From Volume 9 of the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda – Letters – Fifth Series
THE MATH, BELUR,
DIST. HOWRAH, BENGAL,
8th October 1901.

DEAR CHRISTINA,

Yours of September 9 came to hand yesterday. I congratulate you on your successful visit to the Huron Lake; a few more of them (according to your letter) will force you to sympathize with our condition — oh, the gasping and the melting and the puffing and all the rest of them!
However, nothing in the world like a plump, ripe fruit.
I had to give up my trip to Japan: firstly, because I am not in a working trim yet; secondly, [I] don’t much care to make such a long voyage (one month) alone; thirdly, what am I to talk to them, I wonder.
Our heat too has been fierce and is continuing unusually long this year. I am blacker than a Negro by this time.
The California work is progressing famously. They want one or two men more. I would send, if I could, but I have not any more spare men. Poor Turiyananda is suffering from malaria yet, and is awfully overworked.
Do you know whether they published my Jnana-Yoga or not? I got a copy of a second edition of Karma-Yoga only.
I am bobbing up and down in the current of life. Today it is rather down, so I finish the letter here.

Yours with all love and blessings,
VIVEKANANDA.