Page:Mahatma Gandhi, his life, writings and speeches.djvu/119

 Therefore, lies not with the British race, but with the Indians themselves, and if they have sufficient self-abnegation and abstemiousness, they can make themselves free this very moment, and when we have arrived in India at the simplicity which is still ours largely and which was ours entirely until a few years ago, it will still be possible for the best Indians and the best Europeans to see one another throughout the length and breadth of India, and act as the leaven. When there was no rapid locomotion, teachers and preachers went on foot, from one end of the country to the other, braving all dangers, not for pleasure, not for recruiting their health, (though all that followed from their tramps) but for the sake of humanity. Then were Benares and other places of pilgrimage holy cities, whereas to-day they are an abomination.

You will recollect you used to hate me for talking to my children in Gujarati. I now feel more and more convinced that I was absolutely right in refusing to talk to them in English. Fancy a Gujarati writing to another Gujarati in English! Which, as you would properly say, he mispronounces, and writes ungrammatically. I should certainly never