Friday 30 March 2018

Letter to Ridely Manor - 1

यतो धर्म: ततो जय:

Ridely Manor
Firday, Oct. 27th [1899]

My sweet Yum-Yum

Your first letter reached me yesterday, and I was overjoyed to hear from you of your brother, and your joy in being on a pumpkin throne yourself, instead of merely loafin' around Swami's! Swami was there, we were all sitting in Olea's bedroom in fact, and he laughed at your rude remarks about the said throne-and just loved it. He has always declared that the time would yet come for him to be in Kali's land with you. It certainly is too funny about his picture! "Ramkrishna's people! Ramkrishna's people!" Yes Darling -I quite agree- if you will be so sectarian-that they should be called, rather, "Swami's people!" I didnot mean it any other way.

He did not sleep well last night-our poor King-and is still in his room, trying to rest, at 1/4 past 10. He sent for me to come down from retreat: on Tuesday evening, so I have had 2 days of complete relaxation. Mrs. Briggs and a Mrs. Hale and a friend of Olea's are staying here.

Swami was doing wonderful things for Olea -poor child - as it seemed, but you know she is ill and changeable and freful -and life is a matter of growth for allof us, save those who come free and rise to their own in a flash. She has had her touch of the new birth, and now it may be that she wants time for assimilation more than anything else.

For my part, I finished the last of my little papers on Kali the Mother last Sunday, and am now cogitating over Swami's order for a book on India-and one that Mrs. Bull and I are to write together on Love and Marriage. I wish now that I might stay here without moving-for weeks to come-and marching orders may be just arriving.

Albert has been staying here with me for a day or two and I love both her and Olea very much. Baby too has come very close to me. I fled from the appearance of her charms at the front door just now-for I knew that if I delayed to talk with her one moment-I could not write to you today. We have endless fun. She insists on sitting like a Hindu all the time, and having long stories about boiling rice and laying dinner on plantain leaves for our (Hindu) husbands.

Mrs. Bull read me Mr. Sturdy's letter yesterday, and then I think she sent it on to you. I must say that it commanded my respect for coolness and honesty. One could not deny his perfect right to say all he felt in such a manner, and to feel so reasonably. The worst of it is of course that his reasoning was utterly uninfluenced by his higher perceptions. And I can only own that whatever has happened, I have too evidently been the cause. How wonderful Mrs. Bull's sense of motherhood is! I listened to it yesterday in every word she spoke-and felt awed. She is a great woman. Swami might well say "perhaps the very noblest!"When Mr. Sturdy wrote to Swamiji about his faults and the disappointment generally, one could not resent it. That was between themselves. Quite a different thing from his writing to me about Swami, wasn't it?

The little book m.s. is still waiting for the Mrs. Roy, meditation and Boby's story of Kali. I hope you will just cut them out of the Dairy and send them bodily.

Swami came in the blessed me on Sunday night, while I was still in retreat.He stayed about an hour, and told me how it was Sri Ramakrishna's firm belief that every great Incarnation eighter in public or in secret had been a worshipper of Mother. "Or how could he have got the Energy?" Siva and Kali had had to be their worships. Then he talked about the Ramayana. I'll tell you a curious thing. When Sadananda talks about the Ramayana, I become convinced that Hanuman is really the hero: when Swami talks of it Rabon is the central figure.

To be continued ....




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