In the last chapter we dwelt upon the trials Swamiji underwent during the summer of 1894, and the reader may have been left with an impression that this was a time of despondency for him. But such was not the case. C and were to remain unsettled until the end of August, inwardly he was filled with spiritual joy, and in regard to this inward and most important aspect of his life, this summer can be looked upon as immensely fruitful. If there is a contradiction, here it is of the kind that has characterized the lives of all great prophets, who necessarily live on two levels-the human and the divine.

On June 28, the Swami arrived from Chicago in New York, where he stayed for a few days with Leon Landsberg in the latter's room in the Theosophical Society, and then moved to the residence of Miss Mary Phillips at 19 West 38th Street.

To return to the summer of 1894, at the end of June Swamiji left Chicago for New York. It was a risky time to travel, for the great strike against the Pullman Company was in progress, creating a first-rate, widespread snarl in railway traffic and outraging the nation. Still, passenger trains between Chicago and New York (even those with Pullman cars) somehow continued to run on schedule, and on June 28 Swamiji's train steamed safely into Grand Central Station.

To Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ New York_x000d_ 28 June 1894_x000d_ Dear Mother,_x000d_ Arrived safely two hours ago. Landsberg was waiting at the station. Came to Dr. Guernsey's house. Nobody was there except a servant. I took a bath and strolled with Landsberg to some restaurant where I had a good meal. Then, I have just now returned to Landsberg's rooms in the Theosophical Society and am writing you this letter._x000d_ I haven't been to see my other friends yet. After a good and long rest through the night I hope to see most of them tomorrow. My Love to you all. By the by, somebody stepped on my umbrella on board the train and broke its nose off._x000d_ Your affectionate son,_x000d_ Vivekananda._x000d_ PS__I have not settled myself. So as to direct letters to me, they can be directed c/o Leon Landsberg, 144 Madison Ave., New York

NEW YORK_x000d_ 28 June 1894_x000d_ Dear Mother_x000d_ _x000d_ Arrived safely two hours ago-Landsberg was waiting at the station. Came to Dr Guernseys house. Nobody was there except a servant. I took a bath and strolled with Landsberg to some restaurant where I had a good meal. Then I have just now returned to Landsberg's rooms (room) in the Theosophical Society & writing you this letter._x000d_ I haven't been to see my other friends yet. After a good & long rest through the night I hope to see most of them tomorrow. My love to you all. By the by somebody stepped on my umbrella on board the train and broke its nose off._x000d_ Your affectionate Son _x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ P.S. I have not settled myself, so as to direct letters to me they can be directed c/o Leon Landsberg 144 Madison Ave. New York.

Salutation to Bhagavan Shri Ramakrishna!_x000d_ 1894_x000d_ {original in Bengali}_x000d_ Dear Brothers {Brother-disciples of Swamiji},_x000d_ Before this I wrote to you a letter which for want of time was very incomplete. Rakhal (Brahmananda) and Hari (Turiyananda) wrote in a letter from Lucknow that Hindu newspapers were praising me, and that they were very glad that twenty thousand people had partaken of food at Shri Ramakrishna's anniversary. I could do much more work but for the Brahmos and missionaries who have been opposing me unceasingly, and the Hindus of India too did nothing for me. I mean, if the Hindus of Calcutta or Madras had held a meeting and passed a resolution recognising me as their representative, and thanking the American people for receiving me with kindness, things would have progressed appreciably. But it is over a year, and nothing done. Of course I never relied on the Bengalis, but the Madrasis couldn't do anything either. . . ._x000d_ There is no hope for our nation. Not one original idea crosses anyone's brains, all fighting over the same old, threadbare rug--that Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was such and such--and cock-and-bull stories--stories having neither head nor tail. My God! Won't you do something to show that you are in any way removed from the common run of men!--Only indulging in madness! . . . Today you have your bell, tomorrow you add a horn, and follow suit with a chowry the day after; or you introduce a cot today, and tomorrow you have its legs silver-mounted, and people help themselves to a rice-porridge, and you spin out two thousand cock-and-bull stories--in short, nothing but external ceremonials. This is called in English imbecility. Those into whose heads nothing but that sort of silliness enters are called imbecile. Those whose heads have a tendency to be troubled day and night over such questions as whether the bell should ring on the right or on the left, whether the sandalpaste mark should be put on the head or anywhere else, whether the light should be waved twice or four times--simply deserve the name of wretches, and it is owing to that sort of notion that we are the outcasts of Fortune, kicked and spurned at, while the people of the West are masters of the whole world. . . . There is an ocean of difference between idleness and renunciation._x000d_ If you want any good to come, just throw your ceremonials overboard and worship the Living God, the Man-God--every being that wears a human form--God in His universal as well as individual aspect. The universal aspect of God means this world, and worshipping it means serving it--this indeed is work, not indulging in ceremonials. Neither is it work to cogitate as to whether the rice-plate should be placed in front of the God for ten minutes or for half an hour--that is called lunacy. Millions of rupees have been spent only that the temple-doors at Varanasi or Vrindaban may play at opening and shutting all day long! Now the Lord is having His toilet, now He is taking His meals, now He is busy on something else we know not what. . . . And all this, while the Living God is dying for want of food, for want of education! The banias of Bombay are erecting hospitals for bugs--while they would do nothing for men even if they die! You have not the brain to understand this simple thing--that it is a plague with our country, and lunatic asylums are rife all over. . . . Let some of you spread like fire, and preach this worship of the universal aspect of the Godhead--a thing that was never undertaken before in our country. No quarrelling with people, we must be friends with all. . . ._x000d_ Spread ideas--go from village to village, from door to door--then only there will be real work. Otherwise, lying complacently on the bed and ringing the bell now and then is a sort of disease, pure and simple. . . . Be independent, learn to form independent judgments. --That such and such a chapter of such and such a Tantra has prescribed a standard length for the handle of a bell,--what matters it to me? Through the Lord's will, out of your lips shall come millions of Vedas and Tantras and Puranas. . . . If now you can show this in practice, if you can make three or four hundred thousand disciples in India within a year, then only I may have some hope. . . . _x000d_ By the bye, you know the boy who had his head shaven and went with Brother Tarak from Bombay to Rameswaram? He calls himself a disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa! Let Brother Tarak initiate him. . . . He had never even met Shri Ramakrishna in his life, and yet a disciple!--What impudence! Without an unbroken chain of discipleship--Guruparampara--nothing can be done. Is it a child's play? To have no connection whatsoever and call oneself a disciple! The idiot! If that boy refuses to go on in the right way, turn him out. Nothing, I say, can be done without the chain of discipleship, that is, the power that is transmitted from the Guru to the disciple, and from him to his disciple, and so on. Here he comes and proclaims himself a disciple of Ramakrishna--is it tomfoolery? Jagamohan told me of somebody calling himself a brother-disciple of mine. I have now a suspicion that it is that boy. To pose as a brother-disciple! He feels humiliated to call himself a disciple, I dare say, and would fain turn a Guru straightway! Turn him out if he does not follow the established procedure. _x000d_ Talking of the restlessness of Tulasi (Nirmalananda) and Subodh (Subodhananda) it all means that they have got no work to do. . . . Go from village to village, do good to humanity and to the world at large. Go to hell yourself to buy salvation for others. There is no Mukti on earth to call my own. Whenever you think of yourself, you are bound to feel restless. What business have you to do with peace, my boy? You have renounced everything. Come! Now is the turn for you to banish the desire for peace, and that for Mukti too! Don't worry in the least; heaven or hell, or Bhakti or Mukti--don't care for anything, but go, my boy, and spread the name of the Lord from door to door! It is only by doing good to others that one attains to one's own good, and it is by leading others to Bhakti and Mukti that one attains them oneself. Take that up, forget your own self for it, be mad over the idea. As Shri Ramakrishna used to love you, as I love you, come, love the world like that. Bring all together. Where is Gunanidhi? You must have him with you. My infinite love to him. Where is Gupta (Sadananda)? Let him join if he likes. Call him in my name. Remember these few points:_x000d_ 1. We are Sannyasins, who have given up everything--Bhakti, and Mukti, and enjoyment, and all._x000d_ 2. To do the highest good to the world, everyone down to the lowest--this is our vow. Welcome Mukti or hell, whichever comes of it._x000d_ 3. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa came for the good of the world. Call him a man, or God, or an Incarnation, just as you please. Accept him each in your own light._x000d_ 4. He who will bow before him will be converted into purest gold that very moment. Go with this message from door to door, if you can, my boy, and all your disquietude will be at an end. Never fear--where's the room for fear?--Caring for nothing whatsoever is a part of your life. You have so long spread his name and your character all around, well and good. Now spread them in an organised way. The Lord is with you. Take heart!_x000d_ Whether I live or die, whether I go back to India or not, you go on spreading love, love that knows no bounds. Put Gupta too to this task. But remember one needs weapons to overcome others. "{Sanskrit}--When death is so certain, it is better to die for a good cause."_x000d_ Yours affly.,_x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ PS. Remember my previous letter--we want both men and women. There is no distinction of sex in the soul. It won't do merely to call Shri Ramakrishna an Incarnation, you must manifest power. Where are Gour-Ma, Yogin-Ma, and Golap-Ma? Tell them to spread these ideas. We want thousands of men and thousands of women who will spread like wild fire from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, from the North Pole to the South Pole--all over the world. It is no use indulging in child's play--neither is there time for it. Let those who have come for child's play be off now, while there is time, or they will surely come to grief. We want an organisation. Off with laziness. Spread! Spread! Run like fire to all places. Do not depend upon me. Whether I live or die, go on spreading, yourselves.

C/o Dr. E. Guernsey_x000d_ Fishkill landing, N.Y._x000d_ July, 1894_x000d_ Dear Mother {Mrs. George W. Hale},_x000d_ I came yesterday to this place, and shall remain here a few days. I received in New York a letter from you but did not receive any Interior, for which I am glad, because I am not perfect yet, and knowing the "unselfish love" the Presbyterian priests, especially the Interior has for "me", I want to keep aloof from rousing bad feelings towards these "sweet Christian gentlemen" in my heart._x000d_ Our religion teaches that anger is a great sin, even if it is "righteous". Each must follow his own religion. I could not for my soul distinguish ever the distinction between "religious anger" and "commonplace anger", "religious killing" and "commonplace killing", "religious slandering and irreligious", and so forth. Now may that "fine" ethical distinction ever enter into the ethics of our nation! Jesting apart, Mother Church, I do not care the least for the gambols these men play, seeing as I do through and through the insincerity, the hyposcrisy, and love of self and name that is the only motive power in these men._x000d_ As to the photographs, the first time the Babies got a few copies, and the second time you brought a few copies; you know they are to give 50 copies in all. Sister Isabelle knows better than I._x000d_ With my sincerest love and respects for you and Father Pope._x000d_ I remain,_x000d_ Yours,_x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ PS. How are you enjoying the heat? I am bearing the heat very well here. I had an invitation to Swampscott on the sea from a very rich lady whose acquaintance I made last winter in New York, but I declined with thanks. I am very careful not to take the hospitality of anybody here, especially the rich. I had a few other invitations from some very rich people here. I refused; I have by this time seen the whole business through. Lord bless you and yours, Mother Church, for your sincerity. Oh! It is so rare in this world._x000d_ Yours affectionately,_x000d_ V.

Soon, however, he visited Swampscott, a seaside resort town in Massachusetts, where he saw once again, among other friends, Mrs. Francis W. Breed of Boston 'and Lynn.

Although Swamiji had been reluctant to accept an invitation to Swampscott, a summer resort town on Massachuaetts Bay, just north of Lynn, he nevertheless did so,.

How long he stayed with the Guernseys is not clear. He had, however, no dearth of invitations to visit elsewhere. In a post-script to an undated letter written to Mrs. Hale from Fishkill Landing, he wrote:_x000d_ _x000d_ ". . . I am bearing the heat very well here. I had an invita¬tion to Swampscott on the sea from a very rich lady whose acquaintance I made last winter in New York, but I declined with thanks. I am very careful now to take the hospitality of anybody here, especially the rich. I had a few other invitations from some very rich people here. I refused; I have by this time seen the whole business through. Lord bless you and yours, Mother Church, for your sincerity. Oh! It is so rare in this world.

Reading of Swamiji's stirring and outspoken lectures, learn¬ing of the raps he could give ministers and matrons alike, considering the majesty with which he strode through America undaunted by hardship and malicious opposition, reading his letters of fiery leadership to India, and again, remembering the silent and fathomless depths of contemplation into which he often fell, one sometimes forgets how young he was, how ready to take duckings in the sea and to laugh uproariously with those whom he loved. This was, of course, not only because he was barely in his thirties, but also because, living as he did on the very edge of the Infinite, where the great festival of the Divine Mother is continuously taking place, Swamiji was profoundly, eternally young.

Nor is it strange that his spirits rose during the summer. Ever since his arrival in America in July of 1893 he had known little but cities and towns, trains and hotels. He had been under the constant strain of lecturing, making engagements, rushing here and there in accordance with a time schedule and, on the whole, living a life almost diametrically opposite to that of his years of wandering through the lofty Himalayas and vast plains of India. For a year he had kept his mind as much as possible in the relative world, restraining it from its natural state of spiritual absorption, lest, as was the case when he first arrived in America, he should become entirely oblivious of his sur-roundings, missing his engagements, and perhaps even becoming lost in the maze of a foreign city.

When he first started lecturing, "he was a far different being from what he afterward developed into," Miss Waldo wrote in her reminiscences. "He was dreamy and meditative, often so wrapped in his own thoughts as to be hardly conscious of his surroundings. The constant friction of alien thoughts, the endless questioning, the frequent sharp conflict of wits in this Western world awoke a different spirit, and he became as alert and wide awake as the world in which he found himself.

And as if it were not enough for Swamiji to become, as it were, a "man of action " attending, to all the details that encumber the life of a celebrated lecturer, he was forced to meet at every turn the nagging persecution of his enemies. Although this last, as we have seen, continued during the summer of 1894, he was at least afforded a respite from lecturing, and it is little wonder that his mind at once soared upward like a spring released.

During this period one can detect a turning point in Swamiji's thought and the beginnings, at least, of a new idea regarding his mission in America. The enthusiasm with which he had at first gone from place to place explaining the customs and religions of his motherland had, to some extent, cooled, and we find his thoughts during the summer months beginning to work along new lines.

One indication of this is to be found in his letter of July 26 to the Hale sisters: "Miss Philips has a beautiful place somewhere in N.Y. State," he wrote, "mountains, lake, river, forest altogether-what more? I am going to snake a Himalayas there and start a monastery as sure as I am living-I am not going to leave this country without throwing one more apple of discord into this already roaring, fighting, kicking, mad whirlpool of American religion."

Another desire he had at this time was to write a book, a fact which indicates that new ideas were arising within his mind and seeking outward expression. As early as mid-March he had given up his hopes of raising money in America. This had not been a passing discouragement; as time went on it became more and more obvious to him that his chances of earning a great deal in America were slim indeed.

In a letter dated August 20, which will be given in full later on, he wrote to Isabelle McKindley, "I have given up all money making schemes and will be quite satisfied with a bite and a shed and work on."

The community of Greenacre, newly founded by Miss Sarah J. Farmer, was, in a sense, one of the outcomes of the Parliament of Religions. It was a summer colony or retreat on the bank of the Piscataqua River, near Eliot, in Maine, the purpose of which was to put into practice the ideal of the harmony of all religions. The Greenacre Religious Conferences went considerably further than the Parliament of Religions in this respect, for they represented the overthrow of orthodox views and brought together the seething new religious thought of the age. Inevitably there were in the assemblage a number of cranks and followers of freakish, fly-by-night sects, and, at least during the first summer of the Conferences, a kind of wild exaltation pervaded the group. But for all that, the men and women of Greenacre had kicked over the traces of a narrow, stereotyped religion and were directing all their energies toward evolving a new pattern of faith. They were earnest, vital, and unafraid. Among them, moreover, were thinkers, scholars, and people who, in one way or another, were awake to the need of a spiritual renascence and who were earnestly struggling to bring it into being. Nowhere else could Swamiji have found in one place a group more receptive to his ideas and more ready to benefit from his influence. These circumstances; together with the fact that Greenacre offered to him the wide, unpaved vistas of open country and days in which his mind was free to plunge into profound contemplation or to lift in ecstasy, make it seem that, like other events in his life, the founding of the Greenacre Conferences in 1894 was part of the same divine plan that had brought him to America.

Now took place a highly important episode in the Swami's work and mission in the West. On a wooded acreage by the broad Piscataqua River, the Greenacre Religious Conferences, a symposium of liberal and unorthodox religious groups, had been recently inaugurated by Miss Sarah Farmer, whom the Swami had met in New York.

Miss Sarah Farmer, whom Swamiji had met in New York, had invited him to Greenacre. She was the daughter of the famous Moses Gerrish Farmer who, some ten years prior to Edison's invention of a marketable electric bulb, had "lighted a house in Cambridge with forty incandescent lamps in multiple circuit" Mr. Farmer, it is recorded, used frequently to tell his daughter that the chief principle of the inventor was inspiration and that "he who could grasp that inspiration and walk boldly on, to him was vouchsafed the success that men respect and prize. Miss Farmer grasped the inspiration for Greenacre probably at the Parliament of Religions and walked boldly on, dedicating many acres of the large estate her father had left her to the establishment of the Greenacre Religious Conferences, to which anyone with something constructive to say might come and lecture. "We have no room for iconoclasts," she is reported as having said. "Those are the only ones we bar. All others are welcome to come and express their views. All are listened to with respect and attention:

Inspired in part by the Parliament of Religions, the Greenacre Conferences were open to all religious lecturers with something to say and to all men and women with a desire to learn. Many came earnest teachers and eager students alike, among them Mrs. Ole Bull, Dr. Lewis G. Janes, and others who were to become dear and close friends of the Swami's.

Here he held a series of classes, expounding the Vedanta philosophy to a group of enthusiastic students who sat around him in oriental fashion under a venerable pine tree, since called the "Swami's Pine". As far as is known, this was the first course of classes that the Swami held in the West, and it was a foreshadowing of the shape his American work was later to take. "I teach them all Shivoham, Shivoham," he wrote on July 31 to Mary and Harriet Hale, of his Greenacre classes, "and they all repeat it innocent and pure as they are and brave beyond all bounds:" He sometimes took as his text the Avadhuta Gita, and according to some recently discovered notes jotted down by a student under the "Swami's Pine", he taught Raja-yoga as well.

The Swami lived and taught at Greenacre for more than two weeks. "Between lecturing-teaching-picnicking and other excitements the time is flying rapidly", he wrote to Mrs. Hale on August 5. He had wanted rest, and though the days were strenuous he had, in a way, found it, for there by the broad river, under the trees, he was doing what he liked best. "I want a little quiet, but it is not the will of the Lord it seems", he wrote again to Mrs. Hale on August 20: "At Greenacre I had to talk on an average 7 to 8 hours a day; that was rest if it ever was! But it [the talk] was of the Lord-and that brings vigour along with it."

Swamiji not only taught Advaita Vedanta beneath his pine, but, to his utmost joy, meditated and also slept beneath it. In his letter to Mary and Harriet Hale he wrote: "The other night the camp people went to sleep beneath a pine tree under which I sit every morning a la India and talk to them. Of course I went with them, and we had a nice night under the stars, sleeping on the lap of mother earth, and I enjoyed every bit of it. I cannot describe to you that night's glories-after a year of brutal life that I have led, to sleep on the ground, to meditate under the tree in the forest!

Did not Swamiji also roll forth the original Sanskrit? One feels sure that he did and that the very pines held their breath to hear. Thus for a time Swamiji found an ashrama. "Perhaps I did not tell you in my last," he wrote in a letter to Isabelle McKindley, "how I slept and lived and preached under the trees and for a few days at least found myself once more in the atmosphere of heaven.

One of these, which was among Isabelle McKindley's treasures, shows him standing with folded arms, his eyes looking as eyes look when the whole world is seen as permeated by Divinity.

The other, in which he is sitting on the ground with his class about him, was discovered by Miss Elva Nelson and may well be the photograph he spoke of in his letter to the Hale sisters: "Herewith I send a photograph Cora Stockham took of the group under the tree. It is only a proof and will fade away under exposure, but I cannot get anything better at present."43 Very likely a more durable print was made; for both pictures reproduced in this book have been taken from finished photographs.

To Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ C/o Leon Landsberg_x000d_ 144 Madison Avenue_x000d_ New York_x000d_ 1 July 1894_x000d_ Dear Mother,_x000d_ Hope you are settled down in peace by this time. The babies are doing well in Mudville in their nunnery, I am sure. It is very hot here, but now and then a breeze comes up which cools it down. I am now with Miss [Mary A.] Phillips. Will move off from here on Tuesday to another place._x000d_ Here I find a quotation from a speech by Sir Monier Williams, professor of Sanskrit in the Oxford University. It is very strange as coming from one who every day expects to see the whole of India converted to Christianity. "And yet it is a remarkable characteristic of Hinduism that it neither requires nor attempts to make converts. Nor is it at present by any means decreasing in numbers, nor is it being driven out of the field by two such proselytizing religions as Mahomedanism [sic] and Christianity. On the contrary, it is at present rapidly increasing. And far more remarkable than this is that, it is all receptive, all embracing and all comprehensive. It claims to be the one religion of humanity, of human nature, of the entire world. It cares not to oppose the progress of Christianity nor of any other religion. For it has no difficulty in including all other religions within its all embracing arms and ever widening fold. And in real fact Hinduism has something to offer which is suited to all minds. Its very strength lies in its infinite adaptability to the infinite diversity of human characters and human tendencies. It has its highly spiritual and abstract side suited to the philosoph ical higher classes. Its practical and concrete side suited to the man of affairs and the man of the world. Its aesthetic and cere¬monial side suited to the man of poetic feeling and imagination. Its quiescent and contemplative side suited to the man of peace and lover of seclusion._x000d_ "Indeed, the Hindus were Spinozists 2,000 years before the birth of Spinoza, Darwinians centuries before the birth of Darwin, and evolutionists centuries before the doctrine of evolution had been accepted by the Huxleys of our time, and before any word like evolution existed in any language of the world."_x000d_ This, as coming from one of the staunchest defenders of Christianity, is wonderful indeed. But he seems to have got the idea quite correct._x000d_ Now I am going to send up the orange coat today; as for the books that came to me from Philadelphia, I do not think they are worthy of being sent at all. I do not know what I am going to do next. Patiently wait and resign myself unto His guidance that is my motto. My love to you all._x000d_ Your affectionate son,_x000d_ Vivekananda

From there, on July 1, he wrote to Mrs. Hale, "I am now with Miss Phillips, will move off from here on Tuesday [July 3] to another place."

During the next week or two Swamiji no doubt visited his many New York friends, and, as we learn from the following letter, written on July 1 to Mrs. Hale, he spent a few days, alternately, at the homes of one or another of them:_x000d_ _x000d_ The omitted part of the above letter was devoted to a quotation from Monier Williams, who was ordinarily imperialistic in his attitude toward India. Swamiji, happy always to find one kind and fair word for his motherland among the buckets of contumely thrown upon her, wrote out the passage, even as he had earlier written out two paragraphs from Louis Rousselet. The passage; as he copied it and with his comments at the start and finish, read in full:

To the Hale Sisters (about the Calcutta meeting of 5th Sept., 1894)_x000d_ New York_x000d_ 9th July (Sept?), 1894_x000d_ O My Sisters,_x000d_ Glory unto Jagadamba (Mother of the Universe)! I have gained beyond expectations. The prophet has been honoured and with a vengeance . I am weeping like a child at His mercy--He never leaves His servant, sisters. The letter I send you will explain all, and the printed things are coming to the American people. The names there are the very flower of our country. The President was the chief nobleman of Calcutta, and the other man Mahesh Chandra Nyayaratna is the principal of the Sanskrit College and the chief Brahmin in all India and recognised by the Government as such. The letter will tell you all. O sisters! What a rogue am I that in the face of such mercies sometimes the faith totters--seeing every moment that I am in His hands. Still the mind sometimes gets despondent. Sister, there is a God--a Father--a Mother who never leaves His Children, never, never, never. Put uncanny theories aside and becoming children take refuge in Him. I cannot write more--I am weeping like a woman._x000d_ Blessed, blessed art Thou, Lord God of my soul!_x000d_ Yours affectionately,_x000d_ Vivekananda

Almost simultaneously with the news of Dharmapala's lecture and function of May 14, the Swami received a letter from Alasinga informing him of the Madras Meeting of April 28. On July I1 he wrote in reply:

U.S.A._x000d_ 11th July, 1894_x000d_ Dear Alasinga,_x000d_ You must never write to me anywhere else but 541 Dearborn Ave., Chicago. Your last letter has travelled the whole country to come to me, and this was only because I am so well known. Some of the resolutions are to be sent to Dr. Barrows with a letter thanking him for his kindness to me and asking him to publish the letter in some American newspapers--as that would be the best refutation of the false charges of the missionaries that I do not represent anybody. Learn business, my boy. We will do great things yet! Last year I only sowed the seeds; this year I mean to reap. In the meanwhile, keep up as much enthusiasm as possible in India. Let Kidi go his own way. He will come out all right in time. I have taken his responsibility. He has a perfect right to his own opinion. Make him write for the paper; that will keep him in good temper! My blessings on him. Start the journal and I will send you articles from time to time. You must send a paper and a letter to Professor J.H. Wright of Harvard University, Boston, thanking him as having been the first man who stood as my friend and asking him to publish it in the papers, thus giving the lie to the missionaries._x000d_ In the Detroit lecture I got $900, i.e. Rs. 2,700. In other lectures, I earned in one, $2,500, i.e. Rs. 7,500 in one hour, but got only 200 dollars! I was cheated by a roguish Lecture Bureau. I have given them up. I spent a good deal here; only about $3,000 remains._x000d_ I shall have to print much matter next year. I am going regularly to work. . . . The sheer power of the will will do everything. . . . You must organise a society which should regularly meet, and write to me about it as often as you can. In fact, get up as much enthusiasm as you can. Only, beware of falsehood. Go to work, my boys, the fire will come to you! The faculty of organisation is entirely absent in our nature, but this has to be infused. The great secret is--absence of jealousy. Be always ready to concede to the opinions of your brethren, and try always to conciliate. That is the whole secret. Fight on bravely! Life is short! Give it up to a great cause. Why do you not write anything about Narasimha? He is almost starving. I gave him something. Then he went over to somewhere, I do not know where, and does not write. Akshaya is a good boy. I like him very much. No use quarrelling with the Theosophists. Do not go and tell them all I write to you. . . . Theosophists are our pioneers, do you know? Now Judge is a Hindu and Col. A Buddhist, and Judge is the ablest man here. Now tell the Hindu Theosophists to support Judge. Even if you can write Judge a letter, thanking him as a co-religionist and for his labours in presenting Hinduism before Americans; that will do his heart much good. We must not join any sect, but we must sympathise and work with each. . . . Work, work--conquer all by your love! . . ._x000d_ Try to expand. Remember the only sign of life is motion and growth. You must send the passed resolution to Dr. J.H. Barrows . . ., Dr. Paul Carus . . ., Senator Palmer . . ., Mrs. J. J. Bagley . . ., it must come officially. . . . I write this because I do not think you know the ways of foreign nations. . . . Keep on steadily. So far we have done wonderful things. Onward, brave souls, we will gain! Organise and found societies and go to work, that is the only way._x000d_ At this time of the year there is not much lecturing to be done here; so I will devote myself to my pen and write. I shall be hard at work all the time, and then, when the cold weather comes and people return to their homes, I shall begin lecturing again and at the same time organise societies._x000d_ My love and blessings to you all. I never forget anybody, though I do not write often. Then again, I am now, continuously travelling, and letters have to be redirected from one place to another._x000d_ Work hard. Be holy and pure and the fire will come._x000d_ Yours affectionately,_x000d_ Vivekananda

He wrote in reply to Alasinga on July 11, giving him detailed instructions as to what should be done with the Madras resolutions so that they would reach the American newspaper through the proper, official channels and thus serve as the "credentials" he had lacked for so long. He asked also that copies be sent to Professor Wright, "the first man who stood as my friend," to Mr. Palmer and Mrs. Bagley of Detroit, and to Mrs. Hale, who, as he wrote in an unpublished portion of this letter, "is my greatest friend."

To his Madras disciple Alasinga he had written on July 11, "At this time of the year there is not much lecturing to be done here, so I will devote myself to my pen and write."

One finds Swamiji in mid July staying at the Guernseys' summer home at Fishkill Landing, or, as it was also known, Fishkill on Hudson, a village (now a part of the city of Beacon) fifty eight miles north of New York City. The Guernseys' two and a half story house was Colonial in architecture and Victorian in furnishings, some pieces of which the rosewood bed in the master bedroom and the bathtub, for instance were outsize, for Dr. Guernsey was a man of "huge bulk," requiring huge accommodations. Surrounding the house were large cool lawns dappled with trees and Howering shrubs; beyond was a fruit orchard, a small pond, a copse, and a wide field.10 Nearby ran the Hudson River, where Swamiji surely went for a dip on the hot July days.

We next find him in the middle of July, at Fishkill Landing on the Hudson, New York, at the summer home of his friends Dr. and Mrs. Egbert Guernsey. They, as we have seen, had met him in April that year and, like many others, had come to look upon him both as a great man of God and as a beloved son.

To Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ C/o Dr. E. Guernsey_x000d_ Cedar Lawn, Fishkill on the Hudson_x000d_ 19 July 1894_x000d_ Dear Mother,_x000d_ Your kind note reached me here yesterday evening. I am so glad to hear the babies are enjoying. I got the Interior and am very glad to see my friend Mazoomdar's book spoken of so highly. Mazoomdar is a great and a good man and has done much for his fellow beings._x000d_ It is a lovely summer place, this Cedar Lawn of the Guernseys. Miss Guernsey has gone on a visit to Swampscott. I had also an invitation there, but I thought [it] better to stay here in the calm and silent place full of trees and with the beautiful Hudson flowing by and mountain in the background._x000d_ I am very thankful for Miss Howe's suggestion, and I am also thinking of it. Most probably I will go to England very soon. But between you and me, I am a sort of mystic and cannot move without orders, and that has not come yet. Mr. [Charles M.] Higgins, a rich young lawyer and inventor of Brooklyn, is arranging some lectures for me. I have not settled whether I will stop for them or not._x000d_ My eternal thanks to you for your kindness. My whole life cannot repay my debt to you. You may see from the letter from Madras that there is not a word about Narasimha. What can I do more? I did not get the cheque cashed yet, for there was no necessity. Miss Phillips was very kind to me. She is an old lady, about 50 or more. You need not feel any worry about my being taken care of. The Lord always takes care of His servants; and so long as I am really His servant and not the world's, I am very confident of getting everything that would be good for me. The Guernseys love me very much, and there are many families in New York and Brooklyn who would take the best care of me._x000d_ I had a beautiful letter from Mr. Snell, saying that a sudden change for the better has taken place in his fortunes and offering me thrice the money I lent him as a contribution to my work. And he also has beautiful letters from Dharmapala and others from India. But, of course, I politely refused his repayment._x000d_ So far so good. I have seen Mr. [Walter Hines] Page, the editor of the Forum here. He was so sorry not to get the article on missionaries. But I have promised to write on other interesting subjects. Hope I will have patience to do so._x000d_ I had a letter yesterday from Miss Harriet, from which I learn that they are enjoying Kenosha very much. Lord bless you and yours, Mother Church, for ever and ever. I cannot even express my gratitude to you._x000d_ As for me, you need not be troubled in the least. My whole life is that of a vagabond homeless, roving tramp; any fare, good or bad, in any country, is good enough for me._x000d_ Yours ever in love and obedience,_x000d_ Swami Vivekananda_x000d_ (To annotate the above letter: The ticket for Narasimha's passage back to India had not yet come, but, as we have seen earlier, it was eventually to do so. The Mr. Page to whom Swamiji refer was Walter Hines Page, well known editor director of forum and Atlantic Monthly. He was later appointed United States Ambassador to Great Britain.)

From the Guernseys's home the Swami wrote to Mrs. Hale on July 19, "It is a lovely summer place this Cedar Lawn of the Guernseys'. Miss Gaernsey has gone on a visit to Swampscott. I had also an invitation there but I thought better to stay here in the calm and silent place full of trees and with the beautiful Hudson flowing by and mountain in the background."

On July 19 Swamiji again wrote to Mrs. Hale from Fishkill Landing. This letter is given here in full, for it not only bespeaks the serenity of his mind in these troubled summer months, but contains information to which we shall refer later.

To Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ Swampscott, Massachusetts_x000d_ 23 July 1894_x000d_ Dear Mother,_x000d_ I think I have all your questions answered and you are in good humour again._x000d_ I am enjoying this place very much; going to Greenacre today or tomorrow and on our way back I intend to go to Annisquam, to Mrs. Bagley's-I have written to her. Mrs. Breed says, "You are very sensitive"._x000d_ Now, I fortunately did not cash your check in New York. I wanted to cash it here, when lo! You have not signed your name to it. The Hindu is a dreamer no doubt, but when the Christian dreams he dreams with a vengeance._x000d_ Do not be distressed. Somebody gave me plenty of money to move about. I would be taken care of right along. I send herewith the cheque back to you. I had a very beautiful letter from Miss Mary. My love to them. At is Father Pope doing? Is it very hot in Chicago? I do not care for the heat of this country. It is nothing compared to our India heat. I am doing splendidly. The other day I had the summer cholera; and cramp, etc. came to pay their calls to me. We had several hours nice talk and groans and then they departed._x000d_ I am on the whole doing very well. Has the meerschaum pipe reached Chicago? I had nice yachting, nice sea bathing, and am enjoying myself like a duck. Miss Guernsey went home just now. I do not know what more to write._x000d_ Lord bless you all._x000d_ Affectionately,_x000d_ Vivekananda

and from there on July 23 he wrote to Mrs. Hale, letting her know where he was and that all was well, for, like a mother, she tended to worry about this son of hers who wandered through America without money or care.

From Swampscott he wrote to Mrs. Hale on July 23, "I am enjoying this place very much; going to Greenacre today or tomorrow."

Swampscott_x000d_ 26th July, 1894_x000d_ Dear Babies {the Hale sisters},_x000d_ Now don't let my letters stray beyond the circle, please. I had a beautiful letter from sister Mary. See how I am getting the dash, sister Jeany teaches me all that. She can jump and run and play and swear like a devil and talk slang at the rate of 500 a minute; only she does not much care for religion, only a little. She is gone today home, and I am going to Greenacre. I had been to see Mrs. Breed. Mrs. Stone was there, with whom is residing Mrs. Pullman and all the golden bugs, my old friends hereabouts. They are kind as usual. On my way back from Greenacre I am going to Annisquam to see Mrs. Bagley for a few days._x000d_ Darn it, forget everything. I had duckings in the sea like a fish. I am enjoying every bit of it. What nonsense was the song Harriet taught me "dans la plaine" the deuce take it. I told it to a French scholar and he laughed and laughed till the fellow was well-nigh burst at my wonderful translation. That is the way you would have taught me French! You are a pack of fools and heathens, I tell you. Now are you gasping for breath like a huge fish stranded? I am glad that you are sizzling. Oh! how nice and cool it is here, and it is increased a hundred-fold when I think about the gasping, sizzling, boiling, frying four old maids, and how cool and nice I am here. Whooooo!_x000d_ Miss Phillips has a beautiful place somewhere in N.Y. State--mountain, lake, river, forest altogether--what more? I am going to make a Himalayas there and start a monastery as sure as I am living--I am not going to leave this country without throwing one more apple of discord into this already roaring, fighting, kicking, mad whirlpool of American religion. Well, dear old maids, you sometimes have a glimpse of the lake and on every hot noon, think of going down to the bottom of the lake, down, down, down, until it is cool and nice, and then to lie down on the bottom, with that coolness above and around, and lie there still, silent, and just doze--not sleep, but dreamy dozing half unconscious sort of bliss--very much like that which opium brings; that is delicious; and drinking lots of iced water. Lord bless my soul--I had such cramps several times as would have killed an elephant. So I hope to keep myself away from the cold water._x000d_ May you be all happy, dear fin de siecle young ladies, is the constant prayer of Vivekananda.

Three days later Swamiji wrote a lighthearted letter to the Hale sisters, which would indicate that his spirits were soaring. From this letter one also learns a little more of his activities at Swampscott:

To reach Greenacre (which he probably did on July 27), Swamiji would have embarked on a small river-steamer at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and disembarked an hour or so later at the wooded and knolled acres of the retreat.

On the flat land by the wide river, in which he sometimes "had as good times in the water as a duck, was "Sunrise Camp"-¬a group of small tents for those who could not aford the luxury of the Greenacre Inn. A little toward the hills was a much larger tent, at the peak of which waved a white flag. This was called the Eirenion or Hall of Peace. Here lectures were given and here also the heterogeneous worshipers meditated together. "Through all the throng," writes an impressed witness of the scene, "there was a silent sympathy. Yet in no two hearts were there the same ideals, the same beliefs:

But spiritually substantial as the Hall of Peace may have been, it was, as were the smaller tents of Sunrise Camp, liable to be blown away by a strong wind. One remembers Swarniji's humorous description of such an event in a letter to Mary Hale: "Yesterday there was a tremendous cyclone which gave a good `treatment' to the tents. The big tent under which they had the lectures, had developed so much spirituality, under the `treatment,' that it entirely disappeared from mortal gaze and about two hundred chairs were dancing about the grounds under spiritual ecstasy!

On a hill that rose from the flat land was the Inn, where the more wealthy visitors stayed. This inn was surrounded by several small cottages, one of which was to be named "Nightingale's Rest" in honor of Miss Emma Thursby, who was to return summer after summer to Greenacre. Through fields abounding in wild flowers and over the hill, nearly a mile from the river, was a wood in which, here and there, rose the towering Lysekloster pines, so named by Mrs. Ole Bull for her home in Norway, where the same (or similar) red-bark species also grew. The Lysekloster pines were, perhaps, the most important part of Greenacre, for here religious classes were held daily, at which a teacher Jewish, Christian (non orthodox), or Hindu-would sit under his chosen tree, surrounded by his students.

On July 28 an article headed VIVEKANANDA AT GREENACRE appeared in Boston's brahminical and world¬famous Evening Transcript. It was almost certainly written by Ralph Waldo Trine, who was later to become a well-known author on metaphysical subjects. (At the time, he was a special correspondent for the Transcript at Greenacre, where he had built for himself "a little cabin . . . On the edge of a pinegrove.

The article read in part:_x000d_ Greenacre Inn, Eliot, Me., promises to draw to itself a large concourse of people next week. The program offered is excellent._x000d_ On Monday, Colonel Norton of Arlington and Miss Ellen M. Dyer of philadelphia, who are guests at the Inn, have been invited to speak. Tuesday, Professor A. C. Dolbear of Tufts College, who is a recognized authority on such subjects, delivers an address upon "The Known Relations of Mind and Body." Wednesday will be devoted to theosophy, Miss Burnett, the author of "Practical Metaphysics," and Mr. George D. Ayres, of Boston, being the speakers. Thursday, Rev. Edward Everett Hale, D.D., speaks on "Sociology."

Friday an extra lecture will be given by Swami Vivek¬ananda of India, who is spending a few weeks at Greenacre. He is deeply interested in this unitary work which has been inaugurated, and each morning may be seen, attired in his flowing red robes and yellow turban, sitting crosslegged on the ground near a wide-spreading pine, and surrounded by a group of eager listeners, men and women, to whom he pours out freely his treasures of knowledge and experience. It is a rich opportunity to us who are privileged to enjoy it, and our only regret is that so many hungry souls arc missing it.

Greenacre is very full, as are also a half dozen or more cottages in the vicinity: still there is room. The townspeople are opening their rooms to accommodate the numbers who desire to attend the lectures, which are free to all. . . .

. . . Mrs. Ole Bull has taken rooms for the first three weeks in August, and will have among her guests Mrs.Edwin P[ercy] Whipple (wife of the well-known writer and critic] and Miss Emma Thursby, the distinguished vocalist.

GREENACRE INN_x000d_ ELLIOT, MAINE,_x000d_ 31st July 1894_x000d_ _x000d_ Dear Sisters, _x000d_ _x000d_ I have not written you long, and I have not much to write. This is a big inn and farm-house where the Christian Scientists are holding a session. Last spring in New York I was invited by the lady projector of the meeting to come here, and after all I am here. It is a beautiful and cool place, no doubt, and many of my old friends of Chicago are here. Mrs. Mills, Miss Stockham, and several other ladies and gentlemen live in tents which they have pitched on the open ground by the river. They have a lively time and sometimes all of them wear what you call your scientific dress the whole day. They have lectures almost every day. One Mr. Colville from Boston is here; he speaks every day, it is said, under spirit control. The Editor (?) of the Universal Truth has settled herself down here. She is conducting religious services and holding classes to heal all manner of diseases, and very soon I expect them to be giving eyes to the blind, and the like! After all, it is a queer gathering. They ;do not care much about social laws and are quite free and happy. ; Mrs. Mills is quite brilliant, and so are many other ladies. …Another lady from Detroit -- very cultured and with beautiful black eyes and long hair -- is going to take me to an island fifteen miles out at sea. I hope we shall have a nice time. … I may go over to Annisquam from here, I suppose. This is a beautiful and nice place and the bathing is splendid. Cora Stockham has made a bathing dress for me, and I am having as good a time in the water as a duck -- this is delicious even for the denizens of mud Ville. I do not find anything more to write. Only I am so busy that I cannot find time enough to write to Mother Church separately. My love and respects to Miss Howe._x000d_ There is here Mr. Wood of Boston who is one of the great lights of your sect. But he objects to belong to sect of Mrs. Whirlpool. So he calls himself a mental healer of metaphysico-chemico-physico-religiosio what not! Yesterday there was a tremendous cyclone which gave a good "treatment" to the tents. The big tent under which they had the lectures had developed so much spirituality, under the "treatment", that is entirely disappeared from mortal gaze, and about two hundred chairs were dancing about the grounds under spiritual ecstasy! Mrs. Figs of Mills is jumping all about the place; they are all in high spirits. I am specially glad for Cora, for they have suffered a good deal last winter and a little hilarity would do her good. You will be astounded with the liberty they enjoy in the camps, but they are very good and pure people there -- a little erratic and that is all. I shall be here till Saturday next. …under which I sit every morning a la Hindu and talk to them. Of course I went with them, and we had a nice night under the stars, sleeping on the lap of mother earth, and I enjoyed every bit of it. I cannot describe to you that night's glories -- after a year of brutal life that I have led, to sleep on the ground, to meditate under the tree in the forest! The inn people are more or less well-to-do, and the camp people are healthy, young, sincere , and holy men and women. I teach them Shivo'ham, Shivo'ham, and they all repeat it, innocent and pure as they are and brave beyond all bounds. And so I am happy and glorified. Thank God for making me poor, thank God for making these children in the tents poor. The Dudes and Dudines are in the Hotel, but iron-bound nerves and souls of triple steel and spirits of fire are in the camp. If you had seen them yesterday, when the rain was falling in torrents and the cyclone was overturning everything, hanging by their tent strings to keep them from being blown down, and standing on the majesty of their souls--these brave ones--it would have done your hearts good. I will go a hundred miles to see the like of them. Lord bless them! I hope you are enjoying your nice village life. Never be anxious for a moment. I will be taken care of, and if not, I will know my time has come and shall pass out._x000d_ "Sweet One! Many people offer to You many things, I am poor--but I have the body, mind, and soul. I give them over to You. Deign to accept, Lord of the Universe, and refuse them not."--So have I given over my life and soul once for all. One thing--they are a dry sort of people here--and as to that very few in the whole world are there that are not. They do not understand "Madhava", the Sweet One. They are either intellectual or go after faith cure, table turning, witchcraft, etc., etc. Nowhere have I heard so much about "love, life, and liberty" as in this country, but nowhere is it less understood. Here God is either a terror or a healing power, vibration, and so forth. Lord bless their souls! And these parrots talk day and night of love and love and love!_x000d_ Now, good dreams, good thoughts for you. You are good and noble. Instead of materialising the spirit, that is, dragging the spiritual to the material plane as these folks do, convert the matter into spirit, catch a glimpse at least, every day, of that world of infinite beauty and peace and purity--the spiritual, and try to live in it day and night. Seek not, touch not with your toes even, anything that is uncanny. Let your souls ascend day and night like an "unbroken string" unto the feet of the Beloved whose throne is in your own hearts and let the rest take care of themselves, that is the body and everything else. Life is evanescent, a fleeting dream; youth and beauty fade. Say day and night, "Thou art my father, my mother, my husband, my love, my lord, my God--I want nothing but Thee, nothing but Thee, nothing but Thee. Thou in me, I in Thee, I am Thee. Thou art me." Wealth goes, beauty vanishes, life flies, powers fly--but the Lord abideth for ever, love abideth for ever. If here is glory in keeping the machine in good trim, it is more glorious to withhold the soul from suffering with the body--that is the only demonstration of your being "not matter", by letting the matter alone._x000d_ Stick to God! Who cares what comes to the body or to anything else! Through the terrors of evil, say--my God, my love! Through the pangs of death, say--my God, my love! Through all the evils under the sun, say--my God, my love! Thou art here, I see Thee. Thou art with me, I feel Thee. I am Thine, take me. Do not go for glass beads leaving the mine of diamonds! This life is a great chance. What, seekest thou the pleasures of the world?--He is the fountain of all bliss. Seek for the highest, aim at that highest, and you shall reach the highest._x000d_ Yours with all blessings,_x000d_ Vivekananda

Yet, although Swamiji was living in that mood in which all things were fraught with glory, he was not by any means deceived by what was going on around him. While his vision penetrated to the spiritual reality behind people and events, he never overlooked anything; indeed, he perceived the surface reality with a clearness and accuracy not given to others. In the same letter in which he told of his great joy at witnessing the valor of the Greenacre campers,

The special correspondent for the Portsmouth Daily Chronicle also wrote about Swamiji in his "Greenacre Notes," dated July 31 (by which time the number of guests was "increasing daily") :

Vivekananda, the Hindoo monk from India, is . . . a centre of much interest. Each morning he meets a company of men and women under a large pine in the woods, and sitting cross-legged, discourses to them of the things of the soul.

This gentle, loving-hearted son of the east, by his simplicity and earnest devotion has won to himself some very warm friends. He is generous in the extreme, giving freely to any one from his stores of wisdom. On Friday he is to deliver an address in the large tent, his subject being "The Reality of God." This will be the only opportunity of listening to him publicly.

He came to this country to speak at the Parliament of Religions at Chicago and was greeted with crowds wherever he spoke. His red robe and yellow turban make him a picturesque figure wherever he goes.

The storm of Sunday, one of the grandest electrical dis¬plays ever seen in this vicinity, threatened at one time to entirely destroy Sunrise camp, the popular adjunct to Greenacre. Three of the tents were blown down, also the large tent in which the lectures are held. The latter was badly torn but the rents have been repaired and the tent is again in use. At the time of the storm Mr. W. J. Colville [the spiritualist] was lecturing in the hall of the Inn and the calm way in which he proceeded demonstrated con¬vincingly his assertion that "All is good."

The rest of the people were out trying to save the camp, and one can picture Swamiji in the heart of the great storm, watch¬ing the campers battle with the cyclone and, no doubt, helping them rescue their tents from destruction. To others this may have been simply a necessary tussle with the wind and rain, but to Swamiji it was the glorious struggle of man's soul against the onslaughts of nature.

These notes of daily morning classes delivered at Greenacre, Maine, in the summer of 1894 and recorded by Miss Emma Thursby were discovered among Miss Emma Thursby's papers at the New York Historical Society. They have been lightly edited in order to conform to the style of the Complete Works._x000d_ _x000d_ Notes taken miscellaneously from discourses given by Swami Vivekananda under the "Pine" at Greenacre in July and August 1894. _x000d_ The name of Swami's master was Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. The signification of Vivekananda is conscious bliss. _x000d_ Meditation is a sort of prayer and prayer is meditation. The highest meditation is to think of nothing. If you can remain one moment without thought, great power will come. The whole secret of knowledge is concentration. Soul best develops itself by loving God with all the heart. Soul is the thinking principle in man, of which mind is a function. Soul is only the conduit from Spirit to mind._x000d_ All souls are playing, some consciously, some uncon¬sciously. Religion is learning to play consciously._x000d_ The Guru is your own higher Self._x000d_ Seek the highest, always the highest, for in the highest is eternal bliss. If I am to hunt, I will hunt the rhinoceros. If I am to rob, I will rob the treasury of the king. Seek the highest._x000d_ [Some of the following passages are the Swami's free transla¬tions from Indian scriptures, including the Avadhuta Gitâ of Dattâtreya.]_x000d_ _x000d_ If you know you are bound [you are bound]; if you know you are free, you are free. My mind was never bound by yearnings of this world; for like the eternal blue sky, I am the essence of Knowledge, of Existence and of Bliss. Why weepest thou, Brother? Neither death nor disease for thee. Why weepest thou, Brother? Neither misery nor misfortune for thee. Why weepest thou, Brother? Neither change nor death was predicated of thee. Thou Art Existence Absolute._x000d_ I know what God is; I cannot speak [of] Him to you. I know not [what] God is; how can I speak [of] Him to you? But seest not thou, my brother, that thou wert He, thou wert He? Why go seeking God here and there? Seek not, and that is God. Be your own Self__One that cannot be confessed or described, One that can be perceived in our heart of hearts. One beyond all compare, beyond limit, unchangeable like the blue sky. Oh! Learn the All Holy One. Seek for nothing else._x000d_ Where changes of nature cannot reach, thought beyond all thought, unchangeable, immovable, whom all books de¬clare, all sages worship, O Holy One! Seek for nothing else._x000d_ Beyond compare, Infinite Oneness__no comparison is possible. Water above, water beneath, water on the right, water on the left. No wave on that water, no ripple. All silence, all eternal bliss. Such will come to thy heart. Seek for nothing else. Thou art our father, our mother, our dear friend. Thou bearest the burden of this world. Help us to bear the burden of our lives. Thou art our friend, our lover, our husband. Thou art ourselves._x000d_ Four sorts of people worship Me. Some want the delights of the physical world. Some want money, some want reli¬gion. Some worship Me because they love Me. _x000d_ _x000d_ Real love is love for love's sake. I do not ask health or money or life or salvation. Send me to a thousand hells, but let me love Thee for love's sake. Mirâ Bâi, the great queen, taught the doctrine of love for love's sake. _x000d_ Our present consciousness is only a little bit of an infinite sea of mind. Do not be limited to this consciousness. _x000d_ Three great things [are] to be desired to develop the soul: First, human birth; second, thirst for the highest; third, to find one who has reached the highest__a Mahâtmâ, one whose mind, word and deed are full of the nectar of virtue, whose only pleasure is in doing good to the universe, who looks upon others' virtues, be they only as a mustard seed, even as though they were a mountain, thus expanding his own self and helping oth-ers to expand. Thus is the Mahatma._x000d_ The word Yoga is the root of which our word yoke is a derivation__meaning "to join"__and Yoga means "joining our¬selves with God"__joining me with my real Self. _x000d_ All actions now involuntary or automatic were once volun¬tary, and our first step is to gain a knowledge of the automatic actions__the real idea being to revivify and make voluntary all automatic actions, to bring them into consciousness. Many Yo¬gis can control the actions of their hearts. _x000d_ To go back into consciousness and bring out things we have forgotten is ordinary power, but this can be heightened. All knowledge__all that__can be brought out of the inner con¬sciousness, and to do this is Yoga. The majority of actions and thoughts is automatic, or acting behind consciousness. The seat of automatic action is in the medulla oblongata and down the spinal cord. _x000d_ The question is, how to find our way back to our inner con¬sciousness. We have come out through spirit, soul, mind, and body, and now we must go back from body to spirit. First, get hold of the air [breath], then the nervous system, then the mind, then the Atman, or spirit. But in this effort we must be perfectly sincere in desiring the highest. _x000d_ The law of laws is concentration. First, concentrate all the nerve energies and all power lodged in the cells of the body into one force and direct it at will. Then bring the mind, which is thinner matter, into one center. The mind has layer after layer. When the nerve force concentrated is made to pass through the spinal column, one layer of the mind is open. When it is con¬centrated in one bone [plexus, or "lotus"], another part of the world is open. So from world to world it goes until it touches the pineal gland in the center of the brain. This is the seat of conservation of potential energy, the source of both activity and passivity. _x000d_ Start with the idea that we can finish all experience in this world, in this incarnation. We must aim to become perfect in this life, this very moment. Success only comes to that life amongst men who wants to do this, this very moment. It is acquired by him who says, "Faith, I wait upon faith come what may". Therefore, go on knowing you are to finish this very moment. Struggle hard and then if you do not succeed, you are not to blame. Let the world praise or blame you. Let all the wealth of the earth come to your feet, or let you be made the poorest on earth. Let death come this moment or hundreds of years hence. Swerve not from the path you have taken. All good thoughts are immortal and go to make Buddhas and Christs._x000d_ Law is simply a means of [your] expression [of] various phenomena brought into your mind. Law is your method of grasping material phenomena and bringing them into unity. All law is finding unity in variety. The only method of knowledge is concentration on the physical, mental, and spiritual planes; and concentrating the powers of the mind to discover one in many, is what is called knowledge._x000d_ Everything that makes for unity is moral, everything that makes for diversity is immoral. Know the One without a second, that is perfection. The One who manifests in all is the basis of the universe; and all religion, all knowledge, must come to this point._x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ [The following are some of the disconnected notes taken by Miss Emma Thursby during the last of the Swami's Greenacre classes, delivered Sunday morning, August 12, 1894.]_x000d_ _x000d_ I am Existence Absolute Kundalini_x000d_ Bliss Absolute Circle mother_x000d_ I am He, Shivoham_x000d_ I am He, Shivoham _x000d_ He is the learned man who sees that every man's property is nothing. Every woman his Mother._x000d_ Shânti__peace___x000d_ _______x000d_ _x000d_ We meditate on the Glory of Hrim _x000d_ Mother_x000d_ Buddhistic Prayer_x000d_ I bow to all the saint[s] on Earth_x000d_ I bow down to the founders of Religion_x000d_ to all holy men and women_x000d_ Prophets of Religion_x000d_ who have been on Earth_x000d_ Hindu prayer_x000d_ I meditate on the Glory of the producer of this Universe_x000d_ may He enlighten our minds.

But aside from the religious oddities who romped over the hills, there were men and women of more serious and sound turn of mind. There was, for instance, Dr. Edward Everett Hale, the widely known and highly influential Unitarian minister, reformer, and writer; Octavius Brooks Frothingham, one of the last of the Transcendentalists; Miss Josephine Locke, superintendent of art education in the public schools of Chicago and a friend of the Hales; Ernest F. Fenollosa, the famous connoisseur of and lecturer on Oriental art; and Franklin B. Sanborn, the well-known philanthropist and one of Swamiji's first friends in this country. There were also Mrs. Arthur Smith, Mrs. Ole Bull, and Miss Emma Thursby, the Famous singer ¬all of whom, particularly Mrs. Bull, whom we meet here for the first time, were to grow close to Swamiji and his work. And then there was Dr. Lewis G. Janes, President of the Brooklyn Ethical Association, who was to become one of his devoted and stalwart friends.

According to an early edition of the Life, Swamiji met Dr. Janes in New York before his visit to Greenacre, possibly in May. "At a lecture given in the parlour of a friend," the Life tells us, "he chanced to meet Dr. Lewis G. Janes, . . . Who was so much struck with his unusual attainments as well as with his message that he invited him at once to give a series of lectures on the Hindu Religion before the Brooklyn Ethical Association. This invitation was no doubt of a piece with thc plans to which Swamiji had referred in his letter of July 19 to Mrs. Hale: "Mr. Higgins, a rich young lawyer and inventor of Brooklyn is arranging some lectures for me. I have not yet settled whether I will stop [in America] for them or not. Mr. Higgins, who was on the Committee of Comparative Religions at the Ethical Association, did not wait for Swamiji's decision. He went ahead with his plans.

Mrs. Bull arrived at Greenacre in time to attend Swamiji's public lecture of Friday, August 3, and in her inimitable style wrote the following report of it, which was printed on August 11 in the Evening Transcript:

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA_x000d_ A defense of Mahomet by a Hindu to a Christian audience; the lesson that all prophets are to be revered and their teachings studied reverently; that the followers of these teachers should not confound for us by their behavior the revelation made from God to man by prophecy was the theme at Greenacre yesterday.

Clear thought and statement patiently corrected the crude and superficial adverse criticism and comment that had been made concerning the Eastern belief-reincarnation. The statement was masterful, because simple, and was brought home by illustrations familiar and commonplace. This was followed by a nobly eloquent plea for the judicial spirit in judging the history of the time and the faith of Mahomet himself and the service done the human race by the essentials of this faith as a prophet of God. Men and women present, many of whom fear the heathen, were moved as they tell us Wendell Phillips was wont to move the hard hearts to consider the sin of slavery.

Scorn, wit and intellect did noble service in all gentleness and dignity in this appeal that the defects, the horrors, of each and all religions should be put one side that the essentials common to all-the immortality of the soul, one God, the Father and his prophets sacred, each, to some division of the human family, and each having truth to give needful to all-should be recognized and reverenced to salvation.

The speaker, Swami Vivekananda, gave what only a great soul is capable of giving. It was an hour never to be forgotten. This man brought those present into the light of truth, whatever their prejudice and training, as Phillips Brooks united Unitarian and Episcopalianism, and all who love the good and true came to hold him for their bishop. So this Hindu, in his constructive thought, when he will give it, can make the power of the prophets known to us by his own presence.

APPENDIX A_x000d_ _x000d_ The Greenacre Program, Summer, 1894 _x000d_ (See Chapter Eleven, Section Two )_x000d_ _x000d_ The following program was distributed at Greenacre, Maine, in the form of a printed leaflet consisting of a front and back cover and five pages. We are indebted for it to Swami Sarva¬gatananda, head of the Vedanta Society of Massachusetts, and to Miss Elva Nelson, who obtained it from an old-timer at Greenacre and donated it to the Society. The cover of the leaflet read: "Program of the Summer Lectures at Greenacre, Eliot, Maine. July 3-August 30, 1894.

Inside, the leaflet's five pages outlined the program: _x000d_ _x000d_ SUMMER LECTURES._x000d_ _x000d_ Greenacre Inn, Eliot, Maine, proposes to add to its rural attractions and comforts a series of Lectures and Classes on topics which shall quicken and energize the spiritual, mental, and moral natures, and give the surest and serenest physical rest to its guests._x000d_ Or, in the more expansive expression of the Congresses of 1893, its purpose is to "review the progress already achieved in the world, state the living problems now awaiting solution, and suggest the means of farther progress."_x000d_ To make this work possible and practical, it must be localized in the centres of action all the world over. Therefore, with spontaneous delight and the culmination of desires which for years have stirred the hearts of several progressive thinkers, the following program has been arranged for definite work at Greenacre Inn and its immediate environments during July and August, 1894:¬

Tuesday, July 3. Mrs. Ole Bull, Of Cambridge. “Address of _x000d_ Welcome.”_x000d_ # _x000d_ _x000d_ Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, of Chicago. "Greetings _x000d_ from the West."_x000d_ Mr. Wm. Ordway Partridge. "Opening Address." _x000d_ Wednesday, July 4. Peace Day! Rev. Dr. Flavius J. Probst, of_x000d_ Chicago. "The Coming American: '_x000d_ Thursday, July 5. Mr. Frederick Reed, of Roxbury Latin _x000d_ School. "The Education of the Future."_x000d_ Mrs. H. H. Farnsworth, of Chicago. "The Science of Life." Monday, July 9. Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz, of Boston. "The _x000d_ True Work of Humanity for Humanity."_x000d_ Prof. Thomas E. Will, of Boston. "Union for Practical _x000d_ Progress."_x000d_ Tuesday, July 10. Mr. Henry Wood, of Boston. "Mental _x000d_ and Physical Chemistry."_x000d_ Mrs. Helen Van Anderson. "How to Make the Christ Life_x000d_ Practical."_x000d_ Wednesday, July 11. Miss Sophia Beck, of Malden. "Helps to_x000d_ Soul Expression."_x000d_ Mr. Ralph Waldo Trine, Ph.D., of Mt. Morris, Ill. "The _x000d_ True Art of Authorship and Oratory."_x000d_ Thursday, July 12. Rev. H. C. Vrooman, of East Milton. "The_x000d_ Material Expression of the Spiritual Age: '_x000d_ Mrs. Helen Wilmans, of Boston. "Mental Freedom." _x000d_ Monday, July 16. Mrs. Ellen H. Richards, of the Institute of_x000d_ Technology. "The Elevation of Home Life."_x000d_ Miss Maria Daniell, of Wollaston. "The Scientific and Econ¬omic_x000d_ Preparation of Food."_x000d_ Mr. Frank B. Sanborn, of Concord, Mass. "The Humane_x000d_ Treatment of Mental and Spiritual Aberrations." _x000d_ Tuesday, July 17. Dr. Henry B. Blackwell, of Boston. "The_x000d_ Possibilities of Woman."_x000d_ Miss Lida Hood Talbot, of Chicago. "Physical Culture in _x000d_ Relation to Soul Expression."_x000d_ Wednesday, July 18. Mrs. B. O. Flower, of Boston. "The_x000d_ Influence upon the Race of Freedom in Dress."_x000d_ Dr. Alice B. Stockham, of Chicago. "Motherhood."_x000d_ # _x000d_ Thursday, July 19. Mr. B. O. Flower, of the Arena. "Early_x000d_ Environment.”_x000d_ Mr. Parker Pillsbury, of Concord, N.H. Subject to be _x000d_ announced._x000d_ Monday, July 23. Children's Day. In charge of Miss Margaret_x000d_ Saltonstall, of Wollaston._x000d_ Dr. G. P. Wiksell. "The Children of Shalam." _x000d_ Rev. W. W. Locke, of New York. "Our Boys."_x000d_ Tuesday, July 24. Mr. Henry Wood, of Boston. "Economic_x000d_ Natural Law."_x000d_ Col. Post, of Georgia. "Political Economy."_x000d_ Wednesday, July 25. Rabbi Solomon Schindler, of Boston._x000d_ "Individualism and Socialism."_x000d_ Thursday, July 26. Mr. W. J. Colville. "The Coming of_x000d_ Civilization."_x000d_ Monday, July 30. Dr. C, D. Sherman. "The Relation of _x000d_ Planetary Force to the Evolution of Man."_x000d_ Tuesday, July 31. Prof. A. C. Dolbear, of Tufts College. "The_x000d_ Known Relations of Mind and Body."_x000d_ Wednesday, August 1, Miss M. J. Barnett, of Boston. _x000d_ "Theos¬ophy:'_x000d_ Mr. George D. Ayers, of Boston, "The Theosophical Move¬ment "_x000d_ Mr. Buschacd Hardinge, of London. "Karma and Incarna¬tion."_x000d_ Thursday, August 2. Rev. Edward Everett Hale, D.D. _x000d_ "Sociology."_x000d_ Monday, August 6. Mrs. Bernard Whitman, of Boston. "Lend _x000d_ a Hand Work."_x000d_ Miss Emily Morgan, of Hartford. "Vacation Homes." _x000d_ Tuesday, August 7. Mrs. Evelyn Mason, of Brookline. "Rest_x000d_ through Higher Development."_x000d_ Rev. Augustine Caldwell, of Ipswich. "The Spiritual _x000d_ Significance of Names and Numbers."_x000d_ Wednesday, August 8. Rev. Mr. Hillis, of Evanston, Ill. _x000d_ "Ruskin."_x000d_ # _x000d_ Rev. T. Ernest Allen, of Grafton. "Universal Religion." _x000d_ Thursday, August 9. Dr. Lewis G. Janes, President Brooklyn_x000d_ Ethical Association. "Evolution and Life."_x000d_ Monday, August 13. Temperance Day. In charge of Mrs. _x000d_ L. M. N. Stevens, of Portland, President Maine W.C.T.U. Mme. Layyah Barakat, of Syria. "Temperance Work in _x000d_ Syria."_x000d_ Mr. Joseph G. Thorp, Jr., of Cambridge. "The Norwegian _x000d_ Law."_x000d_ Gen. Neal Dow, of Portland. "Prohibition."_x000d_ Tuesday, August 14. Rev. E. P. Powell, of Clinton, N.Y. "The_x000d_ Possible Permanent Removal of Poverty."_x000d_ Wednesday, August 15. Mrs. Margaret B. Peeke, of Sandusky,_x000d_ Ohio. "The Soul in its Search after God."_x000d_ Rev. Wm. R. Alger, of Boston. "Universal Religion." _x000d_ Thursday, August 16. Mr. S. Frank Davidson, La Grange, Ill. _x000d_ "The Outlook for the Future."_x000d_ Mrs. Ursula N. Gestefeld, of New York. "The Inner Meaning _x000d_ of the Bible."_x000d_ Monday, August 20. Prof. Ernest F. Fenollosa, of Boston Art_x000d_ Museum. "The Relation of Religion to Art."_x000d_ Tuesday, August 21. Mrs. Martha Howe Davidson, La Grange, _x000d_ Ill. "Religious Art."_x000d_ Mr. Frank H. Tompkins, of Boston. "Practical Talk on _x000d_ Art."_x000d_ Mr. Arthur W. Dow, of Ipswich. "Composition in Art." Wednesday, August 22. Mrs. Mary W. Chapin, of Boston._x000d_ "Spiritual Healing."_x000d_ Mr. E. M. Bishop, of Boston. "The Law of Correspondence _x000d_ in its Relation to Life."_x000d_ Thursday, August 23. Mrs. Fanny M. Harley, of Chicago, of_x000d_ Universal Truth. "Demonstration."_x000d_ Mrs. Anna W. Mills, of Chicago. "The Search for Truth." _x000d_ Mrs. Sara A. King, of Baltimore, "Divine Healing." _x000d_ Monday, August 27. Rev. George Lewis, of South Berwick. _x000d_ "Prophets and Prophecy."_x000d_ # _x000d_ Rev. T. Ernest Allen, of Gesfton. "Is Spiritualism Worth _x000d_ While, if True ?"_x000d_ Tuesday, August 28. Mr. S. P. Wait, School of Philosophy, _x000d_ Port Edwards, N.Y. "The Soul and its Possibilities." _x000d_ Wednesday, August 29. Mr. Edwin D. Mead, of New England_x000d_ Magazine. "Immanuel Kant."_x000d_ Thursday, August 30. Miss Josephine C. Locke, of Chicago. _x000d_ "The Symbolic Woman."_x000d_ _x000d_ These lectures will be given at 3 o'clock p.m., and will all be free.

In addition to the above, lectures are promised from Swami Vivekananda on "The Religion of India," also by Dr. Janes on "Evolution," Dr. Probst on "The Summit of the Nineteenth Century" and "The Philosophy of Wit and Humor"; by Mr. B. O. Flower on "Whittier," Mr. Colville on "Vibration" and "New Light from the Great Pyramid," Miss Josephine C. Locke on "Woman in Mythology and Art," Miss Shida Mori, of Yanagawa, Japan, on Japanese Dress and Home Life."

Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, of England, will contribute a paper on "Christian Scientific Methods in Biology."

Dr. Ibrahim G. Kheiralla, of Egypt, is expected to be present, and speak on "The Truth and the Oriental Philosophy of the Occult 5cience:' Miss Virginia Vaughan will speak on "Oriental Poetry."

Private classes to study the above subjects will be held by competent teachers, information concerning which can be ob¬tained of Miss Farmer, the Secretary.

The music will be in charge of Mrs. Ole Bull, Mrs. Elizabeth M. Allen, a pupil of Letchitizsky, of Vienna, Mr. Edward T. Barker, Mr. Harry W. Eliot, and Mr. Stephen S. Townsend, of Boston. A rare opportunity will be given for pupils to continue their musical instruction during the summer.

But for us today and for many who were there in 1894, it is Swamiji's classes that dominate the foreground. Under one of the tall Lysekloster pines, which came to be known as the "Swami's Pine,"'* he held classes every morning._x000d_ _x000d_ * Under the “Swami’s Pine” Swami Saradananda would speak in the summer of 1896, and in later summers, Swami Abhedananda. In 1959 the Lysekloster Pines, the “Swami’s Pine” among them, were cut down and sold for lumber by a group of people who did not know their historic, indeed spiritual, value. The loss is still mourned by those who did know. The stump of the “Swami’s Pine,” which, as far as I know, still exists, is about four feet in diameter.

Down through the years the hope has been that some notes of those classes would come to light, but not until recently has that hope been fulfilled. Among those who sat on the forest floor around Swamiji, eagerly listening to his words, was Miss Emma Thursby, and to her unbounded credit she not only took notes but preserved them. Long hidden away among her papers at the New-York Historical Society, those notes were discovered by the present writer almost by chance, and are presented here. While, as Miss Thursby acknowledges, they were taken down "miscellaneously" from a number of Swamiji's Greenacre classes, one can clearly hear his voice through them and derive an idea of the type of class he was holding under his Pine.

The notes covered both sides of two large sheets of paper and read, unedited, as follows:_x000d_ Notes taken miscellaneously from discourses given by Swami Vivekananda under the "Pine" at Greenacre in July & August 1894. The name of Swami's Master was Ramakrishna Parama Hamsa-The signification of Vivekananda is, conscious bliss-

Meditation is a sort of prayer and prayer is meditation-The highest meditation is to think of nothing. If you can remain one moment without thought, great power will come. The whole secret of knowledge is concentration. Soul best develops itself by loving God with all the heart. Soul is the thinking principle in man, of which mind is a function. Soul is only the conduit from Spirit to mind.

All souls are playing, some consciously, some uncon¬sciously-Religion is learning to play consciously.

The Guru is your own higher self.

Seek the highest, always the highest, for in the highest is Eternal bliss. If I am to hunt, I will hunt the Rhinoceros. If I am to rob, I will rob the treasury of the King. Seek the highest.

If I know you are bound-If you know you are free, you are free. My mind was never bound by yearnings of this world, for like the eternal blue sky, I am the essence of knowledge of existence and of bliss. Why weepest thou brother? Neither death nor disease for thee, Why weepest thou brother? Neither misery nor misfortune for thee, Why weepest thou brother? Neither change nor death was predicated of thee, Thou Art Existence Absolute._x000d_ [Swamiji is here freely translating verses from the Avadhuta Gita.]

I know what God is, I cannot speak him to you. I know not [what] God is, how can I speak him to you, but seest not thou my brother that thou wert he, thou wert he? Why go seeking God here & there? Seek not and that is God. Be your own self. One that cannot be confessed or de¬scribed, One that can be perceived in our heart of hearts. One beyond all compare, beyond limit, unchangeable like the blue sky-Oh! Learn the All Holy One. Seek for nothing else.

Where changes of nature cannot reach, thought beyond all thought, unchangeable, immovable, whom all books declare, all sages worship, O Holy One! Seek for nothing else.

Beyond compare, Infinite Oneness-No comparison is possible. Water above, water beneath, water on the right, water on the left, no wave on that water, no ripple, all silence, all eternal bliss. Such will come to thy heart. Seek for nothing else. Thou art our father, our mother, our dear friend, Thou bearest the burden of this world. Help us to bear the burden of our lives. Thou art our friend, our lover, our husband, thou art ourselves.

Four sorts of people worship me. Some want the delights of the physical world. Some want money, some want religion. Some worship me because they love me. Real love is love for love's sake. I do not ask health or money or life or salvation. Send me to a thousand hells, but let me love Thee For love's sake. Mirabai, the great Queen, taught the doctrine of love for love's sake. Our present consciousness is only a little bit of an infinite sea of mind. Do not be limited to this consciousness. Three great things to be desired to develop the soul-First human birth, second thirst for the highest, third to find one who has reached the highest, a Mahatma, one whose mind, word & deed are full of the nectar of virtue, whose only pleasure is in doing good to the universe, who looks upon others' virtues be they only as a mustard seed, even as though they were a mountain; thus expanding his own self & helping others to expand; thus goes the Mahatma.

The word "yoga" is the root of which our word yoke is a derivation meaning to join, & yoga means joining ourselves with God. Joining me with my real self. All actions now involuntary or automatic were once voluntary & our first step is to gain a knowledge of the automatic _x000d_ actions, the real idea being to revivify & make voluntary all automatic actions, to bring them into consciousness. Many yogis can control the actions of their hearts. To go back into consciousness & bring out things we have forgotten is ordinary power but this can be heightened. All knowledge, all that can be brought out of the inner consciousness & to do this is yoga. The majority of actions & thoughts are automatic or acting behind consciousness. The seat of automatic action is in the medulla oblongata & down the spinal cord. The question is, how to find our way back to our inner consciousness. We have come out through spirit, soul, mind, & body, & now we must go back from body to spirit. First get hold of the air, then the nervous system, then the mind, then the atma or spirit, but in this effort we must be perfectly sincere in desiring the highest. The law of laws is concentration. First con¬centrate all the nerve energies & all power lodged in the cells of the body into one force & direct it at will. Then bring the mind, which is thinner matter, into one center. The mind has layer after layer; when the nerve force con¬centrated is made to pass through the spinal column, one layer of the mind is open. When it is concentrated in one bone [plexus or "lotus"] another part of the world is open. So from world to world it goes until it touches the pineal gland in the center of the brain. This is the seat of con¬servation of potential energy, the source of both activity and passivity. Start with the idea that we can finish all experience in this world in this incarnation. We must aim to become perfect in this life this very moment. Success only comes to that life amongst men who wants to do this [this] very moment. It is acquired by him who says "Faith, I wait upon faith come what may." Therefore go on knowing you are to finish this very moment. Struggle hard and then, if you do not succeed, you are not to blame. Let the world praise or blame you. Let all the wealth of the earth come to your feet, or let you be made the poorest on earth, let death come this moment or hundreds of years hence, swerve not from the path you have taken. All good thoughts are immortal and go to make Buddhas & Christs.

Law is simply a means of expression, various phenomena brought into your mind. Law is your method of grasping material phenomena and bringing them into unity. All law is finding unity in variety. The only method of knowledge is concentration on the physical, mental, and spiritual planes, and concentrating the powers of the mind to discover one in many, is what is called knowledge.

Everything that makes for unity is moral, everything that makes for diversity is immoral. Know the One without a second, that is perfection. The One who manifests in all is the basis of the Universe, and all religion, all knowledge must come to this point.

We can gather this also from excerpts of the Greenacre Voice, a magazine published by the colony. Although the 1894 issues are no longer available, I have come across in another magazine one or two quotations taken from them. The first consists of Swamiji's translation of verses from the "Nirvanashatkam" of Shankara-one of the most uncompromisingly monistic of Vedantic texts:

Under the Swami's famous pine at Greenacre, Vivek¬ananda said:_x000d_ "I am neither body nor changes of the body; nor am I senses nor objects of the senses. I am Existence Absolute. Bliss Absolute. Knowledge Absolute. I am It. I am It._x000d_ "I am neither death nor fear of death; nor was I ever born, nor had I parents. I am Existence Absolute. Bliss Absolute. Knowledge Absolute. I am It. I am It. _x000d_ "I am not misery nor have I misery. I am not enemy nor have I enemies. I am Existence Absolute. Bliss Ab¬solute. Knowledge Absolute. I am It. I am It._x000d_ "I am without form, without limit, beyond space, beyond time; I am in everything, I am the basis of the universe---everywhere am I. I am Existence Absolute. Bliss Absolute. Knowledge Absolute. I am It. I am It.

Another scrap of quotation from the Greenacre Voice reads as follows :_x000d_ _x000d_ Says Vivekananda, "You and I and everything in the universe are that Absolute, not parts, but the whole. You are the whole of that Absolute.

To judge from these scraps, from Miss Thursby's more sub¬stantial notes and from Swamiji's own letters, it was at, Greenacre that he taught for the first time in America the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta (though, as far as we know, not naming it as such) to a group of eager listeners. "I teach them all Shivoham, Shivoham," he wrote to Mary Hale, "and they all repeat it-innocent and pure as they are and brave beyond all bounds and so I am happy and glorified." Nor was it only during the scheduled hours of his class that Swamiji taught, for it was not only during those hours that listeners and seekers gathered around him. And wherever there were ears to hear, there he spoke of God and of the Spirit-continuously teaching. "I want a little quiet," he was to write a week after leaving Greenacre, "but it is not the will of the Lord it seems. At Greenacre I had to talk on an average [of] 7 to 8 hours a day; that was rest if it ever was! But it was of the Lord-and that brings vigour and glory with it.

Although it cannot be supposed that at Greenacre Swamiji formulated his later method of teaching in the West, this period can be thought of as a foreshadowing of what was to come-the beginnings of a new method of work.

There is a mass of thought which is at the present time struggling to get expression. It teaches us that higher direction and not destruction is the law. It teaches us that it is not a world of bad and good, but good and better and still better. It stops short of nothing but acceptance. It teaches that no situation is hopeless, and as such accepts every form of mental, moral or spiritual thought where it already stands, and without a word of condemnation tells it that so far it has done good, now it is time to do better. . . It above all teaches that the kingdom of heaven is already in existence if we will have it, that perfection is already in man if he will see it._x000d_ The Greenacre meetings last summer were so wonderful, simply because you opened yourself fully to that thought which has found in you so competent a medium of express¬ion, and because you took your stand on the highest teaching of this thought that the kingdom of heaven already exists._x000d_ You have been consecrated and chosen by the Lord as a channel for converting this thought into life, and every one that helps you in this wonderful work is serving the Lord._x000d_ Our Gita teaches that he who serves the servants of the Lord is His highest worshipper. You are a servant of the Lord, and as a disciple of Krishna I will always consider it a privilege and worship to render you any service in the carrying out of your inspired mission wherever I be.

As the years went on, Greenacre increased and flourished, many men and women offering their time and support. The work had no endowment, but rested simply, as Miss Farmer said, "on the promises of God which have never failed: ' According to an 1899 news article, many famous leaders of thought came during the summers to lecture and to give "their time and their efforts, grateful to be allowed the opportunity of addressing such an audience as groups under and around one of the great Lysekloster pines." "It appears a singular thing," this same report continued, "that so many famous people could have been attracted to this little town up in Maine; that they have been sufficiently interested in this work and this concourse of people, to be willing to come and give so freely that for which their admiring fellows in other parts were so anxious to pay._x000d_ During the thriving years of the Greenacre Religious Conferences all who wrote of the place wondered at the sense of peace and upliftment it imparted, a serenity to be found nowhere else and that captivated both faith healers and philosophers alike. But was this attraction really to be wondered at? Here under the spreading Lysekloster pines the great prophet of the age meditated and spoke in one of his most exalted moods-a mood comparable perhaps only to that which he would experience the following summer at Thousand Island Park. It was not really a "singular thing" that for many years afterward hundreds were attracted to the "little town up in Maine: ' During the two weeks or so of Swamiji's visit to Greenacre, he not only enlightened scores of earnest seekers of truth but left behind him an atmosphere of intense spirituality. And, as we have suggested earlier, it was perhaps during those same weeks that he himself began to see in a new light his mission to America.

and then, on Mrs. Bagley's confirmed invitation took the train to Boston and thence to Annisquam, where she had rented Professor Alpheus Hyatt's house. It was almost a year to the day since Swamiji had visited Annisquam as a guest of Professor John Henry Wright and had there given his first lecture in an American church. He had then been unknown; he had had no credentials and little money, indeed nothing but a few newly made friends and some ochre robes. He had written at that time, "I am trying my best to find out any plank I can float upon . . ." Now he was famous, recognized by thousands as a great exponent of Hinduism and loved and revered as a prophet by innumerable loyal and influential friends.

The times had changed; but except for a greater mastery of English oratory, a greater knowledge of the American people, and, above all, a greater manifestation of spiritual power, Swamiji himself had not changed. He was still, as Mrs. Bagley wrote of him, "a strong, noble human being who walks with God . . . as simple and trustful as a child. He was still and always the very embodiment of purity, whom the world could not harm either by vicious criticism or by fervid admiration and of both he had had a lion's share.

"It was his holiday time," a fellow house guest wrote later to Sister Nivedita, and in this same letter, which is quoted in the Life, she told of his delight in listening to humorous anecdotes of which she had a store. "I remember," she wrote, "he was greatly amused by a tale about a Chinaman who had been arrested for stealing pork and who, in reply to the Justice who remarked that he thought Chinamen did not eat pork, said, `Oh! Me Melican man now. Me, sir, me steal, me eat pork, me everything.' How often I have heard Vivekananda say sotto voce, `Me Melican man."

The occasions on which Swamiji may well have murmured "Me Melican man" were numerous.

He attended a clambake one evening on the beach; he went boating and once capsized the boat, having to be rescued from the sea (or was it placid Lobster Cove?) ; and he sat for his portrait in the long summer afternoons. As far as we can at present determine, the clambake, a "Melican" institution if ever there was one, was given in August of 1894 by the family of Professor Alpheus Hyatt, the Harvard zoologist, whom Swamiji had met the previous year.

Of this occasion Professor Hyatt's daughter, Anna Vaughn Hyatt (Mrs. Archer M. Huntington), the well-known sculptress, wrote to me when I asked for her memories: "He [Swamiji] came to a primitive clam-bake we had one evening on our beach, and he was shown how to open and eat hot clams from the shell with his fingers. As I remember, he was a good sport about it and the affair, and he made a very colorful figure lit by the firelight against the blackness of the night. It was either the day before that or the day after that he fell out of a rowboat and was rescued by one of the family. He was quite a stout figure as I recall."*_x000d_ _x000d_ * Some of the memories that have come down to us of Swamiji’s visits at Annisquam in 1893 and 1894 are those of a generation then in its childhood. But if the surviving children of Professor John Henry Wright and Professor Alpheus Hyatt recall Swamiji lorgely through hearsay, he is nonetheless a vivid figure to them, a family legend. The background of time and place, however, against which this figure stands, is vague. Did the clambake, for instance, take place in 1893 or 1894 ? In Miss Elva Nelson’s artivle “footnotes to Swami Vivekananda in Annisquam” (Prabuddha Bharata, June 1979) we learn from a Hyatt grandson (a step further removed) that in 1893 or 1894 there was a moonlight picnic during which Swamiji learned to skip paper plates across the water. Was this the clambake? We do not know. If the clambake took place in 1893 ( when the Hyatts were without question in Annisquam), then it could have occurred only on the evening of Saturday, August 26, before or after the children’s performance of a play. If in 94 (when it is not certain at present whether or not the Hyatts were in Annisquam—for a weekend, at least), then it must have taken place before August 21 of that year, for “it was either the day before (the clambake) of the day after that he fell out of a rowboat” (writes one of the Hyatt daughters), which “drenching” Swamiji mentions in a letter of August 20, 1894. Perhaps we shall never be able to accurately pinpoint these summer happenings; but of these things we are sure: Swamiji did attend a clambake on a beach at Annisquam, and at one time or another he sent paper plates skipping over the moonlight water.

Swamiji evidently had many boat rides during the summer of 1894. In a letter to India he refers to the New Englander's preoccupation with sailboats. "Here in summer they go to the seaside-I also did the same. They have got almost a mania for boating and yachting. The yacht is a kind of light vessel which everyone, young and old, who has the means, possesses. They set sail in them every day to the sea, and return home, to eat and drink and dance-while music continues day and night. Pianos render it a botheration to stay indoors!"58 This picture of life in a New England resort town is accurate, but while the piano music of the gay nineties might at times have become unendurable, Swamiji evidently did not mind his drenching in the sea. He refers to it again in reply to concerned inquiries from the Hale family. To Mary Hale he writes, "I have plenty of gowns already, in fact, more than I can carry with ease. When I had that drenching in Annisquam I had on that beautiful black suit you appreciate so much, and I do not think it can be damaged in any-way; it also has been penetrated with my deep meditations on the Absolute. . . . Kindly tell Mother that I do not want any coat now."

There was a letter from the Maharaja of Khetri, dated June 8; one from Alasinga telling that money would soon be sent to the prodigal Narasimha for his return to India; and one, it seems, containing the information (as he relayed it to Mrs. Hale) that "[the] missionaries try to make me a malcontent before the English govt. in India, and the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal in a recent speech hinted that the recent revival of Hinduism was against the government. Lord bless the missionary. Everything is fair in love and (religion?):

(In connection with such accusations, Swamiji was to write a month or so later to Alasinga: "One thing I find in the books of my speeches and sayings published in Calcutta. Some of them are printed in such a way as to savour of political views; whereas I am no politician or political agitator. I care only for the Spirit-when that is right everything will be righted by itself. . . . So you must warn the Calcutta people that no political significance be ever attached falsely to any of my writings or sayings. What nonsense! . . . I have said a few harsh words in honest criticism of Christian governments in general, but that does not mean that I care for, or have any connection with politics or that sort of thing. Those who think it very grand to print extracts from those lectures and want to prove that I am a political preacher, to them I say, `Save me from my friends:

With all this mail from India, there was still nothing to let Swamiji know that the Madras Meeting had been successfully held and that news of this official recognition of his work had reached America. He was naturally anxious; and yet, as we have seen earlier, it was around this time (on August 23) that he wrote to "Mother Church" in flaming rebellion against the very need to care. "My soul is groaning now under the hundred sort(s) of bondage[s] I am placing on it. Whose India? Who cares? . . . Only He is. . . . He in me, I in Him. I am like a bit of glass in an ocean of light. I am not. I am not. He is He is He is:

Sir, I hope you will excuse my troubling you with this letter._x000d_ I learn with regret that some people have given out m America that Swami Shri Vivekanandaji is not what he appears to be in public there. Allow me to tell you as a friend of his that the Swami is known to me for some years. I respect and revere him very much. He is sincere to the avocation he has disinterestedly taken up for the good of the people at large. He has given up his family and social connections since about 12 years and has devoted himself entirely to the good of his own soul and that of others. He went to Chicago only with the avowed object of enlightening the American nation with the true religion of the Hindus, the knowledge of which he has acquired so much as to win the admiration of those who are in a position to appreciate it. He is a true friend of the Hindus and a staunch advocate of their religion. I saw his house, mother & brothers in Calcutta where I was in November and December last, to serve as a member of the Royal Commission on Opium. He does not keep any connec¬tion with his relations &c, because he has long renounced the worldly connections and-become a sannyasi. I send you by Book Post a small pamphlet, the perusal of which will introduce my humble-self to you._x000d_ You are welcome to make use of this letter in any way you think proper for the sake of truth and fair play._x000d_ I remain _x000d_ Yours very faithfully_x000d_ Haridas Viharidas

To Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ Greenacre Inn_x000d_ Eliot, Maine_x000d_ 5 August 1894_x000d_ Dear Mother,_x000d_ I have received your letter and am very much ashamed at my bad memory. I unfortunately forgot all about the cheque. Perhaps you have come to know by this time of my being in Greenacre. I had a very nice time here and am enjoying it immensely. In the fall I am going to lecture in Brooklyn, New York. Yesterday I got news that they have completed all the advertising there. I have an invitation today from a friend in New York to go with him to some mountains north of this state of Maine. I do not know whether I will go or not. I am doing pretty well. Between lecturing, teaching, picnicking and other excitements the time is flying rapidly. I hope you are doing very well and that Father Pope is in good trim. It is a very beautiful spot__this Greenacre__and [I] have very nice company from Boston: Dr. Everett Hale, you know, of Boston, and Mrs. Ole Bull, of Cambridge. I do not know whether I will accept the invitation of my friend of New York or not._x000d_ So far only this is sure, that I will go to lecture in New York this coming fall. And Boston, of course, is a good field. The people here are mostly from Boston and they all like me very much. Are you having a good time, and Father Pope? Has your house painting been finished? The Babies, I am sure, are enjoying their Mudville._x000d_ I am in no difficulty for money. I have plenty to eat and drink._x000d_ With my best love and gratitude to you and Father Pope and the Babies._x000d_ Yours affectionately,_x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ _x000d_ Excuse this hasty scrawl. The pen is very bad._x000d_ V._x000d_ The Harrison people sent me two "nasty standing" photos___x000d_ that is all I have out of them, when they ought to give me 40 minus the 10 or 15 I have got already!!!_x000d_ V.

To Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ Greenacre Inn_x000d_ Eliot, Maine_x000d_ 8 August 1894_x000d_ Dear Mother,_x000d_ I have received the letter you sent over to me coming from India._x000d_ I am going to leave this place on Monday next for Plymouth [Massachusetts], where the Free Religious Association is hold¬ing its session. They will defray my expenses, of course._x000d_ I am all right, enjoying nice health, and the people here are very kind and nice to me. Up to date I had no occasion to cash any cheque as everything is going on smoothly. I have not heard anything from the Babies. Hope they are doing well. You also had nothing to write; however, I feel that you are doing well._x000d_ I would have gone over to another place, but Mr. Hig ginson's invitation ought to be attended to. And Plymouth is the place where the fathers of your country first landed. I want, therefore, to see it._x000d_ I am all right. It is useless reiterating my love and gratitude to you and yours__you know it all. May the Lord shower His choicest blessings on you and yours._x000d_ This meeting is composed of the best professors of your country and other people, so I must attend it; and then they would pay me. I have not yet determined all my plans, only I am going to lecture in New York this coming fall; every arrange-ment is complete for that. They have printed advertisements at their own expense for that and made everything ready._x000d_ Give my best love to the Babies, to Father Pope, and believe me ever in gratitude and love,_x000d_ Your Son,_x000d_ Vivekananda._x000d_ P.S. I am very much obliged to the sisters for asking me to tell them if I want anything. I have no want anyway__I have everything I require and more to spare._x000d_ "He never gives up His servants."_x000d_ My thanks and gratitude eternal to the sisters for their kind¬ness in asking about my wants._x000d_ V.

From the Portsmouth Daily chronicle of August 9 one learns that Miss Stockham took another group picture in which Swamiji was present. This time it was in the Tent following a lecture given by Dr. Edward Everett Hale on Thursday, August 2. The pertinent passage reads in part:_x000d_ _x000d_ . . . Swami Vivekananda, as a representative of the far east, sat upon the platform, gorgeous in his scarlet and gold. At the close of the lecture he and Dr. Hale, Mr. Gulesian [a native of Armenia] and Miss Farmer were photographed in a group by Miss Stockham of Chicago.

Greenacre_x000d_ 11th August, 1894_x000d_ Dear Sisters {the Hale sisters},_x000d_ I have been all this time in Greenacre. I enjoyed this place very much. They have been all very kind to me. One Chicago lady, Mrs. Pratt of Kenilworth, wanted to give me $500; she became so much interested in me; but I refused. She has made me promise that I would send word to her whenever I need money, which I hope the Lord will never put me in. His help alone is sufficient for me. I have not heard anything from you nor from Mother. Neither have I any news from India as to the arrival of the phonograph._x000d_ If there was anything in my letter to you which was offensive, I hope you all know that I meant everything in love. It is useless to express my gratitude to you for your kindness. Lord bless you and shower His choicest blessings on you and those you love. To your family I am ever, ever beholden. You know it. You feel it. I cannot express it. On Sunday I am going to lecture at Plymouth at the "Sympathy of Religions" meetings of Col. Higginson. Herewith I send a photograph Cora Stockham took of the group under the tree. It is only a proof and will fade away under exposure, but I cannot get anything better at present. Kindly tender my heartfelt love and gratitude to Miss Howe. She has been so, so kind to me. I do not need anything at present. I shall be very glad to let you know if I need anything. I think I am going to Fishkill from Plymouth, where I will be only a couple of days. I will write you again from Fishkill. Hope you are all happy, or rather I know you are. Pure and good souls can never be unhappy. I shall have a very nice time the few weeks I am here. I will be in New York next fall. New York is a grand and good place. The New York people have a tenacity of purpose unknown in any other city. I had a letter from Mrs. Potter Palmer asking me to see her in August. She is a very gracious and kind lady, etc. I have not much to say. There is my friend Dr. Janes of New York, President of the Ethical Culture Society, who has begun his lectures. I must go to hear him. He and I agree so much. May you be always happy! _x000d_ Ever your well-wishing brother,_x000d_ Vivekananda

A reporter of the Lewiston Saturday Journal of August 12, 1899, has left an excellent picture d' those forest classes:_x000d_ _x000d_ . . . The forenoon discourses of the early hour are in the tent near the Inn. But later all walk up over the hill to the Lysekloster pines. . . . A person standing at a little distance can scarcely see that there are people beneath the tree so lowly do the branches swing. A more delicious spot than one of these trees affords to listen I cannot conceive. The scene is far retired from all that can disturb. It is so far from the highway that there is no rumble of wheels. The only sound is the chirp of the birds and the voice of the speaker coming in mellowed tones from under the great tree._x000d_ The listeners loll about on the ground as suits them best. A few of the elderly people have chairs. The middle aged and young are entirely unconventional. Some lie on their backs listening and looking up into the blue arch of the heavens. Others lie resting on one elbow and meditatively pluck in pieces the leaves of the shrubs that surround, as they listen.

On Monday, August 13, he went directly from Greenacre to Plymouth, Massachusetts, where he had been invited to speak that same day before the Free Religious Association, an organization founded by Ralph Waldo Emerson and dedicated to liberalizing contemporary religious thought and practice. Many of the members of the Association were well-known and distinguished men and women, and some were the Swami's friends and admirers. Among them were its President, Thomas Went worth Higginson, Julia Ward Howe, Ednah Cheney and Dr. Lewis G. Janes. The last, who was to become one of the Swami's most sturdy defenders, was at this time President of the illustrious Brooklyn Ethical Association, of which more later. "The meeting is composed of the best professors of your country," the Swami had written from Greenacre to Mrs. Hale on August 8, "so I must attend it . . ."

Swamiji left Greenacre on Monday, August 13, to travel some sixty or seventy miles south to Plymouth, Massachusetts, where that evening he would lecture, as he had written to the Hale sisters on August 11, "at the `Sympathy of Religions' meetings of Col. Higginson,"50 which was to say at the annual convention of the Free Religious Association.

As has been mentioned in an earlier chapter, Thomas Wentworth Higginson was one of those worthies of New England culture whose loyalties belonged to the days of Emerson and Theodore Parker. In the early part of his life he had been a pastor of various Unitarian churches in Massachusetts. Later, being an ardent Abolitionist, he had fought in the Civil War, in which he organized and led the first regiment of Negro soldiers. But in 1864 Higginson retired from the Army and became known not as a military man but as a writer, a liberal reformer and thinker, who leaned, as did many other Cambridge scholars, toward Transcendentalism. Given his religious bent and Transcendental inclinations, it was inevitable that Higginson should have been closely connected with the Free Religious Association. An offshoot of the Transcendental movement, the Association had come into being in 1867 as a protest against the conservative policy of the Unitarian Church. As its name indicates and as an account of its origin stated, the Free Religious Association represented a tendency "away from the conflicting authorities of specific religious systems . . . to a union as broad as humanity itself, on the ground of common aspiration to know the truth and common efforts to live pure and beneficent lives.

When Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who in 1878 was to replace Octavius Frothingham as the Association's president, read his paper "The Sympathy of Religions" before the group, its thesis became one of the Association's guiding ideals. All religions, Higginson declared, are essentially of the same origin and nature, and therefore Christianity, instead of being the absolute religion, is but one of the phases of universal religion. "Each [religion] alone is partial, limited, unsatisfying; it takes all of them together to represent the . . . Religion of the Ages, Natural Religion: '

Most of the ideals of the Association had been, like this one, ahead of their time, or at least not in keeping with the main currents of contemporary thought, and the membership, though small, had shone with some of the best intellects of the day. "The Free Religious Association, the Horticultural Hall Lectures, and the Radical Club [all of Boston] were but parts of the same whole," it was said in a study of these mid-nineteenth century movements. "The leaders were the same, the same men and women belonged to them. They mark a brilliant epoch in the intellectual history of New England, and none can be named that is greater. They came at the culmination of the transcendental movement, and they furnish the medium of its transference to the new scientific interest that signalized the later years of the nineteenth century.

By 1894 that transference was almost complete. Although Col. Higginson was still reading his paper on the "Sympathy of Religions" with good effect, younger members of the Association-such as Dr. Lewis G. Janes, who was to become its president in 1897; Professor Felix Adler, the founder [1876] of the New York Society for Ethical Culture; Mr. Edwin D. Mead, reformer, editor, and president of Boston's Twentieth Century Club -were taking the lead, and discussions of theological problems were giving way to those of practical ethics and social reform.

In the meanwhile, the Unitarian Church had slowly become more liberal, and in 1894 it officially discarded its earlier conservatism and took a stand essentially the same as that of "Free Religion: "

'Thus the original purpose of the Association had, in effect, been accomplished; it no longer stood in the vanguard of reform movements. But while the Association was, like Thomas Wentworth Higginson, past its prime, it was, like him, still hardy and still highly regarded.

By chance or, more likely, by design, the Association's two day convention fell within the closing week of the summer session of the School of Applied Ethics, which was being held at Plymouth during the first three weeks of August, and thus for a few days, at least, Plymouth was ashimmer with some of the best thinkers of two generations. No doubt Octavius B. Frothingham, Lewis G. Janes, and Franklin B. Sanborn-all members of the Free Religious Association had traveled from Greenacre with Swamiji. Already in Plymouth were Colonel Higginson, Mrs. Ednah Cheney, the well known lecturer and novelist, Professor Felix Adler, dean of the School of Ethics, and a host of other professors, scholars, and reformers, young and old, all intent on solving the moral, social, religious, and economic problems of the day. It was to this gathering that Swamiji spoke on the evening of August t3.

An enthusiastic woman at one of the lectures of Vivekananda at Eliot [Greenacre] offered him $500 for himself and also $100 to head a subscription to pay for printing a book. It was desired that he would write it, embodying his views against national organizations, or rather representing the superiority of spiritual forces to external ones in the government of the world. But Vivekananda promptly refused to write a book saying he could not bind himself to any task. Lie is most absolutely indifferent to money, they find at Eliot. Now he is going to Plymouth to lecture there.

"FREE RELIGIOUS THINKERS" _x000d_ An Audience Including Many Distinguished_x000d_ Persons Present at the Opening of the _x000d_ Convention at Plymouth_x000d_ _x000d_ Plymouth, Mass., Aug. 14. The Convention of the Free Religious Association opened there last evening. The Davis Opera House was crowded; the audience included many distinguished people who were in attendance in the School of Applied Ethics now in session. An address of welcome was delivered by Professor Felix Adler of New York, dean of the school who expressed the sympathy existing between the two bodies. Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who presided, said the word "welcome" belonged particularly to Plymouth, inasmuch as it was the greeting conveyed to the Pilgrim Fathers by the native race. He spoke of Plymouth's early history in the association. Swamivivekananda [sic] of India followed and made a favorable plea for tolerance and sympathy in all religious beliefs. Tomorrow evening Professor J. Estlin Carpenter of Oxford, England, and Mrs. Ednah [Dow] Cheney of Boston will speak.

On Wednesday, August 15, the Evening Transcript printed a brief account of Swamiji's last class under his pine, which he held on the morning of Sunday, August 12. The Transcript article, which follows, was rather misleadingly headed "The Nonsense of Nations" :

A short resume is given below of the last of the talks of Vivekananda under the pines at Eliot, in the temple of thc gods, to paraphrase Bryant's line----¬_x000d_ "The groves were God's first Temple."_x000d_ What is the nation? What is law? We have laws only that we may become outlaws (above law)._x000d_ _x000d_ There is the freedom of the soul; through this we know the freedom of law. I am of the nation of those who seek the liberty of the soul. I am of the nation of those who worship God._x000d_ The divine ones of God are all my Masters. I learn of your Christ in learning of Krishna, of Buddha, in learning of Mohamet. I worship God alone. "I am existence absolute, bliss absolute, Knowledge Absolute." I condemn nothing that I find in nation, state or religion, finding God in all. Our growth is not from evil to good, but from good to better, and so on and on. I learn from all that is called evil or good. The nation and all such nonsense may go. It is love, love, love God and my brother.

Miss Thursby was present on that last morning under the Pine, now and then taking notes, but evidently too absorbed to write as much as we would like to read. Her notes, more scrappy and disconnected than usual, read:

I am existence absolute Kundaline _x000d_ bliss absolute Circle mother _x000d_ I am He, Shivoham_x000d_ I am He, Shivoham Kalidas---¬_x000d_ He is the learned man who sees that every man's property is nothing Every woman his Mother_x000d_ Shanti --- peace ----_x000d_ __________¬_x000d_ (second sheet]_x000d_ 500 miles from Calcutta _x000d_ We meditate on the Glory of hrim_x000d_ Mother _x000d_ love_x000d_ Rama mrigi The Tatwas _x000d_ Buddistic [sic] Prayer_x000d_ I bow to all the saint(s] on Earth_x000d_ I bow to all the founders of Religion_x000d_ to all holy men and women Prophets of Religion_x000d_ who have been on Earth _x000d_ Hindu prayer_x000d_ I meditate on the Glory of the producer of this Universe may He enlighten our minds.

"I teach them all Shivoham, Shivoham," Swamiji had written to Mary Hale with obvious delight. And one sees that these words, "Shivoham! Shivoham! I am He! I am He!" were among the last he spoke to his Greenacre class-the first class he held in America of which we have any record.

From Plymouth the Swami travelled to the seaside village of Annisquam, Massachusetts, around August 16, where almost a year earlier, in the days before the Parliament of Religions, he had been the guest of Dr. and Mrs. J. H. Wright. This time, he visited the summer home of Mrs. John Bagley, his Detroit hostess and ever-loyal friend, where he remained for over two weeks.

Swamiji arrived in Annisquam around August 17 and remained there until (at the earliest) September 5. "I shall be here," he wrote to Mary Hale on August 31, "till Tuesday next (September 5] at least, on which day I am going to lecture here in Annisquam.

In so small and informal a seaside village as was Annisquam, or " `Squam" as it was familiarly called, Swamiji, who knew the Wrights and the Bagleys, probably knew everyone else besides and no doubt joined in the carefree life of summer vacationing.

To Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ C/o Mrs. J. J. Bagley, Annisquam_x000d_ 20 August 1894_x000d_ Dear Mother,_x000d_ Your letters just now reached me. I had some beautiful letters from India. The letter from Ajit Singh shows that the phonograph has not reached yet, and it was dated 8th June. So I do not think it is time yet to get an answer. I am not astonished at my friends' asking Cook & Sons to hunt for me; I have not written for a long time._x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ I have a letter from Madras which says they will soon send money to Narasimha __in fact, as soon as they get a reply to their letter written to Narasimha. So kindly let Narasimha know it. The photographs have not reached me__except two of Fishkill when I was there last. Landsberg has kindly sent over the letters. From here I will probably go over to Fishkill. The meerschaum was not sent over by me direct, but I left it to the Guernseys. And they are a lazy family in that respect._x000d_ I have beautiful letters from the sisters._x000d_ By the by, your missionaries try to make me a malcontent before the English government in India, and the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal in a recent speech hinted that the recent revival of Hinduism was against the government. Lord bless the missionary. Everything is fair in love and (religion?)._x000d_ The word Shri means "of good fortune", "blessed", etc. Paramahamsa is a title for a Sannyâsi who has reached the goal, i.e. realized God. Neither am I blessed nor have I reached the goal; but they are courteous, that is all. I will soon write to my brothers in India. I am so lazy, and I cannot send over the news¬paper nonsense day after day. I want a little quiet, but it is not the will of the Lord, it seems. At Greenacre I had to talk on an average 7 to 8 hours a day__that was rest, if it ever was. But it was of the Lord, and that brings vigour along with it._x000d_ I have not much to write, and I do not remember anything of what I said or did all these places over. So I hope to be excused._x000d_ I will be here a few days more at least, and therefore I think it would be better to send over my mail here._x000d_ I have now almost become dizzy through the perusal of a heavy and big mail, so excuse my hasty scrawl._x000d_ Ever affectionately yours,_x000d_ Swami Vivekananda.

Swamiji received bundles of mail at Anniaquam, forwarded to him by Mrs. Hale. "I am now almost become dizzy through the perusal of a heavy and big mail, so excuse my hasty scrawl," he wrote to her on August 20. Some of the mail was from India. "The word Sri," he explained to Mrs. Hale (who no doubt inquired) "means of good fortune, blessed &c. Paramahamsa -is a title for a Sanyasi who has reached the goal, i.e., realized God. Neither am I blessed nor have I reached the goal-but they are courteous that is all.

Annisquam_x000d_ 20th August, 1894_x000d_ Dear Sister {Isabelle McKindley},_x000d_ Your very kind letter duly reached me at Annisquam. I am with the Bagleys once more. They are kind as usual. Professor Wright was not here. But he came day before yesterday and we have very nice time together. Mr. Bradley of Evanston, whom you have met at Evanston, was here. His sister-in-law had me sit for a picture several days and had painted me. I had some very fine boating and one evening overturned the boat and had a good drenching--clothes and all._x000d_ I had very very nice time at Greenacre. They were all so earnest and kind people. Fanny Hartley and Mrs. Mills have by this time gone back home I suppose._x000d_ From here I think I will go back to New York. Or I may go to Boston to Mrs. Ole Bull. Perhaps you have heard of Mr. Ole Bull, the great violinist of this country. She is his widow. She is a very spiritual lady. She lives in Cambridge and has a fine big parlour made of woodwork brought all the way from India. She wants me to come over to her any time and use her parlour to lecture. Boston of course is the great field for everything, but the Boston people as quickly take hold of anything as give it up; while the New Yorkers are slow, but when they get hold of anything they do it with a mortal grip._x000d_ I have kept pretty good health all the time and hope to do in the future. I had no occasion yet to draw on my reserve, yet I am rolling on pretty fair. And I have given up all money-making schemes and will be quite satisfied with a bite and a shed and work on._x000d_ I believe you are enjoying your summer retreat. Kindly convey my best regards and love to Miss Howe and Mr. Frank Howe._x000d_ Perhaps I did not tell you in my last how I slept and lived and preached under the trees and for a few days at least found myself once more in the atmosphere of heaven._x000d_ Most probably I will make New York my centre for the next winter; and as soon as I fix on that, I will write to you. I am not yet settled in my ideas of remaining in this country any more. I cannot settle anything of that sort. I must bide my time. May the Lord bless you all for ever and ever is the constant prayer of your ever affectionate brother,_x000d_ Vivekananda

In a letter dated August 20, which will be given in full later on, he wrote to Isabelle McKindley, "I have given up all money making schemes and will be quite satisfied with a bite and a shed and work on."19 Perhaps his change of mind in regard to earning money was due not only to a realistic view of things, but also to a dislike of money itself, inherent in the man of renunciation, for even though Swamiji was not attempting to raise funds for himself but for India, the very sight and touch of it was repugnant to him.

We are able to learn a little more about Swamiji's stay in Annisquam from a hitherto unpublished letter, which he wrote to Isabelle McKindley on August 20:

A meeting of the public of Kumbakonam was held in the Porter Town Hall on Wednesday, the 22nd instant, to convey to Paramahamsa Swami Vivekananda their grateful appreciation of his valuable services in America on behalf of Hinduism, and of his spirited defence of Hinduism in the Parliament of Religions at Chicago. There was a large number of students who marked by their presence their sympathy with the objects of the meeting. Dewan Bahadur R. Ragonatha Rao was proposed to the chair.

To Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ Annisquam_x000d_ 23 August 1894_x000d_ Dear Mother,_x000d_ The photographs reached safely yesterday. I cannot tell exactly whether Harrison ought to give me more or not. They had sent only two to me at Fishkill not the pose I ordered, though._x000d_ Narasimha has perhaps got his passage by this time. He will get it soon, whether his family gives him the money or not. I have written to my friends in Madras to look to it, and they write me they will._x000d_ I would be very glad if he becomes a Christian or Mohammedan or any religion that suits him; but I am afraid for some time to come none will suit our friend. Only if he becomes a Christian he will have a chance to marry again, even in India the Christians there permitting it. I am so sorry to learn that it is the "bondage of heathen India" that, after all, was the cause of all this mischief. We learn as we live. So we were all this time ignorantly and blindly blaming our much suffering, persecuted, saintly friend Narasimha, while all the fault was really owing to the "bondage of heathen India"!!!!_x000d_ But to give the devil his due, this heathen India has been supplying him with money to go on a spree again and again. And this time too "heathen India" will [take] or already has taken our "enlightened" and persecuted friend from out of his present scrape, and not "Christian America"!! Mrs. Smith's plan is not bad after all to turn Narasimha into a missionary of Christ. But unfortunately for the world, many and many a time the flag of Christ has been entrusted to such hands. But I would beg to add that he will then be only a missionary of Smithian American Christianity, not Christ's. Arrant humbug! That thing to preach Lord Jesus!!! Is He in want of men to uphold His ban¬ner? Pooh! The very idea is revolting. Do good to India indeed! Thank your charity and call back your dog as the tramp said. Keep such good workers for America. The Hindus will have a quarantine against all such [outcasting] to protect their society. I heartily advise Narasimha to become a Christianm I beg your pardon, a convert to Americanism because I am sure such a jewel is unsaleable in poor India. He is welcome to anything that will fetch a price. I know the gentleman whom you name perfectly well, and you may give him any information about me you like. I do not care for sending scraps and getting a boom for me. And these friends from India bother me enough for news-paper nonsense. They are very devoted, faithful and holy friends. I have not much of these scraps now. After a long search I found a bit in a Boston Transcript. I send it over to you. This public life is such a botheration. I am nearly daft. Where to fly? In India I have become horribly public crowds will follow me and take my life out. I got an Indian letter from Landsberg. Every ounce of fame can only be bought at the cost of a pound of peace and holiness. I never thought of that before. I have become entirely disgusted with this blazoning. I am disgusted with myself. Lord will show me the way to peace and purity. Why, Mother, I confess to you: no man can live in an atmosphere of public life, even in religion, without the devil of competition now and then thrusting his head into the serenity of his heart. Those who are trained to preach a doctrine never feel it, for they never knew religion. But those that are after God, and not after the world, feel at once that every bit of name and fame is at the cost of their purity. It is so much gone from that ideal of perfect unselfishness, perfect disregard of gain or name or fame. Lord help me. Pray for me, Mother. I am very much disgusted with myself. Oh, why the world be so that one cannot do anything without putting himself to the front; why cannot one act hidden and unseen and unnoticed? The world has not gone one step beyond idolatry yet. They cannot act from ideas, they cannot be led by ideas. But they want the person, the man. And any man that wants to do something must pay the penalty no hope. This nonsense of the world. Shiva, Shiva, Shiva._x000d_ By the by, I have got such a beautiful edition of Thomas à Kempis. How I love that old monk. He caught a wonderful glimpse of the "behind the veil" few ever got such. My, that is religion. No humbug of the world. No shilly shallying, tall talk, conjecture I presume, I believe, I think. How I would like to go out of this piece of painted humbug they call the beautiful world with Thomas à Kempis beyond, beyond, which can only be felt, never expressed._x000d_ That is religion. Mother, there is God. There all the saints, prophets and incarnations meet. Beyond the Babel of Bibles and Vedas, creeds and crafts, dupes and doctrines where is all light, all love, where the miasma of this earth can never reach. Ah! Who will take me thither? Do you sympathize with me, Mother? My soul is groaning now under the hundred sorts of bondage I am placing on it. Whose India? Who cares? Every thing is His. What are we? Is He dead? Is He sleeping? He, without whose command a leaf does not fall, a heart does not beat, who is nearer to me than my own self. It is bosh and nonsense to do good or do bad or do fuzz. We do nothing. We are not. The world is not. He is, He is. Only He is. None else is. He is._x000d_ Om, the one without a second. He in me, I in Him. I am like a bit of glass in an ocean of light. I am not, I am not. He is, He is, He is._x000d_ Om, the one without a second._x000d_ Yours ever affectionately,_x000d_ Vivekananda.

On August 23 (when he was in Annisquam) he poured out (and immediately resolved) his disgust with "this public life" to Mrs. Hale, confident that both his complaint and his transcendence of it would be understood:_x000d_ _x000d_ Mrs. Smith explained this in a number of letters to Mrs. Hale, who relayed the information to Swamiji, who in turn expressed his opinion in a letter to "Mother Church" dated August 23, 1894:

Indeed even before news of the public meetings in India had reached the American press the Swami had had enough. In a letter to Mrs. Hale dated August 23, 1894, he wrote:_x000d_ In India I have become horribly public; crowds will follow me and take my life out. . . . Every ounce of fame can only be bought at the cost of a pound of peace and holiness. I never thought of that before. I have become entirely disgusted with this blazoning. I am disgusted with myself. Lord will show me the way to peace and purity. Why, Mother, I confess to you-no man can live in an atmos¬phere of public life even in religion without the devil of competition now and then thrusting his head into the serenity of his heart. Those who are trained to preach a doctrine never feel it for they never knew religion. But those that are after God and not after the world feel at once that every bit of name and fame is at the cost of their purity. It is so much gone from that ideal of perfect unselfishness, perfect disregard of gain, or name or fame.

But before Narasimha could become a Christian missionary, Swamiji's more direct plan for his return to India went into effect. "By the by, Narasimha is in Chicago now," he was to write on September 21 to Alasinga. "As they have not given him cash he cannot but go to India back. I think he has started by this time. And a week later: "Narasimha has started back, I suppose. He is a queer man. He did not even write to me informing me about it and I was all the time trying to do whatever I could do to send him back and keep him alive here. Toward the end of December Swamiji learned from Alasinga that the young ne'er-do-well had arrived safely home, and it is most likely that, hearing the news, he breathed a sigh of immense relief. But even then he did not wash his hands of his young friend. In a heretofore unpublished passage of a letter dated January 11, 1895, to his Madras disciple "G.G." he wrote: "Narasimha (American) has written a letter to Mrs. Hale from India in which he styles the Hindus as savages and he has not one word for me. Something is the matter with his brain I am afraid. Try to recover him. Nothing is lost forever."

At the Library Hall last evening, the learned and eloquent Hindoo monk, Swami Vivekananda, lectured before a large and fashionable audience. His subject was "Life in India."

Everywhere in India enthusiasm for the Swami's achievements ran high, but in Calcutta, his birthplace, it reached a pitch of frenzy, and it can be said that the public meeting held there in September of 1894 carried the greatest weight of all. Not only was Calcutta the Swami's native city and the then capital of India, it was as well the fountainhead of Mazoomdar's malicious propaganda and its most fertile ground. Recognition of the Swami's achievements could not matter so much from any other city in the whole of India. The great Calcutta Meeting, held to thank the Swami and the American people, took place in the Town Hall on September 5. It was organized by the Swami's brother-disciples, together with the most representative members of the Hindu community, and was attended by some 4,000 people of all shades of opinion. Some of the most well known pandits as well as members of the landed aristocracy, High Court judges, noted public men, pleaders, politicians, professors and prominent men in many other walks of life took part. It was presided over by Raja Peary Mohun Mookerjee, C.S.I. The following resolutions were made and adopted with eloquent speeches eulogizing the Swami's work and his contribution to the dissemination of Hindu culture among the Western nations:_x000d_ l. That this meeting desires to record its grateful appreciation of the great services rendered to the cause of Hinduism by Swami Vivekananda at the Parliament of Religions at Chicago, and of his subsequent work in America._x000d_ 2. That this meeting tenders its best thanks to Dr. J. H. Barrows, the Chairman [of the Parliament of Religions], and Mr. Merwin Marie Snell, the President of the Scientific Section of the Parliament of Religions at Chicago, and to the American people generally, for the cordial and sympathetic reception they have accorded to Swami Vivekananda._x000d_ 3. That this meeting requests the Chairman to forward to Sreemat Vivekananda Swami, Dr. Barrows and Mr. Snell copies of the foregoing Resolutions together with the following letter addressed to Swami Vivekananda.

In retrospect Swamiji told a little more about his visit to Swampscott (pronounced Swampscote) in a letter to Mrs. Hale written on August 28 and, in true American style, made an awful pun.

To Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ Annisquam_x000d_ Date do not know_x000d_ [Postmarked: August 28, 1894]_x000d_ Dear Mother,_x000d_ I have been for three days at Magnolia. Magnolia is one of the most fashionable and beautiful seaside resorts of this part. I think the scenery is better than that of Annisquam. The rocks there are very beautiful, and the forests run down to the very edge of the water. There is a very beautiful pine forest. A lady of Chicago and her daughter, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Sawyer, were the friends that invited me up there. They had also arranged a lecture for me, out of which I got $43. I met a good many Boston people- Mrs. Smith Junior, who said she knows Harriet, and Mrs. Smith the elder, [who] knows you well._x000d_ In Boston the other day I met a Unitarian clergyman who said he lives next to you in Chicago. I have unfortunately forgotten his name. Mrs. Smith is a very nice lady and treated me with all courtesy. Mrs. Bagley is kind as ever, and I will have to remain here a few days more, I am afraid. Prof. Wright and I are having a good time. Prof. Bradley of Evanston has gone home. If you ever meet him at Evanston, give him my best love and regards. He is really a spiritual man._x000d_ I do not find anything more to write._x000d_ Some unknown friend has sent me from New York a foun tain pen. So I am writing with it to test it. It is working very smoothly and nicely as you can judge from the writing. Perhaps Narasimha's difficulties have been settled by this time, and "heathen India" has helped him out yet, I hope._x000d_ What is Father Pope doing? What the Babies are doing and where are they? What news of our Sam? Hope he is prospering. Kindly give him my best love. Where is Mother Temple now?_x000d_ Well, after all, I could fill up two pages. Yes, there was a Miss Barn (?) who said she met me at your house. She is a young lady of Chicago._x000d_ Magnolia is a good bathing place and I had two baths in the sea. A large concourse of men and women go to bathe there every day_the most part men. And strange, women do not give up their coat of mail even while bathing. That is how these mailclad she warriors of America have got the superiority over men._x000d_ Our Sanskrit poets lavish all the power of expression they have upon the soft body of women_the Sanskrit word for women is "Komala", the soft body; but the mailclad ones of this country are "armadillas", I think. You cannot imagine how ludicrous it appears to a foreigner who never saw it before. Shiva, Shiva._x000d_ Now Narasimha's Mrs. Smith does not torture you anymore with letters, I hope. Did I tell you I met your friend Mrs. H. O. Quarry at Swampscott?_she can swamp a house for all that, not to speak of a cott_and that I met there the woman that pulls by the nose Mr. Pullman? And I also heard there the best American singer, they said_she sang beautifully; she sang "Bye Baby Bye". I am having a very, very good time all the time, Lord be praised._x000d_ I have written to India not to bother me with constant letters. Why, when I am travelling in India nobody writes to me. Why should they spend all their superfluous energy in scrawling letters to me in America? My whole life is to be that of a wanderer_here or there or anywhere. I am in no hurry. I had a foolish plan in my head unworthy of a Sannyasin. I have given it up now and mean to take life easy. No indecent hurry. Don't you see, Mother Church? You must always remember, Mother Church, that I cannot settle down even at the North Pole, that wander about I must that is my vow, my religion. So India or North Pole or South Pole_don't care where. Last two years I have been travelling among races whose language even I cannot speak. "I have neither father nor mother nor brothers nor sisters nor friends nor foes, nor home nor country_a traveller in the way of eternity, asking no other help, seeking no other help but God."_x000d_ Yours ever affectionately,_x000d_ Vivekananda.

(It is probable that the Mrs. Stone and Mrs. Pullman whom Swamiji mentioned above were Mrs. Eleanor O. Stone, a member of Lynn's North Shore Club, before which Swamiji had spoken in April, and Mrs. Cora H. Pullman, wife of the Reverend James M. Pullman, minister of Lynn's First Universalist Society and a leading local figure.)

This letter, through which one also sees a little into Swamiji's state of mind at that time, was postmarked August 28 and read in part:

Swami Vivekananda came to the United States to convert the heathen of this country from the ruling faith in materiality to a lively conviction of spiritual things. The impression he made at the Parliament of Religions and his subsequent missions in various parts of the country are matters well known to all.

Like our own missionaries to India, the gentlemen who come as missionaries to us in America are not all of the same tenets and practices, and do not often know all about the good works of one another. But it is interesting to receive just at this moment, when the Hindoo monk has been speaking at Eliot and Plymouth, a circular of the proceedings of the public meeting at Madras, where leading Hindoos assembled together to make formal expression of their gratitude to him for his representing of Hindooism to the American public at the Chicago Parliament of Religions.

The chairman said they were assembled to express their admiration and their thanks to the great American people for the very kindly and sympathetic reception which they had accorded to Paramahamsa Swami Vivekananda, whom all here knew so well and revered so much. They had met also to convey to the Swami their high appreciation of the signal services which he had rendered in America in the Parliament of Religions and in other places. There could be no doubt that his visit to the great Western country and his services there were of excellent augury. He believed that it was a precursor of many such visits and still greater services on his part and on the part of others who had such great capacity as Swami Vivekananda had of rendering national services. He had no doubt that all present were agreed that for a long time to come they must simply be learners and students and endeavor to learn and assimilate what was good and excellent in the civilization of the West.

In the formal thanks sent to America are these fervent words:_x000d_ "Amid all the troubles and humiliations of our past history, in spite of our present fallen condition, we, Hindus, yet retain undiminished our faith in our ancient system of religion, of which the fundamental and central conceptions have been placed before you with such conspicuous power and success by our gifted representative. All of us who have the privilege of knowing personally Swami Vivekananda never felt a moment's doubt that his mission to your great and free nation would prove an entire success and that his genius, enthusiasm, wisdom and eloquence will bear fruit. India is still the home of spirituality, as it was the cradle of the world's civilization. Virtue and holiness still continue a power with our people; and, as long as this continues, Our ancient conviction that ours is the holy land and ours the chosen race cannot desert us. Our Anglo-Saxon rulers your near and our distant kins¬men-are fulfilling, with such might and sincerity as is possible, their heaven-sent mission in this land; already the signs of a brighter era of rejuvenated nationality are beginning to dawn upon us; and when all our fetters break asunder as they must with the progress of good government and material prosperity, we hope that our race will yet be able to utilize her national resurrection for the spiritual elevation of the world. It is in this light that the Hindoo community views the great success of Swami Vivekananda's mission to America, and the kindly and enthusiastic reception which your great nation, in its centres of light, might and freedom, has been pleased to accord to our gifted representative and to his exposition of the teachings of our sages and prophets."

News of the Madras Meeting reached the American public at the end of August 1894, and the event was given full publicity in some of America's leading newspapers, such as the Boston Evening Transcript, the Chicago Inter ocean, the New York Sun, and the New York Daily Tribune. There could no longer be the slightest doubt in America that, however inconvenient the Swami's teachings and influence might be to missionary interests, he was a bona-fide and honoured representative of the mainstream of Hinduism at its highest and best. His voice was the voice of India's soul.

On reading the account of the Madras Meeting in the Boston Evening Transcript of August 30, the Swami wrote the following day to Alasinga:

So far you have done wonderfully, my boy. Do not mind what I write in some moments of nervousness. One gets nervous sometimes alone in a country 15,000 miles from home, having to fight every inch of ground with orthodox inimical Christians. You must take those into consideration, my brave boy, and work right along, . . . Rejoice that you have done so much. When you feel gloomy, think what has been done within the last year. How, rising from nothing, we have the eyes of the world fixed upon us now. Not only India, but the world outside, is expecting great things of us. Missionaries or Mazoomdar or foolish officials-none will be able to resist truth and love and sincerity. Are you sincere? Unselfish even unto death? And loving? Then fear not, not even death. Onward, my lads! The whole world requires Light. . . . Have faith that you are all, my brave lads, born to do great things ! Let not the barks of puppies frighten you--no, not even the thunderbolts of heaven--but stand up and work!

On reading the above, Swamiji wrote to Alasinga: "I just now saw an editorial on me about the circular from Madras in the Boston Transcript. Nothing has reached me yet. They will reach me soon if you have sent it already. So far you have done wonderfully, my boy. Do not mind what I write in some moments of nervousness. One gets nervous sometimes alone in a country 15,000 miles from home, having to fight every inch of ground with orthodox inimical Christians. You must take those into consideration, my brave boy, and work right along."23 Swamiji's mail, which was possibly being again for-warded here and there, finally caught up with him, and he duly received the Madras Address itself. "The Bundle was the report of the meeting," he wrote to Mrs. Hale on September 4. "Hope you will succeed in publishing some in the Chicago papers . . . Here are some newspaper clippings & an India Mirror I will send later on. Some has been sent to Mr. Barrows, don't hope he will give them publicity."24 In the meantime the American newspapers kept him informed.

C/o Mrs. Bagley_x000d_ Annisquam_x000d_ 31st August, 1894_x000d_ Dear Sister {Mary Hale},_x000d_ The letter from the Madras people was published in yesterday's Boston Transcript . I hope to send you a copy. You may have seen it in some Chicago paper. I am sure there is some mail for me at Cook & Sons--I shall be here till Tuesday next at least, on which day I am going to lecture here in Annisquam._x000d_ Kindly inquire at Cook's for my mail and send it over at Annisquam._x000d_ I had no news of you for some time. I sent two pictures to Mother Church yesterday and hope you will like them. I am very anxious about the Indian mail. With love for all, I am your ever affectionate brother,_x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ PS. As I do not know where you are I could not send something else which I have to send over to you._x000d_ V.

The trouble and sacrifice you have incurred by your visit to America as a representative of the Hindu Religion are profoundly appreciated by all whom you have done the honour to represent. But their special acknowledgments are due to you for the services you have rendered to the cause they hold so dear, their sacred Arya Dharma, by your speeches and your ready responses to the questions of inquirers. No exposition of the general principles of the Hindu Religion could, within the limits of a lecture, be more accurate and lucid than what you gave in your address to the Parliament of Religions on Tuesday, the 19th September, 1893. And your subsequent utterances on the same subject on other occasions have been equally clear and precise. . . . Your fellow-countrymen, fellow ¬citizens and fellow-Hindus feel that they would be wanting in an obvious duty if they did not convey to you their hearty sympathy and earnest gratitude for all your labours in spreading a true knowledge of the ancient faith. May God grant you strength and energy to carry on the good work you have begun.

Resolutions together with the following letter addressed to Swami Vivekananda._x000d_ _x000d_ TO SREEMAT VIVEKANANDA SWAMI_x000d_ _x000d_ Dear Sir,_x000d_ _x000d_ As Chairman of a large, representative and influential meeting of the Hindu inhabitants of Calcutta and the suburbs, held in the Town Hall of Calcutta, on the 5th of September, 1894, I have the pleasure to convey to you the thanks of the local Hindu community for your able representation of their religion at the Parliament of Religions that met at Chicago in September, 1893._x000d_ The trouble and sacrifice you have incurred by your visit to America as a representative of the Hindu Religion are profoundly appreciated by all whom you have done the honour to represent. But their special acknowledgements are due to you for the services you have rendered to the cause they hold so dear, their sacred Arya Dharma, by your speeches and your ready responses to the questions of inquirers. No exposition of the general principles of the Hindu Religion could, within the limits of a lecture, be more accurate and lucid than what you gave in your address to the Parliament of Religions on Tuesday, the l9th September, 1893. And your subsequent utterances on the same subject on other occasions have been equally clear and precise. It has been the misfortune of Hindus to have their religion misunderstood and misrepresented through ages, and therefore they cannot but feel specially grateful to one of them who had the courage and the ability to speak the truth about it and dispel illusions, among a strange people, in a strange land, professing a different religion. Their thanks are due no less to the audiences and the organizers of the meetings, who have received you kindly, given you opportunities for speaking, encouraged you in your work, and heard you in a patient and charitable spirit. Hinduism has, for the first time in its history, found a Missionary, and by a rare good fortune it has found one so able and accomplished as yourself. Your fellow-countrymen, fellow-citizens and fellow-Hindus feel that they would be wanting in an obvious duty if they did not convey to you their hearty sympathy and earnest gratitude for all your labours, in spreading a true knowledge of their ancient faith. May God grant you strength and energy to carry on the good work you have begun!_x000d_ _x000d_ Yours faithfully, _x000d_ Peary Mohun Mookerjee, _x000d_ Chairman.

On taking the chair, Raja Peary Mohun Mookerjee said:_x000d_ We are assembled here this evening to express our thankfulness, not to one who has distinguished himself by his meritorious services to the State, or to one who has won the reputation or triumphs of statesmanship; but we assemble in this grand meeting to express our high sense of appreciation and deep gratitude to a simple sannyasin, only thirty years old, who has been expounding the truths of our religion to the great American people with an ability, tact and judgment, . . . Which have elicited the highest admiration. Brother Vivekananda has opened the eyes of an important section of the civilized world by explaining the great truths of Hindu religion, and convinced them that the most valuable products of human thought in the region of philosophy and religion, are to be found not in Western science and literature but in our ancient Shastras. . . . I am very glad to find so large and influential a gathering to do honour 'to such a distinguished benefactor of our country. . . .

Babu Norendra Nath Sen, the editor, Indian Mirror, spoke in part as follows:_x000d_ The present meeting is one which is unique of its kind in this city, as we have met here to honour not a high state functionary, as we usually do, but a Hindu ascetic, who, by crossing the ocean, has done so much to further the cause of Hinduism by his eloquence and learning. . . . Such success has given almost a new lease of life to the Hindus as a nation. It has been a brilliant gleam of light in the dark pages of the contemporary history of the Hindus, and has buoyed them up with hope, such as they never experienced before. Circumstances had, for some time, gone so badly with us that we were driven almost to despair until the triumph, which has been attending the cause of Hinduism in America, through the efforts of a gifted Hindu, relumed our darkened spirits, and fed them with expectant longings. . . ._x000d_ It is impossible to overestimate the importance of Swami Vivekananda's services to this country; and we should not have deserved to be called Hindus, if we had failed to gather here this evening to testify our respect and gratitude to him. . . .

Rai Jatindra Nath Chowdhury, a landowner of Taki, Bengal, said, during his address, that it had been stated in some quarters that Hinduism was not fully represented at the Parliament; but he thought that a meeting such as they were holding in Calcutta would give the lie direct to a statement like the above.

In proposing the resolution, Mr. N. N. Ghose, the editor of the Indian Nation, said in part:_x000d_ . . . No success could be more sudden or brilliant than Vivekananda's. Indeed, there is hardly anything more striking in the history of oratorical achievements. There was a Hindu monk, unknown to fame, addressing, in semi Oriental costume, an assembly, the majority of whom could hardly pronounce his name, upon a subject removed, as far as possible, from their thoughts, and securing at once their applause and esteem. The merits of the speaker and the performance must have been great and surprising. But let us not forget that credit is at least equally due to those who appreciated him, encouraged him, found opportunities for his speaking, and gave him a patient and kind hearing. . . . I am informed that the delegates had, as a rule, been invited. Vivekananda had not been invited, and therefore it would have been a very easy thing to exclude him on technical grounds from speaking at the Parliament. But Dr. Barrows, by a special act of kindness, waived all technical objections, introduced him to the audience, and permitted him to speak. Vivekananda did not say altogether fine and smooth things about Christianity, but gave occasionally hard knocks. His audience, at any rate the American section of it, nevertheless gave him an indulgent hearing, and were warm in their acknowledgement of his merits. . . .

Vivekananda's achievements in America, remarkable as they have been, I regard, however, rather as promises than as performances. His real work will have to be done in India. The redemption of India, I feel persuaded, lies not through her politics, but through her religion. Politics are in this country a superficial garb, put off and put on at pleasure. They sit loosely on the people. Religion is vital and essential, and inherited with their blood. It reaches the inmost depths of their nature, touches the marrow of their bones. This meeting is only a small testimony to its reality in this town. It has been organized by men unused to the arts of agitation. Most of the active workers have been sannyasins who go about barefooted, in characteristic yellow costume. If they had only known how to employ the machinery, customarily used for getting up political demonstrations, the meeting, large as it is, might have been ten times larger. . . .

These lectures clearly bespoke the attitude of Hindu society toward the Swami's mission and its potentialities. Behind these progressive, far-sighted, and brilliant speakers lay the full support and sympathy of the people at large, who were eager for an onward march. True, as in every society, there existed a handful of people who stood against all change, opposing the flood-tides of progress; but we are not thinking of such-people here. The striking fact was that the name Vivekananda rang with acclaim throughout the length and breadth of India; everywhere he was recognized as a great Acharya (Teacher), the man who had come to fill a need. He roused the spirit of Hinduism from the lethargy into which it had fallen; and in these meetings could be discerned the gleam of that approaching dawn when India, as of old, would become conscious other glory and might, not through warfare and streams of blood, but through the infinitely greater power of the truths enshrined in the Vedas and Vedanta.

The proceedings of the Calcutta Meeting and the lectures that had been delivered were published in brochures, two thousand in number, from the New Calcutta Press. The reports, which were also published in due course in the American papers, greatly pleased the Swami. The resolutions and the President's letter echoed many ideas close to his heart; he was, moreover, exceedingly happy to learn that behind the success of the meeting were the untiring efforts of his brother-disciples¬ Swami Abhedananda, Swami Ramakrishnananda, and others. Further, the resolution thanking the Swami as a preacher of religion silenced for good the calumny of his detractors in that particular regard. Aside from spreading slander about him, they had circulated the lie that Vivekananda was not preaching religion in America but was politicizing.

In another way the meetings held in Madras, Bangalore and Calcutta were a help to the Swami: they confirmed and put on record that his work in America was successful; thus they indirectly acknowledged the necessity of his continuing the work there. The Swami's devotees, friends and well-wishers in India had repeatedly requested him to return to the Mother¬land. Referring to this, he wrote to Alasinga on April 9, 1894, "Secretary Saheb writes me that I must come back to India, because that is my field. No doubt of that. But, my brother, we are to light a torch which will shed a lusture over all India. So let us not be in a hurry; everything will come by the grace of the Lord." Though many requests came to the Swami to return to India, he did not deviate from his path. Neither the opposition of his detractors nor the advice of his well-wishing friends could cause him to give up his resolve. He well knew that the poor of India could not, and the wealthy Indians would not, help him financially to translate into action his plans for the uplift of his country; whereas by staying in America he would be able to earn money for his cause. Further, in order to raise a dependent and weak nation-a nation given to imitating others -it was necessary to give that nation confidence in its own ideals. And one way of doing that was, surely, to make those ideals known to the West, where they would be appreciated and respected. In regard to this last, the Swami wrote on September 13, 1894, to Mrs. Hale in a letter that has only recently come to light

The Swami by no means became "inflated with vanity" at the appreciation of his countrymen. He took the sanction that India had given to his work and message not so much as a personal appreciation of himself, but as an indication that her grasp on the national ideal still remained firm, that the nation's spiritual foundation stood unshaken, strong as ever. He accepted the appreciation of his work in this spirit and replied to the various addresses that were sent to him. The most notable and stirring of his replies was that written to the Hindus of Madras.

Once the various meetings had been held and the ensuing publicity had played its part in aid of the Swami's work, he grew weary of "newspaper blazoning". The avalanche of news paper clippings from India was hard to stop.

Swamiji wrote a letter to Mary Hale dated November 1, 1894.

But still they kept coming. Almost two months later the Swami wrote to a Madras disciple, "I have written to you before and I write again, that I shall not pay heed to any criticism or praises in the newspapers. They are consigned to the fire. Do you the same. Pay no attention whatsoever to newspaper nonsense or criticism."

And on January 12,1895, Swamiji wrote to Alasinga.

Even as the Swami had no use for personal fame; so he had no rancour against those who were jealous of it and tried to destroy it. How much had he not suffered from the malice of Mazoomdar! Yet on July 10, 1894, he could write to Mrs. Hale, "I got the `Interior' [a `blue-nose' Christian periodical] and am very glad to see my friend Mazoomdar's book spoken of so highly. Mazoomdar is a great and good man and has done much for his fellow beings."

Although neither the Swami nor the American people were to learn of India's public recognition of him as a bona-fide representative of Hinduism until the end of August 1894, when news of the Madras Meeting was published in the American newspapers, he became satisfied, as we have seen, in the first part of July that his countrymen were taking at least some action on his behalf. The letter telling him of the well-attended meeting convened by H. Dharmapala in Calcutta had ended his long and harrowing wait. Like the first drops of rain after an oppressive drought, the first sounds of India's acclaim were the breaking of her prolonged and misleading silence. To his friends he could now offer these first clear notes of acclaim as proof that he was not a "fraud". He stood vindicated, and well could he write in his letter of July 9 to the Hale sisters, "The prophet has been honoured and with a vengeance."

News reports in Gloucester Daily Times:_x000d_ _x000d_ ANNISQUAM LECTURE_x000d_ Mechanics Hall was well filled on Tuesday evening to hear the lecture given by our visiting friend, the Hindoo monk. He was introduced to the audience by Prof. Wright, who also made some preliminary remarks befitting the occasion. The Lecturer alluded to the visit he made to this _x000d_ village last year, and stated that the address he gave here at that time in the church was the first public discourse that he ever gave in English or in his native language; and kindly thanked his friends present who induced him to attempt the same. The religion of India was explained at some length by the speaker from a metaphysical standpoint, showing the working of his mind and the thought following, yet his ideas were broad and liberal, when practically applied.

News Reports in Cape Ann Breeze:_x000d_ _x000d_ SQUIBS FROM 'SQUAM_x000d_ A very fair audience assembled in the hall Tuesday to listen to the address of Swami Vivekananda, the Hindu monk. He wore the distinctive dress of his rank, and was a picturesque figure in the flowing robes and loosely knotted sash, with his dusky, oriental-looking face and shapely head, surmounted by a dexterously twisted turban. His English is that of a cultured foreigner, who has been chiefly associated with refined and educated people. One has to follow him closely to always catch his meaning, however. The matter and manner of his lecture proved very interesting to his hearers, and they, so far as we have learned, congratulated themselves on the opportunity of hearing the distinguished stranger.

To Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ [Gloucester, Massachusetts]_x000d_ 4 September 1894_x000d_ Dear Mother,_x000d_ The bundle was the report of the meeting. Hope you will succeed in publishing some in the Chicago papers._x000d_ Here is a letter from Dewanji to you which will explain his sending a pamphlet to Mr. Hale. The rugs are coming. When they come, take them in, even paying the duty if any. I will pay it to you afterwards. I have plenty of money, more than $150 in pocket. Will get more tonight. Here are some newspaper clip¬pings, and an Indian Mirror I will send later on. Some have been sent to Mr. Barrows; don't hope he will give them publicity. Now for your Mrs. Bartlett._x000d_ I am in haste. [Will] write more with the clippings. Write to me always, kind Mother__I become very anxious when I do not hear from you. Write, whether I reply sharp or not._x000d_ Your son,_x000d_ Vivekananda

On Tuesday evening, September 4, he also gave a talk in the little village of Annisquam on "The Religion of India". At this meeting Dr. J. H. Wright, who was there at this time, introduced the Swami to the audience. But for the most part he rested, waiting for the autumn season when he would once again lecture in the cities; he sat for his portrait, painted by a friend; he went boat¬ing; and one evening he attended an evening clambake-picnic on the beach.

An opportunity not lightly to be slighted, will be given as this evening to learn something of the conditions of Oriental life and religious observances by the lecture announced below:_x000d_ Swami Vivekananda, the Hindoo monk, whose addresses at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago have attracted so much attention, is the guest of Mrs. Governor Bagley in the Hyatt house. In compliance with the urgent request of many persons in Annisquam, both citizens and summer visitors, he had consented to give a public address this evening at 8 o'clock in Mechanics Hall on "Life and Religion in India: ' His unusual eloquence and learning and his remarkable personal presence will make the occa¬sion one not to be forgotten by all who may hear him._x000d_ There will be a small admission fee of 25and 35 cts. Charged. It is hoped that this stranger from a strange and far-off land will be greeted with a good audience, on this his second appearance among us.

To Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ Annisquam_x000d_ 5 September 1894_x000d_ Dear Mother,_x000d_ The news of the arrival of the phonograph from Khetri has not come yet. But I am not anxious, because I just now got another letter from India wherein there is no mention of the photographs I sent, showing that parcels reach later than letters._x000d_ Herewith I send you an autograph letter of H.H. the Maha raja of Mysore, the chief Hindu king in India. You may see on the map [that] his territory occupies a very large portion of southern India._x000d_ I am very glad that he is slowly being gained over to my side. If he wills, he can set all my plans to work in five days. He has an income of $150 million dollars; think of that._x000d_ May Jagadambâ [the Mother of the Universe] turn his mind towards the good work. He says he quite appreciates my good words__they were about my plans for educating the poor. Hope he will soon show it in material shape._x000d_ My love to all. Why the babies do not prattle?_x000d_ Your son,_x000d_ Vivekananda

U.S.A._x000d_ 5th September, 1894_x000d_ {original in Bengali}_x000d_ Dear Mr. Bhattacharya {Manmatha Nath Bhattacharya},_x000d_ I was much pleased to read your affectionate letter. I shall make inquiries about the weaving machine as soon as I can, and let you know. Now I am resting at Annisquam, a village on the seacoast; soon I shall go to the city and attend to the matter of the machine. These seaside places are filled with people during the summer; some come to bathe in the sea, some to take rest, and some to catch husbands._x000d_ There is a strong sense of decorum in this country._x000d_ You have to keep yourself always covered from neck to foot in the presence of women. You cannot so much as mention the normal functions of the body: nobody knows when anyone goes to the toilet--one has to live so circumspectly. In this country, you can blow your nose a thousand times into your handkerchief--there is no harm in that; but it is highly uncivilised to belch. Women sometimes are not embarrassed to expose their bodies above the waist--you must have seen the kind of low-cut gown they wear--but they say that to go bare-foot is as bad as being naked. Just as we always dwell on the soul, so they take care of the body, and there is no end to the cleaning and embellishing of it. One who fails to do this has no place in society._x000d_ Our method of cooking with cow-dung fuel and eating on the floor they consider eating like pigs: they say that the Hindus have no sense of disgust and that, like pigs, they eat cow-dung. The word "cow-dung" is taboo in English. On the other hand, numbers of people will drink water with the same glass without thinking of washing it, and they rarely observe the rule that things must be washed before cooking. But should the clothes of the cook be a little soiled, they will throw her out. The table-ware is all spick and span. They are the richest people on earth; their enjoyments and luxuries beggar description._x000d_ In Rajputana they imitate the Mohammedans in their mode of dining, which is, on the whole, good. They sit on a low seat and place their plate of rice on a low table. This is much better than spreading a banana leaf on the earthen floor plastered with cow-dung and filth. And how disastrous if the leaf gets torn! The Hindus did not know much about clothes or food. Moreover, whatever Hindu civilisation there was existed in the Punjab and the north-west provinces. . . ._x000d_ Our women lose caste if they put on shoes, but the Rajput women lose their caste if they don't put on shoes! Says Manu: "One shall always wear shoes". There is no denying that people should have a decent enough standard of living. I say they should be neat and clean even though not luxurious. . . . I say, why do we have to be Englishmen? It is enough for the present if we imitate our brothers of the western provinces. If group after group of Indians travel all over the world and back for some years, the face of India will be changed within twenty years by that alone; nothing else need be done. But how will anything happen if the people of one village do not visit the next? However, everything will take place by and by. By and by, the stubborn Bengali boys will awaken the country. But Manmatha Babu, you will have to stop this shameful business of marrying off nine-year-old girls. That is the root of all sins. It is a very great sin, my boy. Consider further what a terrible thing it was that when the government wanted to pass a law stopping early marriage, our worthless people raised a tremendous howl! If we don't stop it ourselves, the government will naturally intervene, and that is just what it wants to do. All the world cries fie upon us. You remain shut up in your homes, but the people outside spit upon you. How far can I quarrel with them? What a horror--even a father and mother allow their ten-year-old daughter to be given in marriage to a full-grown fat husband! O Lord, is there any punishment unless there has been a sin? It is all the fruit of Karma. If ours were not a terribly sinful nation, then why should it have been booted and beaten for seven hundred years?_x000d_ Now, just as in our country the parents suffer a lot to have their daughter married, here in the same way the girls suffer--the parents only a little--it is the job of the girls to capture husbands. I am now closely associated with them in all their affairs; I am, as it were, a woman amongst women. Therefore, I have seen, and am seeing, all their play. To give dinners, to dance, to go to musical parties, go to the watering places--all that is all right. But all the while the young women are scheming within themselves how to capture husbands. They hang round the boys. The boys, on the other hand, are so cautious that, though they mingle with the girls and flirt with them all the time, when it is time to surrender they run away. The boys place the girls above themselves; they show them respect and slave for them; but the moment the girls stretch their hands to catch them, they run away beyond their reach. After many efforts of this kind, a girl succeeds in capturing a boy. If the girl has money, then many a boy dances attendance upon her, but the poor have great difficulty. If a poor girl is exceedingly beautiful, she can marry quickly; otherwise, she has to wait all her life. Just as in our country, so here, one marriage in a thousand takes place through love and courtship; the rest are based on money. After that, quarrel, and then, 'Get out!'--divorce. We do not have this; the only way out is to hang oneself. It is the same in all countries. Only, here the girls take matters into their own hands; and in our country, we get the help of the parents to give their married life a decent appearance. The result is the same in either case._x000d_ Nowadays, however, American girls don't want to marry. During the Civil War a large number of men were killed and women began to do all kinds of work. Since then, they have not wanted to give up the rights they have acquired. They earn their own living, and therefore they say, "There is no use in marrying. If we truly fall in love, then we shall marry; otherwise, we shall earn and meet our own expenses". Even if the father is a millionaire, the son has to earn enough before he marries. One may not marry depending on an allowance from the father. The girls also want the same thing now. When a son marries he becomes like a stranger to his own family, but when a girl marries she brings her husband, as it were, into her parents' home. Men will visit their wives' parents ten times, but rarely go to their own parents. Yet they are very much afraid of having their mothers-in-law on their neck. In this country, there are rivers of wealth and waves of beauty, and an abundance of knowledge everywhere. The country is very healthy; they know how to enjoy this earth. . . . When princes of Europe become poor they come to marry here. The average American doesn't like this; but some rich, beautiful women fall for the titles. Yet it is very difficult for American women to live in Europe. The husbands of this country are slaves of their wives; but the European wives are slaves to their husbands--this the American women don't like. In everything, the men here have to say, 'Yes dear'; otherwise the wives lose face before people._x000d_ The women in America are very sentimental and have a mania for romance. I am, however, a strange sort of animal who hasn't any romantic feeling, and therefore they could not sustain any such feeling toward me and they show me great respect. I make all of them call me "father" or "brother". I don't allow them to come near me with any other feeling, and gradually they have all been straightened out. . . . _x000d_ The ministers in this country . . . are eager to throw sinners into hell. A few of them are very good, however. . . . I have a great reputation among the women in this country. I have not as yet seen a single unchaste girl among the unmarried. It is either a widow or a married woman who turn unchaste. The unmarried girls are exceedingly good, because their future is bright. . . . _x000d_ Those emaciated Western women, looking like old dried-up fruit, whom you see in India, are English, and the English are an ugly race amongst the Europeans. In America, the best blood strains of Europe have been blended, and therefore, the American women are very beautiful. And how they take care of their beauty! Can a woman retain her beauty if she gives birth to children . . . every hour from her tenth year on? Damn nonsense! What a terrible sin! Even the most beautiful woman of our country will look like a black owl here. Yet it must be admitted that the women of the Punjab have very well-drawn features. Many of the American women are very well educated and put many a learned professor to shame; nor do they care for anyone's opinion. And as regards their virtues: what kindness, what noble thought and action! Just think, if a man of this country were to visit India, nobody would even touch him; yet here I am allowed to do as I please in the houses of the best families--like their own son! I am like a child; their women shop for me, run errands for me. For example: I have just written to a girl for information about the machine, which she will gather carefully and send to me. Again, a phonograph was sent to the Maharaj of Khetri: the girls managed the whole affair very well. Lord! Lord! It is the difference between heaven and hell! "They are the goddess Lakshmi in beauty and the goddess Saraswati in talents and accomplishments." This cannot be achieved through the study of books. I say, can you send out some men and women to see the world? Only then will the country wake up--not through the reading of books. The men here are very clever in earning wealth. Where others do not see even dust, there they see gold. Whoever will leave India and visit another country will earn great merit._x000d_ Keeping aloof from the community of nations is the only cause for the downfall of India. Since the English came, they have been forcing you back into communion with other nations, and you are visibly rising again. Everyone that comes out of the country confers a benefit on the whole nation; for it is by doing that alone that your horizon will expand. And as women cannot avail themselves of this advantage, they have made almost no progress in India. There is no station of rest; either you progress upwards or you go back and die out. The onl sign of life is going outward and forward and expansion. Contraction is death. Why should you do good to others? Because that is the only condition of life; thereby you expand beyond your little self; you live and grow. All narrowness, all contraction, all selfishness is simply slow suicide, and when a nation commits the fatal mistake of contracting itself and of thus cutting off all expansion and life, it must die. Women similarly must go forward or become idiots and soulless tools in the hands of their tyrannical lords. The children are the result of the combination of the tyrant and the idiot, and they are slaves . And this is the whole history of modern India. Oh, who would break this horrible crystallisation of death? Lord help us! _x000d_ Gradually all this will come about: "One should cross a road slowly and cautiously; one should patch a quilt carefully and cautiously; so should one be slow and cautious in crossing a mountain"._x000d_ The papers have arrived duly and in good shape; there has not been any difficulty about that. The enemy has been silenced. Consider this: They have allowed me, an unknown young man, to live among their grown-up young daughters, and when my own countryman, Mazoomdar, says I am a rogue, they don't pay any attention! How noble they are, and how kind! I shall not be able to repay this debt even in a hundred lives, I am like a foster son to the American women; they are really my mother. If they don't flourish in every way, who would?_x000d_ A while back several hundred intellectual men and women were gathered in a place called Greenacre, and I was there for nearly two months. Every day I would sit in our Hindu fashion under a tree, and my followers and disciples would sit on the grass all around me. Every morning I would instruct them, and how earnest they were!_x000d_ The whole country now knows me. The ministers are very angry; but, naturally, not all of them. There are many followers of mine amongst the learned ministers of this country. The ignorant and the stubborn amongst them don't understand anything but only make trouble, and thereby they only hurt themselves. But abusing me, Mazoomdar has lost three-fourths of what little popularity he had in this country. I have been adopted by them. When anyone abuses me he is condemned everywhere by the women._x000d_ I cannot say when I shall return to India, possibly next winter. There I shall have to wander, and here also I do the same._x000d_ There is nothing more to add. Please don't make this letter public. You understand, I have to be careful about every word I say--I am now a public man. Everybody is watching, particularly the clergy._x000d_ Yours faithfully, _x000d_ Vivekananda

A day or two following his lecture Swamiji left Annisquam for Boston, but first he took time on September 5 to write a long letter in Bengali to his good friend Mr. Manmatha Nath Bhattacharya, who had been instrumental in 1892 in introducing him to Madras. A translation of this letter is given here in part, for it draws so good a picture of American mores as seen through Swamiji's observant and often humor filled eyes that the story of his life so far in America would not be complete without it. "Dear Mr. Bhattacharya," Swamiji wrote,

Everywhere in India enthusiasm for the Swami's achievements ran high, but in Calcutta, his birthplace, it reached a pitch of frenzy, and it can be said that the public meeting held there in September of 1894 carried the greatest weight of all. Not only was Calcutta the Swami's native city and the then capital of India, it was as well the fountainhead of Mazoomdar's malicious propaganda and its most fertile ground. Recognition of the Swami's achievements could not matter so much from any other city in the whole of India. The great Calcutta Meeting, held to thank the Swami and the American people, took place in the Town Hall on September 5. It was organized by the Swami's brother-disciples, together with the most representative members of the Hindu community, and was attended by some 4,000 people of all shades of opinion. Some of the most well known pandits as well as members of the landed aristocracy, High Court judges, noted public men, pleaders, politicians, professors and prominent men in many other walks of life took part. It was presided over by Raja Peary Mohun Mookerjee, C.S.I. The following resolutions were made and adopted with eloquent speeches eulogizing the Swami's work and his contribution to the dissemination of Hindu culture among the Western nations:_x000d_ l. That this meeting desires to record its grateful appreciation of the great services rendered to the cause of Hinduism by Swami Vivekananda at the Parliament of Religions at Chicago, and of his subsequent work in America._x000d_ 2. That this meeting tenders its best thanks to Dr. J. H. Barrows, the Chairman [of the Parliament of Religions], and Mr. Merwin ¬Marie Snell, the President of the Scientific Section of the Parliament of Religions at Chicago, and to the American people generally, for the cordial and sympathetic reception they have accorded to Swami Vivekananda._x000d_ 3. That this meeting requests the Chairman to forward to Sreemat Vivekananda Swami, Dr. Barrows and Mr. Snell copies of the foregoing Resolutions together with the following letter addressed to Swami Vivekananda.

The Press was itself enthusiastic and burgeoned with reports and editorials relating to Swamiji. There was a sense of national victory and celebration. Perhaps the best idea of the importance of the Calcutta Meeting can be gathered from the following accounts in the Indian Mirror of September 6._x000d_ _x000d_ THE PUBLIC MEETING IN CALCUTT'A _x000d_ TO THANK SWAMI VIVEKANANDA_x000d_ AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE_x000d_ _x000d_ The great meeting of the Hindu community last evening at the Town Hall must have furnished a striking object lesson to everyone who was present at the immense gathering. The appearance of the different castes and sub-castes, into which Hindu society is split up at the present time, on a common platform, the oneness of feeling that animated all, the common enthusiasm, the united applause, as speaker after speaker rose and resumed his seat, and the absolute sincerity of the entire proceedings, all went to show that life has begun to beat with strong pulsation once more into the veins of the Hindu nation. Yesterday's meeting was convened for an extraordinary but truly national purpose. It was a meeting called for an expression of gratitude to one who deserved well of his people; but anyone could see that the whole object of the meeting went beyond that; anybody could see that the Hindus of Cal¬cutta had met not simply for voting an address to Swami Vivekanand, but for the higher purpose of giving a powerful impetus to the advancement of the Hindu cause in the Western World. . . .

Swami Vivekanand has appeared before the American people as the accredited messenger of the whole Hindu nation, and he spoke in their name; and he spoke not for himself or with the dogmatism of assumed authority, but on behalf not only of modern Hindus, but also, and much more of the great sages, law-givers, and prophets of Ancient India. Is it any wonder that when the _x000d_ American people saw the utter sincerity and selflessness of Swami Vivekanand, that they approved of the messenger, or that when they had heard the Swami out, they approved of the message likewise?

Attempts have been made even in this country to belittle Swami Vivekanand's wonderful successes in America. Some have even gone so far as to deny that he represented the Hindus at all. But it is a fact that the Hindus of Madras bore the expense of his mission. They have subsequently, in a public meeting, warmly approved of the work of their gifted delegate. And subsequently Hindus from all parts of India have ratified the choice of Madras. Yesterday's great meeting at the Town Hall showed that the Hindus of Bengal are not behindhand in according to Swami Vivekanand that position which he has amply deserved by his work. . .