asked the Swami how he could muster courage in such a dangerous situation. He said
that in the face of danger and death he felt — and he took two pebbles in his hands and
struck the one against the other — as strong as flint, for 'I have touched the feet of
God.' He had shown a like courage in his early boyhood, when he quickly stepped up
to drag away a child who was about to be trampled under a horse's feet in a street of
Calcutta.
Regarding his experience and work in England, he told the Hale sisters, in a letter, that
it was a roaring success. To another American friend he wrote that he believed in the
power of the English to assimilate great ideas, and that though the process of
assimilation might be slow, it would be all the more sure and abiding. He believed that
the time would come when distinguished ecclesiastics of the Church of England,
imbued with the idealism of Vedanta, would form a liberal community within the
Anglican Church itself, supporting the universality of religion both in vision and in
practice.
But what he admired most in England was the character of the English people — their
steadiness, thoroughness, loyalty, devotion to the ideal, and perseverance to finish any
work that they undertook. His preconceived idea about the English was thoroughly
changed when he came to know them intimately. 'No one,' he said later, addressing the
Hindus of Calcutta, 'ever landed on English soil feeling more hatred in his heart for a
race than I did for the English. [The iniquities of the colonial rule in India were deeply
impressed in his mind.]...There is none among you who loves the English people more
than I do.'
He wrote to the Hale sisters on November 28, 1896: 'The English are not so bright as
the Americans, but once you touch their heart it is yours for ever....I now understand
why the Lord has blessed them above all other races — steady, sincere to the
backbone, with great depths of feeling, only with a crust of stoicism on the surface. If
that is broken you have your man.' In another letter: 'You know, of course, the
steadiness of the English; they are, of all nations,least jealous of each other and that is
why they dominate the world. They have solved the secret of obedience without
slavish cringing — great freedom with law-abidingness.' On still another occasion he
called the English 'a nation of heroes, the true kshatriyas....Their education is to hide
their feelings and never to show them. If you know how to reach the English heart, he
is your friend for ever. If he has once an idea put into his brain, it never comes out; and
the immense practicality and energy of the race makes it sprout up and immediately
bear fruit.'
The Swami felt that the finger of God had brought about the contact between India and
England. The impact created by the aggressive British rule, on the one hand, awakened
the Hindu race from its slumber of ages, and on the other hand, offered India
opportunities to spread her spiritual message throughout the Western world.
He wrote to Mr. Leggett on July 6, 1896: