Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/247

 test came, it found him true to his creed; and hits titles, his exofficial position, his personal acquaintance with the high and the great, — none of these stood as an impediment. He flung them aside as a perspiring man casts off his superfluous clothes. They were all right in their own way, but not for suffocating the man so as to lose him his manhood, so as to make him a creature of gew-gaws and knick-knacks. With the intrepidity of a man who is to leap into a current, he made a summary mental disposal of them all. What belonged to him he realised was his wrinkled skin covering his frail bones—was that too much of a dedication to the land of his birth? Not so far as he was concerned. Be it success or failure, the time he thought had come to interpret in the spirit of the Vedanta the duty that had been accepted by him as the President of the Home Rule League, and it is this interpretation that makes him more than a South Indian worthy—a hero of the hour—rather the hero of the hour.