Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 1.djvu/93



Were the hopes of all realized? That is the question. How hopeful, yet how often disappointed, is the human mind! We live in hopes.

The Vegetarian, 16-4-1892

Letter to Ranchhodlal Patwari (5-9-1892)
September 5, 1892

My Dear Patwari,

I thank you for your kind letter and the advice you have given me. As I told you in my last p.c., I have to postpone going abroad for practice. My brother is very much against it. He thinks that I need not despair of getting a decent livelihood in Kathiawar and that without directly taking part in the khutput. However this may be, since he is so hopeful and is entitled to every consideration from me, I shall follow his advice. Here, too, I have been promised some work. So I intend to be here for about two months at least. I do not think my accepting a literary post will materially interfere with my legal studies. On the other hand, such a work will add to my knowledge that cannot but be indirectly useful in practice. Moreover, thereby I can work with a more concentrated mind free from worry, but where is the post? Not an easy thing to get one. Of course, I asked for a loan on the strength of the promise you made me while at Rajkot. I entirely agree with you that your father should not know of it. Never mind about it now. I shall try somewhere else. I can easily understand that you cannot have a large surplus from one year's practice. My brother has been retained in Sachin as Secretary to the Nawab of Sachin. He has gone to Rajkot and will return in a few days.

I am glad to hear from Kashidas that he will settle in Dhandhuka. The caste opposition is as great as ever. Everything depends upon one man who will try his best never to allow me to enter the caste. I am not so very sorry for myself as I am for the