From Volume 9 of the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda – Letters – Fifth Series
VEDANTA SOCIETY,
102 EAST 58TH STREET,
NEW YORK,
15th June 1900.
MY DEAR CHRISTINA,
I am getting better every day, only this New York is a bad place for sleep. Again, I am working some, though not hard, to get the old friends together and put the thing in shape.
Now, you know, I will in a week or so finish this work and then be ready for a real quiet of a week or two or more.
Detroit, alas! will be no better than New York. With so many old friends! How can you avoid friends whom you really love?
I will have perfect freedom at yours — sure — but how can I avoid seeing friends and the eternal visiting and paying visits and much talkee-talkee? Do you know any other place within eight or ten hours (I want to avoid night rides) of riding from New York where I can be quiet and free from the people? (Lord bless them.) I am dead tired seeing people just now. Just think of that and everything else; if, after all, you think Detroit is the best place for me, I am ready to come.
Yours truly,
VIVEKANANDA.
PS — I am also thinking of a quiet place.
V.