Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/291

 Communique of the Governor was the last word—followed by action—the orders of internment. This was on June 16th. From that date to 5tb September for 65 days, Sir Subramaniem became the soul of what may be called a Liberation movement. The meetings at which he presided, the letters he wrote to the press, the calls he received at home, the proceedings of numberless gatherings in the mofussil with which he kept himself in intimate touch, the immense volume of correspondence he had to attend to, the distribution of funds which he had to supervise need not be detailed here. But—all these in his 77th year, with both his eyes incapable of making out his own signature or the place where he should affix it, with physical drawbacks partly due to infirmities of age and partly congenital! Requiring the kindly help of some one else at every physical step of his, incapable of reaching with his hand an object at his elbow, liable to be affected by the slightest vagaries of the weather, he yet bore with work which two men of half his age would have found too great a strain to go through day after day, and hour after hour—barring the very late hours of the evening. His letters from abroad in English, Tamil and