Page:Satyagraha in South Africa.pdf/270

 idea. I will next deliberate as to the language suited to the subject and then set to write. If every one did as I do, what a huge saving of time would there be? And the nation would be saved from the avalanche of half-baked ideas which now threatens to overwhelm her.’

As the reminiscences of Tolstoy Farm would be incomplete without an account of Gokhale’s visit thereto, so would they be if I omitted to say something about the character and conduct of Mr Kallenbach. It was really a wonder how he lived on Tolstoy Farm among our people as if he were one of us. Gokhale was not the man to be attracted by ordinary things. But even he felt strongly drawn to the revolutionary change in Kallenbach’s life. Kallenbach had been brought up in the lap of luxury and had never known what privation was. In fact, indulgence had been his religion. He had had his fill of all the pleasures of life, and he had never hesitated to secure for his comfort everything that money could buy.

It was no commonplace for such a man to live, move and have his being on Tolstoy Farm, and to become one with the Indian settlers. This was an agreeable surprise for the Indians. Some Europeans classed Kallenbach either as a fool or a lunatic, while others honoured him for his spirit of renunciation. Kallenbach never felt his renunciation to be painful. In fact he enjoyed it even more than he had enjoyed the pleasures of life before. He would be transported with rapture while describing the bliss of a simple life, and for a moment his hearers would be tempted to go in for it. He mixed so lovingly with the young as well as the old, that separation from him even for a short time left a clearly felt void in their lives. Mr Kallenbach was very fond of fruit trees and therefore he reserved gardening as his own portfolio. Every morning he would engage children as well as grown up people in tending the fruit trees. He would make them work hard, but he had such a cheerful temper and smiling face, that every one loved to work with him. Whenever a party of tourists left the Farm for Johannesburg at 2 a.m., Mr Kallenbach would always be one of them.