Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/37

Rh that his sympathy for the poor was roused. To add insult to injury, the advisers of Queen Victoria the Good induced her to assume the title of "Kaiser-i-Hind" in this very year of famine and starvation.

The impressions of these events were strengthened by the companionship of a congenial friend and the message of an inspiring leader. Since 1874, the young men of Maharashtra were watching with passionate enthusiasm the appearance of a luminary in the literary firmament of Poona. This luminary was no other than the illustrious Vishnushastri Chiploonkar, son of Krishnashastri, the memory of whose ability and learning is still green. The hOuse of Krishnashastri was the favourite resort of all the leading hghts of Maharashtra; and of the interesting and instructive discourses cf his father, Vishnu, shy and studious, silent and thoughtful, was an attentive listener. So when, after passing the Matriculation he joined the Deccan College, he could carry thither a correctness of taste and a depth and variety of knowledge which many graduates could not claim. While many of his fellow-students were abusing the liberty of college-life and the liberality of their parents in a variey of ways, the excesses of Vishnu were merely intellectual and amounted to nothing more than a passionate study of history and literature, to the neglect of Logic and Mathematics. After graduation in 1872, he was persuaded to accept a school-master's post in the Educational Department, but this did not prevent from starting, in 1874, the famous magazine, the Nibandhamala, which by its magnificent rhetorical style and trenchant criticism of the Government and