Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/30

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xvii

is unfailingly in evidence beside the 'Quaker'-tremor of the spirit. So did the good Frances Power Cobbe declare of the great James Martineau that "with a jewelled crozier he shepherded his flock and always led them to the uplands of thought"!

Between the present and the preceding volume, if anything, one difference will perhaps be traced. While the one with its free-blown spontaneity and exuberance represents more, so to speak, the 'romantic', the other with its polished trimness and embellishment reflects more the 'classical' type of self-expression. Unlike its predecessor, which sprang a clean surprise upon him, this volume has secured, in the final form, an incalculable enhancement of high values through the Master's own verbal revision of the earlier writings and the reported echoes of the later utterances (all extempore). Over this piece of good fortune and the practical imprimatur of its benign approval of a responsible undertaking it is not for words to spell out the inmost sense of thankful