Saradakosh

London (July-aug 1899)

Total Records Found: 27

Conspicuous by his absence at the dock was Mr. E. T. Sturdy. Before arriving in England the Swami had received word from his old friend that he had gone off to Wales and thus could not receive the two Swamis in London, where he now lived. This must surely have come as a disappointment to the Swami, but at first it was perhaps no more than that. As time went on, however, disappointment turned to painful surprise and shock. The Swami's letter written to Sturdy from Port Said indicates that he had taken for granted that Sturdy's loyalty to and enthusiasm for the work was intact and reliable. But it was soon to become apparent that such was not the case.

During the Swami's fortnight in England, Sturdy did manage to come in from Wales for three days. But face to face with his guru he could not unburden his mind. Only later did the unwholesome, and surely unhappy, thoughts he was harbouring explode in acrimonious letters to the Swami, bitterly denouncing his way of preaching and living. Not-withstanding Sturdy's insulting insolence, the Swami brought the chain of this incredible correspondence to a close with the remark. "That India still lives, Sturdy — [that] India of un-dying love — of everlasting faithfulness — the unchangeable, not only in manners and customs, but also in love, in faith, in friendship. And I, the least of that India's child, love you, Sturdy, with Indian love, and would any day give up a thousand bodies to help you out of this delusion."

(Sarah Ellen Waldo’s perturbation about Henrietta Muller was not without good cause. Miss Muller, whom Swamiji had occasion to warn Nivedita against as a woman of "violent temper," "overbearing conduct," and "awfully vacillating mind,"29 had followed him to India in 1897. She had at first contributed financially to Swamiji’s work, but later, not finding things in India to her liking, had, at the close of 1898, publicly defected from his cause. "What a pity Miss Muller should advertise her foolishness in the papers !" Mrs. Sevier had written to Miss MacLeod from Almora on January 1, I899. "The `Indian Social Reformer’ has a paragraph respecting her-viz., `to our Christian brethren we beg to offer a Christmas present in the shape of news, which we have received from the most authentic source, that Miss Muller has completely severed her connection with Swami Vivekananda’s movement to spread Hinduism, and that she has returned to her Christian faith’¬etc. etc. We have not seen Miss Muller’s letter to the ‘States¬man’ nor the reply to it, in the `Indian Mirror.’ ”)30_x000d_ There was some confusion about the passage money for the Swamis. As we have seen in the preceding chapter, Sister Nivedita had written, with Swamiji’s approval, to Mr. Sturdy, suggesting that the money for Swami Turiyananda’s ticket be paid out of funds held in London for the Vedanta work. Mr. Sturdy, alarmed, wrote to Mrs. Bull, who evidently assured him that the matter would be otherwise taken care of. He was, for the time, much relieved._x000d_ Sturdy to Mrs. Bull, April 13:_x000d_ Many thanks for your reply which has set me at rest on the point of the fare moneys for Swamiji & Turiyananda. I am confirmed in fancying that Nivedita was trying to remove any hindrance to their starting but did not know details & did not like to inquire into them._x000d_ Since writing you I have a very short note from Swamiji, acknowledging my invitation & agreeing with its general outlines of work, but he said he felt he was getting stronger & was inclined to remain a little longer in Calcutta. . . ._x000d_ Miss Muller has written Mrs. Ashton Jonson hoping for an interview; the latter was a little doubtful of any good and afraid she might deal the former some hard knocks if criticisms were brought up about Swami. I advised the interview and thought nothing of the sort might possibly be broached. . . ._x000d_ Miss Noble’s letter is full of life & enthusiasm. What a fine full nature it is. . . ._x000d_ I am ready to receive Turiyananda whenever he may come. I think this is understood but I shall repeat when I write to India by tomorrow’s mail.31_x000d_ _x000d_ In the meantime, Miss MacLeod, ebulliently but, one thinks, unwisely, forwarded to Sturdy, no doubt for his entertainment, Nivedita’s long, chatty, and fairly intimate letter dated March 5 to 8, in which she had mentioned her conversation with Swamiji about the passage money. Mr. Sturdy seems to have been a good deal more disturbed than entertained. His subsequent letter (dated April 16) to Mrs. Bull reveals a less than enthusiastic state of mind._x000d_ _x000d_ Since writing you [he wrote] and receiving your reply I have received the enclosed letter of Nivedita’s from Miss MacLeod._x000d_ It gives details about conversation with Swamiji about the passage money which Nivedita did not write me; in fact she clearly states in her letter to me that she is writing entirely upon her own responsibility. Do you think they need any authority from you to use the money you referred to?_x000d_ My position here is this-I know from old experience that as soon as the Swami arrives here, plenty of money will be needed. There will be two to arrange expenses for._x000d_ Turiyananda I have already agreed to send on to U.S.A. when the time comes. He will probably require some outfitting also. The same applies to Swami. He may elect suddenly to go to U.S.A.: he will probably also need new outfit. On top of this Longmans may need money if another edition of Raja Yoga should be needed. Or Swami may write a book here which should be published at once._x000d_ I do not know where I could raise any donations amongst Swami’s friends amounting to anything substantial and it would be unwise to try._x000d_ I am not able to reduce my own living expenditures below the present, without a change which would involve others & probably would not be wise in the end and so I am left not a very large margin to donate personally._x000d_ Looking at these points I want to be ready for the campaign that is to come and not cripple it. So I should like to hear again from you, just what you think. It is possible they have started by this time as Nivedita spoke of April and this letter to Miss MacLeod is dated March 5._x000d_ _x000d_ Mrs. Bull no doubt again assured Sturdy that the Swami’s passage money need not be taken out of the London funds. Nor need he have fretted himself about Swami Turiyananda’s clothes. Swami Saradananda was to write to Mrs. Bull in May: "My dresses fit [Turiyananda] so well, I am giving him everything; so you will find him wearing the same red coats & trousers & overcoats & all. Time passed. When at last Swamiji sailed from Calcutta he sent a cablegram to Miss MacLeod: "Started. Wire Sturdy."34 The instruction was at once carried out, and shortly Sturdy wrote to Swamiji, addressing his letter to the Golconda at Port Said. This letter, as far as I know, is not available, but from Swamiji’s reply, dated July 14 and published in volume eight of the Complete Works, it is obvious that he considered Mr. Sturdy to be as friendly and cooperative as ever. "I think you are absolutely needed to gather up, as it were, the American work," he wrote. "If you can, therefore, you ought to come over with me. . . : “35 Whether Swamiji and Swami Turiya¬nanda expected to stay in London with Mr. Sturdy is not clear; nor was it clear, it would seem, to Mr. Sturdy himself. He wrote a second letter to Swamiji saying he was going to Wales,36 and to Mrs. Bull on July 8:_x000d_ _x000d_ We leave for Wales on 18th. . . ._x000d_ I am no further on regarding Swami. I only know that he is on his way, together with Miss Noble, Turiyananda & a brother of Saradananda, a "layman" I presume, named Chakravarti. What he wishes to do, where to rest awhile &c, I leave for time to disclose._x000d_ If they come direct to London they are due here on July 27th-"the dog days"-when everybody has fled to the fields & the seas. . . ._x000d_ Your visit & also Miss MacLeod’s [in February and March], left us all with the happiest impressions and it is nice to think of the links that unite us all with Swami at the head of our round table.37_x000d_ _x000d_ The knight of the round table was, it seems, somewhat errant. But let us leave him for a time in Wales and return to Tilbury Dock and the arrival of the Golconda.

It had been in March of 1895 that Mr. Sturdy introduced himself by letter to Swamiji, who was then in New York. A member of the Theosophical Society in London, Sturdy had traveled to India in the 1890s to devote himself to the study of Sanskrit and Indian philosophy and had chanced in his wander¬ings upon two monks of the Ramakrishna Order. "I was living for some time in India with two of your gurubhais," he wrote to Swamiji, "Shivanandaji and Satchidanandaji [the latter was not, actually, a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna’s), and found them both good men and worthy of respect. This was in Kumaon [near Almora). It is more probable that Mr. Sturdy had lived near, rather than with, the two Swamis, but in any event he had often talked with them. Living in that holy environment, in the pure air of the Himalayas, he had soon come to look upon himself as a man completely estab¬lished in austerity, renunciation, and monkhood. Many years later he wrote to Miss MacLeod, "I remember the ridicule and contempt with which I received a palmist’s prediction on my last voyage from India [in the &first part of 1894) when she said, `You will be married twice, have children and suffer much through women.’ [I mention this) because it recalls my complete confidence in myself that I had at that time, the confidence in the road I was to follow, the complete immunity to woman’s influence I thought I had reached and would certainly continue in it. Cocksure where even saints are prayerful, Mr. Sturdy had tempted the gods. Within a few months he was married to a young woman named Lucie, who promptly bore him the first of two children. By the time he wrote to Swamiji, introducing himself, his days of freedom, whether he knew it yet or not, were gone. But however that may have been, he soon invited Swamiji to become his guest in England, suggesting that he stay long enough "to establish either a [Vedanta) class or a Society.

"I received your last duly," Swamiji replied, "and as I had a previous arrangement to come to Europe by the end of this August, I take your invitation as a Divine Call.

Around the second or third week of September, 1895, Swamiji arrived in England from Paris and evidently went by train directly to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Sturdy, who were then living in Reading, about thirty-six miles west of London. Until the end of October he lived with the Sturdys more or less quietly, giving a few small classes, of which we have only a hint or two, translating the Narada Bhakti Sutras with his host and writing "copious commentaries" on it. On October 22 he delivered a public lecture at Prince’s Hall in London and the next day was acclaimed in glowing terms by the daily papers. His London work was launched.

In the last week of October Swamiji moved to rented rooms at 80 Oakley Street, Chelsea (London), and there held crowded classes. In addition, he gave a lecture at South Place Chapel, a church famous for its liberality, and spoke informally at two or three private homes-notably at Lady Isabel Margesson’s house at 63 St. George’s Road, where Sister Nivedita first heard him. Although his public work was not on a large scale during that late fall of 1895, he successfully laid the foundation for the future, and he was pleased.*_x000d_ _x000d_ * For a detailed account of Swamiji’s visit in England in 1895 see Burke, Swami Vivekananda in the West New Discoveries: The World Teacher-Part Onhereafter called World Teacher- I), chapter four.

"In England my work is really splendid," he wrote to Alasinga, "I am astonished myself at it. . . . I am sure of more work in England than in America. Bands and bands come, and I have no room for so many; so they squat on the floor, ladies and all . . . . I have sent for a Sannyasin from Calcutta and shall leave him to work in London.

At the close of November, Swamiji sailed for America, where he worked from early December through March of 1896, keeping in touch all the while with Mr. Sturdy, whom he addressed affectionately as "Blessed and Beloved." He then visited England for the second time, arriving on April 20 at the Sturdys’ house. There, to his delight, he found Swami Saradananda, who, three weeks earlier, had come from India at his call. The two Swamis stayed with the Sturdys until the first week in May, when they moved to Lady Isabel Marges¬son’s house in London, which Mr. Sturdy had rented for five months (from the first of May until the first of October) for Swamiji and his classes. Miss Henrietta Muller, a wealthy, middle-aged Theosophist, whom Swamiji had met at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago and of whom we shall hear more later, sublet some rooms in the house, thus helping, as Mr. Sturdy said, to reduce the cost. Through May, June, and the first part of July Swamiji lived at 63 St. George’s Road and held classes there regularly. He also gave a number of talks at various clubs, and delivered six Sunday lectures in a public hall.

From mid July to mid-September he vacationed in Europe, traveling with Captain and Mrs. J. H. Sevier, two devoted English disciples, and, for a part of the time, Miss Muller.* On his return to England, Swamiji stayed for a few days with the Seviers in Hampstead, and then visited Miss Muller in Wimbledon-a residential suburb of London where Miss Margaret Noble also lived. Here he gave two "drawing-room" talks and a class. Soon, however, he reopened his London work._x000d_ _x000d_ * Miss F. Henrietta Muller’s last name is spelled in various records both with and without an umlaut over the u. In this series of books I have followed, somewhat arbitrarily, the no-umlaut school.

In the first week of October a number of his friends took a large room or rather, as Mr. Sturdy wrote to Mrs. Bull, "three rooms, knocked into one, at 39 Victoria Street, for the purpose of his lectures and classes. As for his living quarters, a basement flat was rented nearby at 14 Greycoat Gardens, Westminster, where he lived with Swami Abhedananda, who had come from India, and Josiah J. Goodwin. The latter had sailed with Swami Saradananda for America on June 27 and had, fortunately, returned-fortunately, because Mr. Goodwin, an expert stenographer, was to take down Swamiji’s London lectures during this fall season, even as he had taken down the New York lectures of the preceding winter. The London lectures, fourteen of which are included in the book Jnana Yoga, formed an important part of Swamiji’s exposition of monistic Vedanta. Clearly, he gave the English people strong spiritual food, and, as clearly, they liked it: by the end of the year his following was large and enthusiastic.**_x000d_ ** For a detailed account of Swamiji’s visits in Eng- land in 1896 see Burke, Swami Vivekananda in the West, New Discoveries: The World Teacher-Part Two (here- after called World Teacher- 2), chapters eleven, twelve, fourteen, and sixteen. _x000d_ "The work in London has been a roaring success," he wrote on November 28 to his American friends Mary and Harriet Hale. "The English are not so bright as the Americans, but once you touch their heart, it is yours for ever. Slowly I have gained, and is it not remarkable that by six months’ work altogether I should have a steady class of about I20 persons, apart from public lectures? . . . My ideas about the English have been revolutionised. I now understand why the Lord has blessed them above all other races. They are steady, sincere to the backbone, with great depths of feeling-only with a crust of stoicism on the surface; if that is broken, you have your man.

There could have been, had Swamiji wished, many more months of a successful season in London. But he was guided by commands known to himself alone. "Of course everybody here thinks it foolish to give [the work] up just now the `boom’ is on," he wrote to Miss MacLeod on December 3, "but the Dear Lord says `Start for Old India.’ I obey. Thus on December 16, 1896 accompanied by Captain and Mrs. Sevier and followed by Mr. Goodwin, Swamiji sailed for India.

Swami Vivekananda left today [Mr. Sturdy wrote to an American friend]. . . . He had a magnificent reception [on December 13] in the Galleries of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colours. There were about five hundred people there, and a good many friends were away from London. His influence has sunk very deep into many hearts. We are going straight ahead with his work. . . . Your presumption is correct. I am heavy-hearted today at the loss of the noblest friend and the purest teacher I have met in this incarnation. I must have stored some exceptional merit in the past to receive such a blessing now. What I longed for all my life I have found in the Swami.

At a later date Sturdy was to confide to Miss MacLeod: "When Swami left for India, with Goodwin, I laid my head on his breast and sobbed. Swamiji had been confident that his teachings had taken root in London and would there grow. Indeed, during an interview in Calcutta in late February (or early March) of 1897, he had declared that if qualified preachers could be had, there was greater likelihood of the Vedanta work being permanently established in England than in America. A week or so earlier in Madras he had been even more optimistic: "If I die tomorrow and cannot send any more Sannyasins, still the English work will go on, he had said. Yet in the fall of 1896, even as his London work was "growing apace," "becoming solid-and respectable too, . . . great scholars. . . sympathising," and the classes "becoming bigger as they go on," he had made a truer prediction. "Of course," he had written to Alasinga, "as soon as I leave, most of this fabric will tumble down. And tumble down it did. At once._x000d_ Informing Miss MacLeod about the progress of the work, Mr. Sturdy wrote on January 25, 1897._x000d_ We reopened the room at 39 Victoria Street on Jan I2 and Abhedananda gave a very creditable first lecture. . . . But the attendance has been very meagre indeed from the beginning, showing how much was dependent upon personality. Of course the weather has been bad--some¬times foggy and sometimes wet and many people may be away from town. . . Meanwhile we just fire away and do what is to be done-we cannot command but may deserve success.

But success did not come. There was no organization to hold things together; Mr. Sturdy-now a family man, divided in loyalties-was a failure as a leader, and as people drifted away, there was no money to pay expenses. "The London work is not doing well at all, I hear, Swamiji wrote to Margaret Noble on May 5, 1897. A month later matters became worse. "What about the work in London?" he asked Marie Halboister; another of his young English disciples, and answered his own question: "I am afraid it is going to pieces.Again to Miss Halboister in July: "The work in London had to go slow-for various reasons, and last though not the least was l’argent, mon amie! When I am there l’argent comes in some¬how, to keep the mare going. Now everybody shrugs his shoulder. I must come again and try my best to revive the work.

Mr. Sturdy was much put out that Swamiji had not done just that in the spring of 1897. That Swamiji was ill, that he was desperately trying to start his work in India, that the immense effort required to restore the London work as well could have been suicidal, that the doctors had forbidden him to go to England that spring-none of these circumstances seem to have impressed Mr. Sturdy. Angry, he stopped writing to India. "I am so sorry the doctors would not allow my going over with the Raja of Khetri to England, and that has made Sturdy mad, Swamiji wrote to Miss MacLeod in July of 1897; and in the same month to Marie Halboister: "Sturdy’s thermometer is now below zero, it seems. He seems to be greatly disappointed with my non-arrival in England this summer. What could I do? After a time Swamiji received a note from Mr. Sturdy. "But it was so stiff and cold," he told Miss Noble. "It seems he is disappointed at the collapse of the London work. Sturdy was more than disappointed, he was without hope. Sometime in July he sent Swami Abhedananda to New York, thereby capitulating to what appeared to be inevitable failure. "It seems that the English work is impossible without me," Swamiji wrote to Mrs. Bull on August 19.

Toward the close of 1897 Sturdy took off for a round-the-¬world tour, sailing from San Francisco on December 7, as he wrote to Mrs. Bull, for the Orient. It does not appear that Lucie and the two infants went along on this trip, but whether they did or not, the cord that bound him to them was ever present. It would seem that Swamiji, knowing of Sturdy’s travels, sent word to him to stop off in India, perhaps even invited him to go on the proposed trip to Kashmir with the American disciples and Sister Nivedita. From somewhere within sight of India, Sturdy sent his reply. His letter is not available, but Swamiji’s comment on it, contained in a letter to Mrs. Bull, tells us all we need to know of his predicament. (I shall give here Swamiji’s full letter, for although only one paragraph pertains to Sturdy, no part of it has previously been published.)_x000d_ Swamiji wrote a letter to Mrs. Bull on 4th April 1898.

Sturdy was keenly "feeling the bondage." In July of 1898, after returning from his trip, he wrote to Mrs. Bull (whom he had not met) in connection with some business matter and then went on in a more personal vein: "If it was not that Karma works its inevitable way, the exasperating thought, that if I had met our dear Swami [when I first went to India], I should [have] escaped continuous suffering in this samsara, would drive me to suicide or madness. I blame no individuals, that would be folly and criminal; they are merely agents, often passive and unconscious. Everything lies in myself, in my own past; still I shall be glad when it is all worked off and I should be glad to leave this body tomorrow.

"I have health, means, healthy children, a kind and affectionate wife. So far from being any comfort to me all these things seem to be killing my true life. I may philosophise, study, talk, but I now see there can be no realization in these conditions, with this body, and the sooner they are all changed by my departure the better. It may sound like selfishness; but it arises from the resentment I feel at conditions I am unable to change by living in them. Then the doubt arises whether anything is changed by leaving it, either by death or in any other way except by jnanam-and so I oscillate restlessly, trying to get that jnanam and never seeming to reach beyond mere head knowledge.

Such were the dark thoughts that tormented Sturdy’s mind and that could well turn it opaque and sour._x000d_ But however that may be, a few months later when Swamiji was seriously thinking of returning to the West, Miss MacLeod wrote to Sturdy at his request. Sturdy’s reply from England was dated October 18, 1898:_x000d_ _x000d_ . . . It is on account of the importance of the information conveyed in [your letter of August 28] about Swamiji and his plans that I have put off writing from day to day. . ._x000d_ I do not see any possibility of my being able to join in any work which would take me for many months at any time out of England, so that if Swamiji decided to make Boston his centre from which to work and write I am afraid I should not be able to help him as much as I should like. If on the other hand he decided to make London his centre, I should be glad if he would make my house his home or if he preferred I should see that he got some comfortable place elsewhere and in either case I should be always at his service and only too delighted to be everything I could to him. But I feel diffidence in mak¬ing any suggestion, when I feel how much greater progress Vedanta is making in U.S.A. than it is making here, for we have nothing going on or organised now. . . ._x000d_ I understand thoroughly all that you write about Swami. I know exactly the complete absence of interference with which he should be allowed to live in whoever’s house he may dwell, and how much congenial companionship helps him. He would have all that freedom in my house._x000d_ But many things have come too late for me in this incarnation; there was a time when I had entirely got adrift from all worldly ties and obligations; I ought to have met Swami then, instead of only his gurubhais; what a gain it would have been to everybody; but the out workings of the past come inevitably to everybody death to Goodwin, vexations to me!

Although Sturdy seems now to have been looking upon his marriage as a fate equal to, if not worse than, death (Goodwin had died of enteric fever at 0otacamund on June 2 of 1898), he had not yet turned his bitterness of heart outward against his guru. Indeed during the next five months or so he did not appear less than friendly. As we have seen, Swamiji’s voyage to England was postponed, first, because of poor health, second, because of the difficulty in securing passage. In the meanwhile, Mrs. Bull and Miss MacLeod visited London in February of 1899 and there came to know Sturdy quite well; indeed his friendship with Miss MacLeod stood for a time on a first name basis. In March, Mrs. Bull was a guest in his house (then in Kensington, a residential borough of London), and all spent "a most happy time." "Lucie quite took to her," Sturdy wrote to "dear Jo Jo," and thought her "the nicest and most considerate guest we have ever had in our house -a remark that may or may not have been intentionally barbed.

A few unpublished letters belonging to the period between the end of March and Swamiji’s arrival in England are available to us, and although these give little hint of the trouble that was to follow and that was even then brewing, a number of passages from them will supply a brief history of events._x000d_ _x000d_ Sturdy to "Jo Jo," March 21, 1899:_x000d_ I have not heard a word of Miss Muller, except that she invited Mrs. & Miss Mary [May] Noble to visit her and was gracious & showed no animus. Mrs. Bull will have written you that. . . ._x000d_ By the way, I had a letter from Miss Waldo [a prominent American disciple of Swamiji’s] asking with some perturbation about Miss Muller. I have replied by this mail which will calm her troubled spirit! . . _x000d_ Swami cannot have received my letter before his proposed leaving for Madras. I hope he does before he leaves India. I showed it to Mrs. Bull before posting: it was just on the lines we discussed. If he gets it he will set out with some confidence as to what he is coming to do and also set him at rest in any doubts he may have as to the re-ception friends may give him here.

Of this event Nivedita wrote to Miss MacLeod, "We arrived on Monday morning [July 31],met at unearthly hours by mother, Min [Nivedita’s sister May], Miss Parson, and the two American ladies, Mrs. Funke and Miss Greenstidel. If Swamiji was disappointed not to see Sturdy, he was no doubt delighted that the two Americans, had crossed the Atlantic to greet him. This was not the first time these young women had traveled far in order to be near Swamiji. They had first heard him lecture in Detroit, their home town, in March of 1894, but although they had been profoundly impressed, they had not, at that time, approached him. Over a year later, learning from a friend that he was spending the summer in Thousand Island Park, they resolved to seek him out. "At last, after a weary search, we found him," Mary Funke later recounted. On a dark and rainy night, tired and drenched, frightened at their temerity, they arrived at the house atop a small hill where, with a group of some ten disciples, he was living and teaching. "We have come to you," one of them said to him, "just as we would go to Jesus if he were still on the earth and ask him to teach us." Swamiji warmly accepted them into the group, and during the weeks they spent with him he initiated them and gave the vows of brahmacharya to Miss Greenstidel, who became known thenceforth as Sister Christine. Theirs was the kind of temerity that immensely pleased him. "My disciples," he would say of them in later years, "who traveled hundreds of miles to find me, and they came in the night and in the rain. And now, having heard from him that he was to sail for England in the summer and would like to see them there, having learned the date of his arrival from an Indian magazine, and having heard alarming reports of his illness, they had crossed the ocean to find him again. Sister Christine sent a wire from London to his ship. From Marseilles he replied:

Your very welcome wire just came... . Our stay in England will not be long I am afraid as this is neither the season nor am I in fit condition to work much. Any¬how we will be in London a few weeks at least myself. Then go to U.S. We will talk over all this and infinite things besides when we meet. I do not think even English Summer days enough for all the chatter I will assail you. with._x000d_ We go to Wimbledon for a day or two, and then I come back to London and find lodgings for myself and make plans._x000d_ Come to the Dock if that is possible and discrete. Yes, it is discrete as there is a lady in the party and others will come to meet her. Only Christina don’t if you feel the least tired or unwell. I hope you are enjoying London immensely._x000d_ The orientals do not like any effusion of feeling (he warned, with an eye, perhaps to his two Indian traveling companions]. They are trained to hide all expression.

In her first letter from England to Yum, Nivedita continued: "The King spent Monday in Town with these (American] friends, meaning to take rooms near (them]. But he turned up here early on Tuesday morning thinking Wimbledon best after all. . . . Min found him lovely rooms, near the station, but in green and quietness. They cost 35/- a week, which I hope Mr. Sturdy will not think too much and I buy food for him and mean to send in the account to Sturdy. While here I trust men will come to him. But meanwhile he says he is in perfect peace. It was Nivedita, not he, who understandably smarted at the absence of his friends. In this same letter she wrote: "I own that I am sore about people having left London without making special arrangements to wait for Swami. That would have been nothing to do for him. He on the contrary says he has never been in such perfect peace and laissez faire as [he has been] ever since I told him.”

Although the Golconda docked at the unreasonable hour of six in the morning, it would be natural to suppose that Swamiji was met by at least a few of those hundreds of English disciples and friends who had given him a grand farewell reception on his departure from London some two and a half years earlier, who had shed tears to see him go and had pleaded for his quick return. The fact was, however, that not one of those friends and disciples met the Golconda. The reason was not so much the hour of day as the time of year: Swamiji himself had written from Port Said to Mr. Edward T. Sturdy, "As you know sure, I shall not have many friends staying now in London. . . . A stay in England under these circumstances is not advisable. Yet even Sturdy was not in the city to welcome him. In a letter that Swamiji received probably at Naples, Sturdy had informed him that he was going off to Wales. This untimely departure of his old friend, disciple, and one-time manager of the London work was perhaps the first indication Swamiji had that something was seriously amiss. That the London work had collapsed he had long known, but he had not expected to find so bleak a ruin as was to confront him; nor had he dreamed of personal hostility on the part of Sturdy, which, as time passed, was to become unmistakable. There can be no question that the blow to Swamiji was severe and that his disciple’s tragedy-for that is what it was-formed an extremely painful part of his life at this period.To tell the story of this unhappy episode, we shall have to go back several years.

But the Swami was not occupied all the time with problems; free from the cares of public life, he was jovial and often gave himself up to fun and merriment with his brother-monk and his disciple. So passed the time until the Golconda arrived at Tilbury Dock in London after a voyage of forty-two days. It being summertime, most of the Swami's London disciples and friends were out of town. Thus, while crowds had seen him off in December of 1896, he had known that only a few would be on hand to welcome him back. Those few were Nivedita's mother and sister, a Miss Paston, and his American disciples, Christine Greenstidel and Mary Funke, the last two of whom, as we have seen, had come all the way from Detroit to meet him. Describing his appearance, Mrs. Funke said, "He had grown very slim and looked like a boy. He was so happy to find that the voyage had brought back some of the old strength and vigour."

C/o Miss Noble_x000d_ 21A High Street, Wimbledon_x000d_ August, 1899_x000d_ _x000d_ My Dear Marie (Halboister),_x000d_ _x000d_ I am in London again. This time not busy, not hustling about but quietly settled down in a corner -- waiting to start for the U.S. America on the first opportunity. My friends are nearly all out of London in the country and elsewhere, and my health not sufficiently strong._x000d_ _x000d_ So you are happy in the midst of your lakes and gardens and seclusion in Canada. I am glad, so glad to know that you are up again on top of the tide. May you remain there for ever!_x000d_ _x000d_ You could not finish the Raja - yoga translation yet -- all right, there is no hurry. Time and opportunity must come if it is to be done you know, otherwise we vainly strive._x000d_ _x000d_ Canada must be beautiful now, with its short but vigorous summer, and very healthy._x000d_ _x000d_ I expect to be in New York in a few weeks, and don't know what next. I hope to come back to England next spring._x000d_ _x000d_ I fervently wish no misery ever came near anyone; yet it is that alone that gives us an insight into the depths of our lives, does it not?_x000d_ _x000d_ In our moments of anguish, gates barred for ever seem to open and let in many a flood of light._x000d_ _x000d_ We learn as we grow. Alas! we cannot usour knowledge here. The moment we seem to learn, we are hurried off the stage. And this is Maya!_x000d_ _x000d_ This toy world would not be here, this play could not go on, if we were knowing players. We must play blindfolded. Some of us have taken the part of the rogue of the play, some heroic -- never mind, it is all play. This is the only consolation. There are demons and lions and tigers and what not on the stage, but they are all muzzled. They snap but cannot bite. The world cannot touch our souls. If you want, even if the body be torn and bleeding, you may enjoy the greatest peace in your mind._x000d_ _x000d_ And the way to that is to attain hopelessness. Do you know that? Not the imbecile attitude of despair, but the contempt of the conqueror for things he has attained, for things he struggled for and then throws aside as beneath his worth._x000d_ _x000d_ This hopelessness, desirelessness, aimlessness, is just the harmony with nature. In nature there is no harmony, no reason, no sequence; it was chaos before, it is so still._x000d_ _x000d_ The lowest man is in consonance with nature in his earthy - headness; the higthest the same in the fullness of knowledge. All three aimless, drifting, hopeless -- all three happy._x000d_ _x000d_ You want a chatty letter, don't you? I have not much to chat about. Mr. Sturdy came last two days. He goes home in Wales tomorrow._x000d_ _x000d_ I have to book my passage for N.Y. in a day or two._x000d_ _x000d_ None of my old friends have I seen yet except Miss Souter and Max Gysic, who are in London. They have been very kind, as they always were._x000d_ _x000d_ I have no news to give you, as I know nothing of London yet. I don't know where Gertrude Orchard is, else would have written to her. Miss Kate Steel is also away. She is coming on Thursday or Saturday._x000d_ _x000d_ I had an invitation to stay in Paris with a friend, avery well - educated Frenchman, but I could not go this time. I hope another time to live with him some days._x000d_ _x000d_ I expect to see some of our old friends and say good day to them.I hope to see you in America sure. Either I may unexpectedly turn up in Ottawa in my peregrinations or you come to N.Y._x000d_ _x000d_ Good - bye, all luck be yours._x000d_ _x000d_ Ever yours in the Lord,_x000d_ _x000d_ Vivekananda

But unfortunately it did not remain; in a few days his health underwent a sharp decline, as did his spirits. Though not disturbed, he could not have been cheered by the absence of his English friends, nor by the treacherous gossip and criticism earlier spread by Miss Henrietta Muller (who was at the moment in Lowestoft, Suffolk), which must surely have reached his ears, even as it had reached the ears of the Noble family. "My little mother says she is humiliated to the verge of tears by such criticism of Swami," Nivedita was to write later on to Miss MacLeod and Mrs. Bull. "If she had been rich, he shd not have had to go into rooms!

What Miss Muller’s grievances were exactly, I do not know; but whatever they may have been, she had returned to England in the early part of 1899 filled with resentment. A stream of criticism (not all of it original) of India, of Swamiji, of his gurubhais, of his work, of the Math, flowed from her lips: the swamis were not ascetic enough; the new Math at Belur had three big rooms; Swamiji intervened in the affairs of his family; Hinduism was based on phallic worship, and so on.* To Dr. Lewis G. Janes, a levelheaded American friend of Swamiji’s, who was to hear Miss Muller lecture on India in 1901, it was clear that she was mentally unbalanced. Possibly this was also clear to Swamiji’s English friends-and yet the seeds of doubt, whatever their source, had little trouble finding favorable soil; and once those seeds were sown, it was inevitable that a question should arise among the English friends as to the allocation of the money they had donated to Swamiji’s Indian work -little enough as it had been. (Outside of the Seviers, who had, as it were, given their lives, Miss Muller, Mr. Sturdy, and a Miss Souter had been the principal donors.) _x000d_ * For a time after her return from India Miss Muller forbore to disclose Nivedita’s "teaching and practice of idolatry" in her Calcutta girls’ school. But she could not maintain silence for long. On September 11, 1899, she gave notice, as it were, of damaging disclosures to come. (That Nivedita had by then left England she did not know.) The following correspondence between (contd) Miss Muller Sister Nivedita is from the Sara C. Bull Collection._x000d_ _x000d_ Grand Hotel, Lowestoft, [Suffolk, England]Sept.11th[1899]_x000d_ _x000d_ Dear Margaret_x000d_ _x000d_ I must not further put off doing a duty which I had so much hoped would become unnecessary._x000d_ I understand that the opinions which you expressed in India about Hinduism, and which you put into practice there remain unchanged;-contrary to my hopes for you that the gentle hand of Time would lead you back to the Truth. The time has come for me to make my position clear. The difference between us is fundamental, and irreconcilable. I cannot any longer hope for the change which I have looked for so long and in vain._x000d_ Before leaving India I told you that I would on reaching England maintain silence on the subject of your teaching and practice of idolatry in the school, neither did I expose your moat shameful public defence of it._x000d_ My silence must now be broken, I claim and shall take my freedom to break that silence in whatever manner I think fit,_x000d_ I remain yours truly _x000d_ F. H. Muller_x000d_ Nivedita, who owed to Miss Muller her passage from England to India and back, replied from Amer¬ica with lofty and very likely maddening cordiality:_x000d_ _x000d_ Ridgely Manor_x000d_ Oct 9 1899]_x000d_ My dear Rev Mother¬_x000d_ Your letter written at Lowestoft a month ago only reached me yesterday. You have been very kind (contd.)&considerate about the feeling of my family & I thank you. But my sister has now sold the school & married & all reason for silence is withdrawn. _x000d_ I quite see your point about freedom to attack my point of view with regard to idolatry, & I do not feel that any attack you might see fit to make on me need ever interfere with my relationship of gratitude & affection towards yourself. Of course you will accord me the same. _x000d_ I hope you are well & have enjoyed yr. summer. America is lovely in her autumn colouring-but I do not walk& drive as much as I might, because I am at work writing-on Indian subjects of course-& I cannot do much till I have finished. _x000d_ Believe me always my dear Rev Mother _x000d_ Your Daughter as Ever Nivedita (or "Margot"?)

From the early days of his mission in the West, money had been a trial to Swamiji. To take money for lectures and classes that he would far rather have given freely, to keep track of money thus earned, to prevent himself from being taken advantage of right and left by unscrupulous lecture agents and managers of halls, to remember, as he seldom did, not to give whatever money he happened to have in his purse to whoever at the moment needed it-all these "botherations" had plagued him, but they were a necessary part of the new monasticism he had in mind-for without money there could be no organized work. Mais 1’argent, mon ami! Was an expression that much amused him and that he often found all too apt. Returning to India in 1897, he had divested himself as far as possible of all direct handling of funds, turning over to Swami Brahmananda whatever money for the work he had at hand and later (Decem¬ber, 1897) giving him power of attorney so that he could withdraw the Math funds (which were held in Swamiji’s name) from a bank in Calcutta and thus attend to such things as the purchase of land during Swamiji’s absence. This had been a convenient arrangement in many respects. One finds, for instance, a revealing passage in a letter to Swami Rama¬krishnananda in February of 1898 in reply to the latter’s recommendation of a young man who wanted financial help. "I would be very glad to help him," Swamiji wrote, "but the fact is, I have no money; every cent I had I have made over to Raja [Swami Brahmananda], as they all say I am a spendthrift and are afraid of keeping money with me.

But while Swamiji had been more or less free in India of handling money, the responsibility of collecting funds and disbursing them had still lain on his shoulders and weighed on his mind. Again and again he had impressed upon his brother monks the importance of keeping detailed and absolutely strict accounts. They had done so, even to the extent of curbing Swamiji’s own impulse to give money to others whenever he saw an immediate need. Confident that all was in good order, Swamiji now (August 10, 1899) wrote from England to Swami Brahmananda: "Send an account to Mrs. Bull as to how much was spent on purchase of land, how much on buildings, how much on maintenance etc." In this same letter he again stressed the necessity for strict accounting. "Get the signatures of the committee for every item of expenditure. Otherwise you also will be in for a bad name. This much is customary that people want some time or other an account of their donations. It is very wrong not to have it ready at every turn. . . . Make a committee of all those who are in the Math and no expenditure will be made which is not countersigned by them-none at all!

(On the basis of the information Swami Brahmananda was to send to Mrs. Bull, she was able to prepare detailed accounts for the London people: This took time, for the going and coming of mail between the West and India was slow. Only months later, on November 21, could Swamiji write to his brother monk: "The accounts are all right. I have handed them over to Mrs. Bull who has taken charge of reporting the different parts of the accounts to different donors. In the same month Swami Saradananda was to write to Mrs. Bull: "I need not say `may Sri R. bless you’; for the way that has been opened to you to help Mother, Swamiji & us all, and to [uphold] the honour of the cause in the West, by helping the Swami in his accounts of the public money-shows that you have been chosen by Sri R. & made the corner stone, & stay of His work. I bless you Granny dear with all my heart. ”)

While Swamiji found it entirely reasonable and proper that donors to his cause should want to know how their money had been used and intended to present accounts when the building of the Math was finished, the element of calculation and distrust implicit in the importunate questions of his English friends could not but have hurt him. Yet those who were close to him at this period seem to have felt only his undimmed radiance-nothing else. In later years Lizelle Reymond, collect-ing material for her biography of Nivedita, The Dedicated, corresponded with May and Richmond Noble and on the basis of their memories was able to give one or two descriptions of Swamiji. These and Nivedita’s letters to Yum afford us the closest glimpses we have of him during his stay in Wimbledon.

Although Swamiji’s poor health made it difficult for him to walk up the hill to 21A High Street,* he would sometimes join the Noble family in the garden behind the house and there hold everyone spellbound, striking in each heart a responsive chord. Even May, who was shortly to be married, felt strongly tempted to follow this great man, giving her life to his service, as her sister had done. Mrs. Noble found in him a son who needed her care. Richmond, Nivedita’s brother, stiIl in his teens, found in Swamiji a Christ-like man who could answer with authority his aching questions about human life and its meaning, about the existence of God and His ways to man. He found in Swamiji, moreover, a staunch ally against the tyranny of his elder sister. One day, Mlle Reymond recounts, the young Richmond jokingly complained (perhaps only half jokingly) that Nivedita, imposing Hindu customs upon her Irish family, had banned beef from the menus. Swamiji laughed. "So she has been laying down the law, has she!" Thereupon he took Richmond to a small restaurant and, to the young man’s astonishment, ordered a beefsteak medium-rare (cuit a point, Mlle Reymond’s original French reads). "Eat, my boy," he said. "It’s for you. I am giving you back what Nivedita has taken from you!_x000d_ * Swamiji’s health seems to have worsened badly in England. Even a short walk was difficult for him, let alone the fifteen-minute climb from his lodgings to the Nobles’ house. On August 12, I899, Nivedita wrote to Miss MacLeod: "The King is this morning far from well. He went to see Miss Souter [in London] yesterday and came home late-but he panted so hard that it took half hour from the station to his rooms-a walk of 4 to 5 minutes" (Letters of Sister Nivedita, ed. Sankari P. Basu, I :195).

(Almost three years to the day after Richmond had first met Swamiji, he was to come to his defense against an unjust and ill-informed newspaper article. "Though I am soon to be ordained in the Orders of the Church of England," he wrote on August 1, 1902, to the editor of the offending paper, "yet having come into contact with Swami I have learnt, while still retaining my Christian Faith, to appreciate so good a man. In Pravrajika Atmaprana’s biography, Sister Nivedita, one finds a more personal and impassioned appreciation of Swamiji in another letter from Richmond, written perhaps many years later: "That my sister should have obeyed his call was nothing wonderful," he wrote, "for I myself saw Swamiji, and I know his power. One had only to see and to hear Swamiji, and to say to oneself, `&hold the man.’ One knew he spoke truth, for he spoke with authority, and not merely as a scholar or as a priest. Swamiji brought certainty with him, he gave assurance and confidence to the enquirer.")

Mr Sturdy had not sought all this warmth. He had not asked for Nivedita’s opinion or advice; most certainly he had not requested a comment on his loyalty or solicited her compassion; perhaps he cannot be blamed for replying in icicle terms. There is no question, however, that some of his coldness arose from the strong dislike that he, and others, had taken to her. Jealousy may have been one contributing factor; another may have been her recent identification with India (an attitude that she herself had come to only after much pounding from Swamiji and many tears). It was one thing to listen to a Hindu monk in a West End drawing room and to discuss Vedanta at the Sesame Club; it was quite another thing to call that Hindu "Master," to lay one’s life fully at his feet, to become a Hindu oneself, even to one’s name. "The Seviers are the only English people who do not hate the natives, Sturdy not excepted," Swamiji had warned Nivedita long before. In July of 1899, Mrs. Ashton Jonson-one of Swamiji’s friends who were out of town that summer* wrote with considerable candor to Miss MacLeod: "I fear Nivedita will not get much support in England for her India work. There are too few persons who know her sufficiently to believe in her personally & still fewer who care enough about Hindoo women to give them the benefit of such education as Miss Noble wd give:63 Yet it had seemed axiomatic to Nivedita that her enthusiasms and convictions would be universally shared-particularly by those who loved, or who she thought loved, Swamiji. In the West she was to receive more than one shock in this respect._x000d_ * Toward the end of Swamiji’s stay in England, Mrs. Ashton Jonson returned to London and came tWimbledon to see him, at which time Nivedita, who seems to have admired and trusted Mrs. Jonson and had, in fact, written to her from Kashmir of some of her most precious glimpses of swamiji’s Godconscious states (see chapter one, section one), tried enthusiastically to persuade her to come to America to help the work there (see Letters of Sister Nivedita, I:197). Mrs.Jonson made polite protests, promising to help Nivedita "in every possible way" on the latter’s return to England (ibid., 199). What was actually taking place in Mrs. Jonson’s mind beneath her well-bred demeanor is clear enough in the following note.

The Lymes_x000d_ Woodsides, Wimbledon_x000d_ 3rd August, 1899_x000d_ My Dear Joe {MacLeod},_x000d_ We are in at last. Turiyananda and I have beautiful lodgings here. Saradananda's brother is with Miss Noble and starts Monday next._x000d_ I have recovered quite a bit by the voyage. It was brought about by the exercise on the dumb-bells and monsoon storms tumbling the steamer about the waves. Queer, isn't it? Hope it will remain. Where is our Mother, the Worshipful Brahmini cow of India? She is with you in New York, I think._x000d_ Sturdy is away, Mrs. Johnson and everybody. Margo is rather worried at that. She cannot come to U.S. till next month. Already I have come to love the sea. The fish Avatara is on me, I am afraid--good deal of him in me, I am sure, a Bengali._x000d_ How is Alberta, . . . The old folks and the rest of them? I had a beautiful letter from dear Mrs. Brer Rabbit; she could not meet us in London; she started before we arrived._x000d_ It is nice and warm here; rather too much they say. I have become for the present a Shunyavadi, a believer in nothingness, or void. No plans, no afterthought, no attempt, for anything, laissez faire to the fullest. Well, Joe, Margo would always take your side on board the steamer, whenever I criticised you or the Divine cow. Poor child, she knows so little! The upshot of the whole is, Joe, that there cannot be any work in London, because you are not here. You seem to be my fate! Grind on, old lady; it is Karma and none can avoid. Say, I look several years younger by this voyage. Only when the heart gives a lurch, I feel my age. What is this osteopathy, anyway? Will they cut off a rib or two to cure me? Not I, no manufacturing of . . . From my ribs, sure. Whatever it be, it will be hard work for him to find my bones. My bones are destined to make corals in the Ganga. Now I am going to study French if you give me a lesson every day; but no grammar business--only I will read and you explain in English. Kindly give my love to Abhedananda, and ask him to get ready for Turiyananda. I will leave with him. Write soon._x000d_ With all love etc.,_x000d_ Vivekananda

London,_x000d_ 10th August, 1899_x000d_ {original in Bengali}_x000d_ My Dear Rakhal {Brahmananda},_x000d_ I got a lot of news from your letter. My health was much better on the ship, but, after landing, owing to flatulence it is rather bad now. . . . There is a lot of difficulty here--all friends have gone out of town for the summer. In addition my health is not so good, and there is a lot of inconvenience regarding food etc. So in a few days I leave for America. Send an account to Mrs. Bull as to how much was spent on purchase of land, how much on buildings, how much on maintenance etc._x000d_ Sarada writes that the magazine is not going well. . . . Let him publish the account of my travels, and thoroughly advertise it beforehand--he will have subscribers rushing in. Do people like a magazine if three-fourths of it are filled with pious stuff? Anyway pay special attention to the magazine. Mentally take it as though I were not. Act independently on this basis. "We depend on the elder brother for money, learning, everything"--such an attitude is the road to ruin. If all the money even for the magazine is to be collected by me and all the articles too are from my pen--what will you all do? What are our Sahibs then doing? I have finished my part. You do what remains to be done. Nobody is there to collect a single penny, nobody to do any preaching, none has brains enough to take proper care of his own affairs, none has the capacity to write one line, and all are saints for nothing! . . . If this be your condition, then for six months give everything into the hands of the boys--magazine, money, preaching work, etc. If they are also not able to do anything, then sell off everything, and returning the proceeds to the donors go about as mendicants. I get no news at all from the Math. What is Sharat doing? I want to see work done. Before dying, I want to see that what I have established as a result of my lifelong struggle is put in a more or less running condition. Consult the Committee in every detail regarding money matters. Get the signatures of the Committee for every item of expenditure. Otherwise you also will be in for a bad name. This much is customary that people want some time or other an account of their donations. It is very wrong not to have it ready at every turn. . . . By such lethargy in the beginning, people finally become cheats. Make a committee of all those who are in the Math, and no expenditure will be made which is not countersigned by them--none at all! I want work, I want vigour--no matter who lives or dies. What are death and life to a Sannyasin?_x000d_ If Sharat cannot rouse up Calcutta, . . . If you are not able to construct the embankment this year, then you will see the fun! I want work--no humbug about it. My respectful salutations to Holy Mother._x000d_ Yours affectionately,_x000d_ Vivekananda

As to your letter, how intense is the pain that prompted it, I can only dimly and shrinkingly guess. You say "I do not want to influence your ideals in any way."_x000d_ Thank God you are able to put aside any foolish hesitation of that sort, and speak out to someone. For a moment I was shocked, for disloyalty is terrible, and I felt that Swami himself, not his disciple nor another, was the right person to hear your criticism, but at the same time my whole heart went and goes out to you for the dull terrible misery that oppresses you, and cuts you off from your old life. But I will tell you how the matter strikes an outsider. I put your difficulty as a question in its extreme form, to my mother, and asked her how the things that I supposed trouble the disciple had struck her. You know, of course, that Swami has appealed to her only on his own merits, having the whole current of ‘her [Christian] orthodoxy, and his effect on my own life, against him._x000d_ She said at once that not only did sick men require sick men’s comforts, but that in the case of Swami himself there must be perfect freedom. She said that so great a man would show that greatness in every way, and would take as his own that which to smaller persons might seem enviable. As to other Monks, she understood that the charge made was against their religious fervour. She was not in the habit of judging for others how this should be shown. She thought it would be unreasonable to expect men in a foreign country to adjust their lives all at once to strange conditions, and personally she would be astonished at anyone who would presume to question the asceticism of Swami [Turiyananda], who appeared to her and the whole family, to be simply overflowing with what they call "The love of God", and to be absolutely indifferent to external circumstances. I give you this as it stands, for my one object was to do justice to the charge, and listen to the reply that rose naturally to the lips of the lady. Had my mother said "I think there may be something in it", I should have tried to report the observation faithfully. Now I am willing to discuss the matter from the inside point of view, and that very plainly. You will remember that in India the word "Sannyasa" applies specially to one sort of asceticism, that is, to purity. Now I will ask you "Have you ever found this asceticism to be untrue?" I have found that such as he is in this respect such are, in their degree, all his Gurubhais and all his monastic disciples. I know many of them very intimately, as you are aware, and most of them a little, and of all this is true._x000d_ Another thing, in speaking of him in connection with this question of renunciation, do not forget that you are speaking of a man who might be worshipped today from one end of India to the other, and he will not; of a man who fled from fame year after year; of a man who snaps his fingers at all the rich people of his own city today to their infinite chagrin, and insists on living the life of his humblest fellow-countrymen, though his knowledge and appreciation of the luxuries of Western luxury is not only greater than that of rich Hindus, but far surpassing my own and yours. Could you do these things? It is just that, this Renunciation is positive, active, overwhelming!_x000d_ If I, standing up a little with a yard measure or a foot rule, declare that the great roar of the ocean beyond is nothing, since it sweeps on past the headlands, and does not invade my little domain to be measured by my little stick, I think I shall have nothing but my own folly for my pains. But I hold no belief in the matter, I do not know your grounds of criticism, and I fail to see the importance of the thing. The life of the disciples of Sri Ram Krishna in their own country has not struck me, so far as I have seen it, as it has done you. I have thought it anything but self indulgent, but after all, that is a matter of opinion; I don’t see that anything depends on it. _x000d_ One thing, however, I do know, Swamiji is the one person to whom these things should be said. There is no need to ponder how to make them known. Do believe for one moment in the greatness of the man, and trust all your criticisms, all your reproaches to him himself._x000d_ _x000d_ Believe me always, _x000d_ Yours faithfully,_x000d_ N.

"It takes all your lovely letters-which mercifully came in the same post-to counteract the effect of my enclosures," she wrote. "You will read them & keep them in the archives." Sturdy’s criticism that Swamiji and his brother sannyasins of the Ramakrishna Order were not ascetic enough had troubled her. She felt it required an overall answer. "Will you both honestly think out this difficulty of Mr. Sturdy’s," she continued, "and see what permanent meeting of it there shd be. . . . It may be that on thinking the matter over you may decide to approach Swami on the point with a direct question as to the meaning of his general policy-or it may be that you will think it best just to look out for the hints that he drops unconsciously." She went on to search about in her own mind for possible means of justifying to the West the ways of Sri Ramakrishna’s disciples:

For instance,-one answer, when I believe to be his [Swamiji’s] conscious policy, wd be that he wished his monks to grow up in certain associations-so that they cd renounce with the ease of him who has possessed. . . . _x000d_ Or another possible answer wd be that the element of a Monastic Rule was only being brought into Eastern Monasticism by him-that until his work was done we cd not take the specimens produced as representative of his will. For himself-it is surely enough to claim that he is free-the Jivan Mukti [jivanmukta] & may do what he chooses. But it may occur to him that this question of rep¬resenting Eastern Asceticism justly in the West is worth facing-& he may decide to impose restrictions tending in that direction on all or some of us.

Another possible reply on his part to these objections wd be that he really wished to create an advance on the present standard of comfort in Bengal-& thought this the way to do it. This point of view wd be easy to preach if he holds it. And personally anything is justified to me that forces narrow hearts to open wider.

The simple fact that seems to have escaped Nivedita and others in those early days was that many of Swamiji’s brother disciples were themselves jivanmuktas (liberated, though em¬bodied). They were free and realized souls, totally selfless, with no further need to practice asceticism or anything else. As they proved again and again, before, during, and after this period, they were capable when necessary of the most severe and sus¬tained austerity and self sacrifice, such as Mr. Sturdy could not even dream of but which was natural to them as breath¬ing. As for Swamiji’s policy, a life of chastity, poverty, and obedience-a life dedicated wholly to the service of man and the realization of God-was, of course, the rule of the Rama¬krishna Order. There were, it is true, no spikes at the Math to sleep upon, but there were no soft mattresses either. And at the time of Mr. Sturdy’s complaints there was so little money for the maintenance of the Math that Swamiji was desperate.