To Miss Josephine MacLeod

GREY COAT GARDENS,
WESTMINSTER, S.W.,
LONDON,
3rd December, 1896.
DEAR JOE,
Many, many thanks, dear Joe Joe, for your kind invitation; but the Dear God has disposed it this way, viz I am to start for India on the 16th with Captain and Mrs. Sevier and Mr. Goodwin. The Seviers and myself take steamer at Naples. And as there will be four days at Rome, I will look in to say good-bye to Alberta.
Things are in a “hum” here just now; the big hall for the class, 39 Victoria, is full and yet more are coming.
Well, the good old country now calls me; I must go. So good-bye to all projects of visiting Russia this April.
I just set things a-going a little in India and am off again for the ever beautiful U.S. and England etc.
So very kind of you to send Mabel’s letter — good news indeed. Only I am a little sorry for poor Fox. However, Mabel escaped him; that is better.
You did not write anything about how things are going on in New York. I hope it is all well there. Poor Cola! is he able now to make a living?
The coming of Goodwin was very opportune, as it captured the lectures here which are being published in a periodical form. Already there have been subscribers enough to cover the expenses.
Three lectures next week, and my London work is finished for this season. Of course, everybody here thinks it foolish to give it up just now the “boom” is on, but the Dear Lord says, “Start for Old India”. I obey.
To Frankincense, to Mother, to Holister and everyone else my eternal love and blessings, and with the same for you,

Yours ever sincerely,

VIVEKANANDA

To Alberta Sturges

14 GREYCOAT GARDENS,
WESTMINSTER, LONDON S.W.,
3rd Dec., 1896.
DEAR ALBERTA,
Herewith I enclose a letter of Mabel to Joe Joe to you. I have enjoyed the news* in it very much and so I am sure you will.
I am to start from here for India on the 16th and to take the steamer at Naples. I will, therefore, be in Italy for some days and in Rome for three or four days. I will be very happy to look in to say good-bye to you.
Capt. and Mrs. Sevier from England are going to India with me, and they will be with me in Italy of course. You saw them last summer.
I intend to return to the U.S. and to Europe thence in about a year.

With all love and blessings,

VIVEKANANDA.

* The news was that Mabel MacLeod, her mother’s cousin, was going to be married

– Alberta Sturges was in Rome at the time.