescence, emotional applause, popular gush, public ovations. He tolerates them since popular euthusiasm will express itself in that way ;* but he has always been a little imnatient of them as dissipative of serious strength and will and a waste of time and energy which might better have been solidified and devoted to effective work. But be is entirely a democratic politician, of a type not very common among our leaders, one who can,