"I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not feel for a moment confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did not know how to treat me, but behaved like persons who are underbred. In every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of the stone-wall, I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and they were nearly all that was dangerous. As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys if they cannot come to some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it and pitied it."
THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF PASSIVE RESISTANCE
[Mr. Gandhi contributed the following paper to the Golden Nzunber of the °Indian Opinion" in 1914:—]
I shall he at least far away from Phoenix if not actually in the Motherland, when this commemoration issue is published. I wculd, however, leave behind me my innermost thoughts upon that which has made this special issue necessary. Without passive resistance there would have been no richly illustrated and important special issue of Indian Opinion which has, for the last eleven years, in unpretentious and humble manner, endeavoured to serve my countrymen and South Africa, a period causing the most critical stage that they will, perhaps, ever have to pass through. It marks the rise and growth of passive resistance which has attracted worldwide attention.
