From Volume 9 of the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda – Letters – Fifth Series
HOTEL BELLEVUE
BEACON STREET, BOSTON
13 September 1894
DEAR MOTHER
Your very kind note came just now. I was suffering for the last few days from cold and fever. I am all right now. I am glad all the papers reached you safe. The newspaper clippings are with Mrs. Bagley; only a copy has been sent over to you. By the by, Mrs. Bagley becomes jealous if I send away everything to you. That is between you and me. The Indian Mirror is with Prof. Wright,[6]* and he will send it over to you. There is yet no news of the phonograph. Wait one week more and then we will enquire. If you see a letter with the Khetri stamp, then surely the news is coming. I do not smoke one third as much as I used to when Father Pope’s eternal box was ready and open day and night. Haridasbhai is to be addressed as Shri only. On the envelope, Dewan Bahadoor ought to be written, as that is a title. Perhaps the note from the Maharaja of Mysore has reached you by this time.
I will remain a few days yet in Boston and the vicinity. The bank book is in the bank. We did not take it out, but the cheque book is with me. I am going to write out my thoughts on religion; in that, no missionaries have any place. I am going to lecture in New York in autumn, but I like teaching small circles better, and there will be enough of that in Boston.
The rugs I wanted to be sent from India; and they will come from Punjab, where the best rugs are made.
I had a beautiful letter from Sister Mary. (Mary Hale.)
Narasimha must have got money or passage by this time, and his people have taken care to send him Thomas Cook’s passage from place to place. I think he is gone now.
I do not think the Lord will allow his servant to be inflated with vanity at the appreciation of his countrymen. I am glad that they appreciate me — not for my sake, but that I am firmly persuaded that a man is never improved by abuse but by praise, and so with nations. Think how much of abuse has been quite unnecessarily hurled at the head of my devoted, poor country, and for what? They never injured the Christians or their religion or their preachers. They have always been friendly to all. So you see, Mother, every good word a foreign nation says to them has such an amount of power for good in India. The American appreciation of my humble work here has really done a good deal of benefit to them. Send a good word, a good thought — at least to the down-trodden, vilified, poor millions of India instead of abusing them day and night. That is what I beg of every nation. Help them if you can; if you cannot, at least cease from abusing them.
I did not see any impropriety in the bathing places at the seashore, but only vanity in some: in those that went into water with their corsets on, that was all.
I have not got any copy of the Inter-Ocean yet. (A leading Chicago newspaper.)
With my love to Father Pope, babies, and to you, I remain
Your obedient son,
VIVEKANANDA