Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/360

 proposed to myself to continue to turn the leaves of the book with the amused smile of orthodoxy befitting the occassion. But soon the amused smile gave way to an uneasy sense that something unusual had hap- pened. I was first impressed with something leonine in the way in which the author controlled the Vedic lite- rature and the occidental works on the same ; my su- perficial reading was soon replaced by absorbed study, and finally, having been prepared to scoff mildly, I con- fess that the author had convinced me in all the essen- tial points. The book is unquestionably the literary sen- sation of the year ; history, the chronic readjuster shall have her hands uncommonly full to assimilate the result of Tilak's discovery and arrange her paraphernalia in the new perspective."

After the publication of the Orion, Mr. Tilak carried on correspondence with Prof. Max Muller on various philological and astronomical points. Like some chro- nic fever, the subject pursued him, despite the claims which political work had upon his time and energy. The years 1895-97 were, indeed, some of the busiest years of his life ; but all the same, Vedic chronology formed a strong undercurrent of his thoughts. This was a peculiarity with Mr. Tilak. Frequently he could so withdraw his mind from work, that only the lighter moods occupied him. But when a subject 'possessed' him, it gave him no rest, it tormentated him even in his sleep. Before such a powerful concentration it was- no wonder that Saraswati yielded the keys of her treasures. Throughout the busy years of the Poona Congress, the Famine, the Plague, the Councillorship and the Press-prosecutions in the Bombay Presidency^