Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/234

 when we take into consideration the elements trying to gain ascendancy by making every circumstance to contribute to personal prominence, it is a great relief, indeed to have in our midst a silent corrective factor in those principles which constitute Mr. Gandhi's life day by day. No doubt there was here and there a silent fear that some of his ubiquitous admirers or a few well-meaning friends of his, prompted by a perfectly humane consideration for a better standard of personal comfort to him, might be apt to draw him out of his chosen orbit of self-denial and simplicity. Human nature primarily is such that it more easily deviates from a thorny path of service on account of unconsciously deceptive solicitude of friends and admirers than on account of open hostility or detraction. It is not only princes who have their flatterers, it is not only high placed officials that have their sycophants. Persons like Mr. Gandhi are not exempt from both; nay, they may have worshippers among big and small, and arch-priests who worship as much for the sake of the prominence that it gives them as such as for the sake of the heroism that merits worship. From such a danger Mr. Tilak is more exempt than Mr.