To Sister Christine
921 West 21st Street,
Los Angeles,
27th December 1899.
Dear Christina,
So you are awake and can’t go to sleep any more. Good! Keep awake, wide awake. It was good I came here. For, in the first place, I am cured. What do you think of this–able to walk, and every day walk three miles after a heavy dinner! Good! Isn’t it?
I am making money fast–twenty-five dollars a day now. Soon I will work more and get fifty dollars a day. In San Francisco I hope to do still better–where I go in two or three weeks. Good again–better, say I–as I am going to keep the money all to myself and not squander it any more. And then I will buy a little place in the Himalayas–a whole hill–about say, six thousand feet high with a grand view of the eternal snows. There must be springs and a tiny lake. Cedars–the Himalayan cedar forests–and flowers, flowers everywhere. I will have a little cottage; in the middle, my vegetable gardens, which I will work myself–and–and–and–my books–and see the face of man only once in a great while. And the world may go to ruin round about my ears, I would not care. I will have done with all my work–secular or spiritual–and retire. My! how restless I have been all my life! Born nomad. I don’t know; this is the present vision. The future is to come yet. Curious–all my dreams about my own happiness are, as it were, bound to come to nothing; but about others’ well-being–
they as a rule prove true.
I am so glad you are happy and peaceful under Mrs. Bull’s hospitable roof. She is a great, great woman–one whom to see is a pilgrimage.
No snow here–exactly like northern India in winter. Some days, even warmer–cool in the morning and evening, in the middle of the day, warm, in the sun, hot. The roses are about us, gardens everywhere, and the beautiful palms. But I like the snow: crisp, crackling under the feet, white, white, white–all round white!
I don’t think I have anything with the kidneys or the heart. The whole thing was about indigestion and it is now nearly cured. A month more, and I will be strong like a lion and hardy like a mule. The poor English are getting it hot from the Boers. Mourning in every home in England and still the war goes on. Such is human folly. How long will it take for man to become civilized! Will wars ever cease? Mother knows! The New Year is sure to bring about a great change. Pray some good may come to India. I send you all joy, all love, all success for the New Year and many, many more to come.
So you did well, you think, by coming to Mrs. Bull. I am glad. I wanted you to know Mrs. Bull thoroughly. Remain there as long as you can. It will do you good, I am sure. Take heart and be of cheer, for next year is sure to bring many joys and a hundred blessings.
Yours truly,
Vivekananda.
921 W. 21st Street,
Los Angeles.,
27th December, 1899.
Beloved Dhira Mata,
An eventful and happy New Year to you and many such returns!
I am much better in health–able enough to work once more. I have started work already and have sent to Saradananda some money–Rs. 1,300 already–as expenses for the law suit. I shall send more, if they need it. I had a very bad dream this morning and had not any news of Saradananda for three weeks. Poor boys! How hard I am on them at times. Well, they know, in spite of all that, I am their best friend.
Mr. Leggett has got a little over £ 500 I had with Sturdy on account of Raja-Yoga and the Maharaja of Khetri. I have now about a thousand dollars with Mr. Leggett. If I die, kindly send that money to my mother. I wired to the boys three weeks ago that I was perfectly cured. If I don’t get any worse, this much health as I have now will do well enough. Do not worry at all on my account; I am up and working with a will.
I am sorry I could not write any more of the stories. I have written some other things and mean to write something almost every day.
I am very much more peaceful and find that the only way to keep my peace is to teach others. Work is my only safety valve.
I only want some clear business head to take care of the details as I push onwards and work on. I am afraid it will be a long time to find such in India, and if there are any, they ought to be educated by somebody from the West.
Again, I can only work when thrown completely on my own feet. I am at my best when I am alone. Mother seems to arrange so. Joe believes great things are brewing–in Mother’s cup; hope it is so.
Joe and Margot have developed into actual prophets, it seems. I can only say, every blow I had in this life, every pang, will only become joyful sacrifice if Mother becomes propitious to India once more.
Miss Greenstidel writes a beautiful letter to me, about you most of it. She thinks a lot about Turiyananda too. Give Turiyananda my love. I am sure he will work well. He has the pluck and stamina.
I am going soon to work in California; when I leave I shall send for Turiyananda and make him work on the Pacific coast. I am sure here is a great field. The Raja-Yoga book seems to be very well known here. Miss Greenstidel had found great peace under your roof and is very happy. I am so glad it is so. May things go a little better with her every day. She has a good business head and practical sense.
Joe has unearthed a magnetic healing woman. We are both under her treatment. Joe thinks she is pulling me up splendidly. On her has been worked a miracle, she claims. Whether it is magnetic healing, California ozone, or the end of the present spell of bad Karma, I am improving. It is a great thing to be able to walk three miles, even after a heavy dinner.
All love and blessings to Olea. My love to Dr. Janes and other Boston friends.
Ever your son,
Vivekananda.
C/O MRS. BLODGETT,
921, WEST 21ST ST.,
LOS ANGELES,
27th December, 1899.
MY DEAR MARY,
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and many, many glorious returns of such for your birthday. All these wishes, prayers, greetings in one breath. I am cured, you will be glad to know. It was only indigestion and no heart or kidney affection, quoth the healers; nothing more. And I am walking three miles a day — after a heavy dinner.
Say — the person healing me insisted on my smoking! So I am having my pipe nicely and am all the better for it. In plain English the nervousness etc. was all due to dyspepsia and nothing more.
. . . I am at work too; working, working, not hard; but I don’t care, and I want to make money this time. Tell this to Margot, especially the pipe business. You know who is healing me? No physician, no Christian Science healer, but a magnetic healing woman who skins me every time she treats me. Wonders — she performs operations by rubbing — internal operations too, her patients tell me.
It is getting late in the night. I have to give up writing separate letters to Margot, Harriet, Isabelle, and Mother Church. Wish is half the work. They all know how I love them dearly, passionately; so you become the medium for my spirit for the time, and carry them my New Year’s messages.
It is exactly like Northern Indian winter here, only some days a little warmer; the roses are here and the beautiful palms. Barley is in the fields, roses and many other flowers round about the cottage where I live. Mrs. Blodgett, my host, is a Chicago lady — fat, old, and extremely witty. She heard me in Chicago and is very motherly.
I am so sorry, the English have caught a Tartar in South Africa. A soldier on duty outside a camp bawled out that he had caught a Tartar. “Bring him in”, was the order from inside the tent. “He will not come”, replied the sentry. “Then you come yourself”, rang the order again. “He will not let me come either”. Hence the phrase “to catch a Tartar”. Don’t you catch any.
I am happy just now and hope to remain so for all the rest of my life. Just now I am Christian Science — no evil, and “love is a drawing card”.
I shall be very happy if I can make a lot of money. I am making some. Tell Margot, I am going to make a lot of money and go home by way of Japan, Honolulu, China, and Java. This is a nice place to make money quick in; and San Francisco is better, I hear. Has she made any?
You could not get the millionaire. Why don’t you start for half or one-fourth million? Something is better than nothing. We want money; he may go into Lake Michigan, we have not the least objection. We had a bit of an earthquake here the other day. I hope it has gone to Chicago and raised Isabelle’s mud-puddle up. It is getting late. I am yawning, so here I quit.
Good-bye; all blessings, all love,
VIVEKANANDA.
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