The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 5/Epistles - First Series/CX Mary
CX
Howrah Dist., Bengal,
27th August, 1901.
My Dear Mary,[1]
I would that my health were what you expected — at least to write you a long
letter. It is getting worse, in fact, every day, and so many complications
and botherations without that. I have ceased to notice it at all.
I wish you all joy in your lovely Swiss chalet — splendid health, good
appetite, and a light study of Swiss or other antiquities just to liven
things up a bit. I am so glad you are breathing the free air of the
mountains, but sorry that Sam is not in the best of health. Well, there is
no anxiety about it, he has naturally such a fine physique. . . .
"Women's moods and man's luck — the gods themselves do not know, what to
speak of man?" My instincts may be very feminine, but what I am exercised
with just this moment is, that you get a little bit of manliness about you.
Oh! Mary, your brain, health, beauty, everything is going to waste just for
lack of that one essential — assertion of individuality. Your haughtiness,
spirit, etc. are all nonsense, only mockery; you are at best a
boarding-school girl, no backbone! no backbone!
Alas! this lifelong leading-string business! This is very harsh, very
brutal; but I can't help it. I love you, Mary, sincerely, genuinely; I can't
cheat you with namby-pamby sugar candies. Nor do they ever come to me.
Then again, I am a dying man; I have no time to fool in. Wake up, girl. I
expect now from you letters of the right slashing order; give it right
straight; I need a good deal of rousing.
I did not hear anything of the MacVeaghs when they were here. I have not had
any direct message from Mrs. Bull or Niveditâ, but I hear regularly from
Mrs. Sevier, and they are all in Norway as guests of Mrs. Bull.
I don't know when Nivedita comes to India or if she ever comes back.
I am in a sense a retired man; I don't keep much note of what is going on
about the Movement; then the Movement is getting bigger, and it is
impossible for one man to know all about it minutely.
I now do nothing, except trying to eat and sleep and nurse my body the rest
of the time. Good-bye, dear Mary; hope we shall meet again somewhere in this
life, but, meeting or no meeting, I remain,
Ever your loving brother,
Vivekananda.
- Notes
- ↑ Miss Mary Hale.