Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/327

 leaving him, calm and self-possessed. His private life, lived in the full blaze of publicity, was a tower of strength to him ;for virtue is the greatest tonic.

Call it the peace of a philosopher, the faith of the hero, the light-heartedness of a child or the recklessness of a soldier, his mental equanimity was the secret of his health. The dread uncertainties of our pubUc hie explain to a great extent why many a public worker dies young. To work with despair and defeat writ large on the wall is, indeed, a trial ; and to this trial our spirited workers are being put these many years. The longevity of a Dr. Bahandarkar, may not cause wonder ; but the comparative longevity, which Mr. Tilak reached, surprises those who consider his mental sufferings, his extraordinary brain-work and the vicissitudes of his life.

Chiplonker died in 1882, Apte in 1892, Agarkar, Kelkar, and Namjoshi in 1895, all in the prime of hfe. At one time Mr. Tilak thought that he too, would be summoned away early. Providence, however, had reserved for him a longer career, to be written in letters of gold ; and yet could he not have been spared a httle more ?

The organization of the Congress Democratic Party, the welding of Mr. Gandhi's programme with his own. an ultimatiun to the Bureaucracy, a vigorous foreign propaganda, these were the thoughts that occupied his waking and sleeping hours in the last month ( July 1920) of his Hfe. In the course of this month, he had severe attacks of malaria. However, he completely recovered, went to Bombay for his last fight in the Tai Maharaj case, triumphed over his enemies and had begun to think of recuperating his strength when