Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/288

 period of political transformation, in other words of men who had remained political babies in fact, he ignored the protest that by a reflex action as it were proceeded from Sir Subramanya Iyer. Lord Pentland did not know that when he was thirty he took the risk of ridicule and unpopularity by suing the Temple trustees of his own place; that his nomination to the Legislative Council during the more irresponsible regime of Sir M. E. Grant Duff did not prevent him even during his tenure from pricking the bubble-constitution of the Council—which no nominated member to-day will consent to do unless he has entered by an open vow of renunciation a political seminary for the rest of his life. He did not know how Mr. Subramaniem's appointment as a Judge was welcomed as a vindication of the policy of finding merit in the bonafide critics of Government and not as a reward for past and future subserviency. He did not know that Sir Subramaniem was not a man of such "consequence" as to speak one word in the ear of confiding authority and a plaintive period to the anticipated applause of a public audience. He preferred other men to be spoken