Slightly pained, he said, “So you also have failed to understand me! I do not use my Council allowances for my own personal comforts. I envy your liberty to go about in tramcars, but I am sorry I cannot do likewise. When you are the victim of as wide a publicity as I am, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for you to go about in a tramcar. There is no reason to suppose that everything that the leaders do is with a view to personal comfort. I love your simple habits. I live as simply as I can, but some expense is almost inevitable for a man like myself.”
He thus satisfactorily disposed of one of my complaints, but there was another which he could not dispose of to my satisfaction.
“But you do not even go out for walks,” said I. “Is it surprising that you should be always ailing? Should public work leave no time for physical exercise?”
“When do you ever find me free to go out for a walk?” he replied.
I had such a great regard for Gokhale that I never strove with him. Though this reply was far from satisfying me, I remained silent. I believed then and I believe even now, that, no matter what amount of work one has, one should always find some time for exercise, just as one does for one’s meals. It is my humble opinion that, far from taking away from one’s capacity for work, it adds to it.