Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/352

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he translated it by * Adhikari Varga, still he was not quite pleased with the expression. It was in the course of a lecture that the word * Nokarshahi ' occurred to him. So delighted was he with this word, that he called some of his literary friends at the end of the speech, and shared with them his joy at the addition of an extremely nice word to the Marathi vocabulary. Like the elephant of the story, Mr. Tilak's intellectual tusk, strong enough to bear the load of heavy timber, was also capable of lifting up a pin. His genius was .at once comprehensive and subtle.

The expression " old wine in new bottles '* is generally an empty compliment. Mr. Tilak's discussion of abstruse political theories, however, never struck his readers as something outlandish, something developed and prepared thousands of miles away and thence imported into India. His readers always felt at home with his writings and were never repelled by the EngHsh political thought which he discussed in Marathi. Mr. Tilak not only made his reader understand him, he made him also remember the main points in his writings. Some words, some expressions, some sentences in his articles always lingered in the memory of the reader. The article may be forgotten, but such words stick to the memory. Usually the title of the heading of the article was pithy and expressive. It summed up the whole of the article in some striking phrase. He always said that a good heading was worth half the writing.

The object of the propagandist is to influence his readers. He seeks inspiration from the people, and returns it thousandfold. He receives instruction and imparts it at compound interest. Mr. Tilak bore this