भारतीय इतिहास के ६ स्वर्णिम पृष्ठ (वीर सावरकर - विदेशी आक्रान्ताओं पर विजय गाथा)

of any anxiety of our hearts to meet. For, in that case, even if they do not grant it, we shall at least have the manly satisfaction of not having displayed the most sacred and the most human of all wounds—the wounds of separation—to an alien and unsympathetic eye. Again, whatever you wish to write in amelioration here should be written directly to Delhi. For almost nothing lies in the hands of the authorities here as far as change, especially for the better, is concerned in my case and whatever they can do, they are doing and I would request them to do if possible, when it be left undone. I know that some of you, though sure and certain that I shall not break down under this imprisonment, are still grieved to think that I should have been suffering all this and should have been forced to desist from all work, social or political or even literary. But brother just think—is suffering no work? Who worked more for Christianity—they who suffered in silence and unknown or they who worked? Surely both; but I suspect that those who work for a good cause outside, work much—but they who suffer for it in prisons and fields work more. At bottom, work, if true, is suffering and suffering, if true, is work. Suffering is the motor, the power that moves, and goads and propels a people. Unless the best amongst them suffer, the rest cannot work. Both are grand, both are indispensable, and if both be indispensable, then what grief if we be chosen and ordered to guard this post rather than that? I bless myself that—this fell to my lot! Do not grieve, brother, that I sit in darkness and simply waiting, while everyone else is lighting his or her lamp to shed light on the path of man. Do you not remember that ‘Her State’, is queenly thousands at her bidding post—they also serve who only stand and wait! And how much more then do they who not only wait but suffer and yet stand!! The worker is great for he puts stone upon stone and chisels and moulds; but then the cement of the Church?—is the sufferer! The martyr that bleeds!! And indeed, Bal! You can hardly believe how happy I feel from moment to moment—strange breezes of bliss pass and repass, kissing all the inevitable physical worry and weakness into ever fresh and ever blossoming joy of the soul at rest. I feel just as I used to feel in the college days after some final examination had been satisfactorily gone through and went to stay home quietly but confident by expecting the welcome news of passing. This Great Trial, This Test, to achieve the deliverance of the Mother!—and so satisfactorily gone through as far as I was concerned! and now I have