From Epistles – First Series of Volume 5 of The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
C/O Miss H. Müller,
Airlie Lodge, Ridgeway Gardens,
Wimbledon, England,
22nd September, 1896.
Dear Alasinga,
I am sure you have got the article on Ramakrishna, I sent you, by Max Müller. Do not be sorry, he does not mention me there at all, as it was written six months before he knew me. And then who cares whom he mentions, if he is right in the main point. I had a beautiful time with Prof. Deussen in Germany. Later, he and I came together to London, and we have already become great friends.
I am soon sending you an article on him. Only pray do not put that old-fashioned “Dear Sir” before my articles. Have you seen the Râja-Yoga book yet? I will try to send you a design for the coming year. I send you a Daily News article on a book of travel written by the Czar of Russia. The paragraph in which he speaks of India as the land of spirituality and wisdom, you ought to quote in your paper and send the article to theIndian Mirror.
You are very welcome to publish the Jnâna-Yoga lectures, as well as Dr. (Nanjunda Rao) in his Awakened India — only the simpler ones. They have to be very carefully gone through and all repetitions and contradictions taken out. I am sure I will now have more time to write. Work on with energy.
With love to all.
Yours,
Vivekananda.
PS: I have marked the passage to be quoted, the rest of course is useless for a paper.
I do not think it would be good just now to make the paper a monthly one yet, unless you are sure of giving a good bulk. As it is now, the bulk and the matter are all very poor. There is yet a vast untrodden field, namely — the writing of the lives and works of Tulasidâsa, Kabir, Nânak, and of the saints of Southern India. They should be written in a thorough-going, scholarly style, and not in a slipshod, slovenly way. In fact, the ideal of the paper, apart from the preaching of Vedanta, should be to make it a magazine of Indian research and scholarship, of course, bearing on religion. You must approach the best writers and get carefully-written articles from their pen. Work on with all energy.
Yours with love,
Vivekananda