know why. I am wearied of lecturing and all that nonsense. This mixing with hundreds
of human animals, male and female, has disturbed me. I will tell you what is to my
taste. I cannot write — cannot speak — but I can think deep, and when I am heated can
speak fire. But it should be to a select few — a very select few. And let them carry and
sow my ideas broadcast if they will — not I. It is only a just division of labour. The
same man never succeeded in thinking and in casting his thoughts all around. Such
thoughts are not worth a penny. ... I am really not 'cyclonic' at all — far from it. What I
want is not here — nor can I longer bear this cyclonic atmosphere. Calm, cool, nice,
deep, penetrating, independent, searching thought — a few noble pure mirrors which
will reflect it back, catch it until all of them sound in unison. Let others throw it to the
outside world if they will. This is the way to perfection — to be prefect, to make
perfect a few men and women. My idea of doing good is this — to evolve a few giants,
and not to strew pearls to the swine and lose time, breath, and energy. ... Well, I do not
care for lecturing any more. It is too disgusting to bring me to suit anybody's or any
audience's fad.
Swami Vivekananda became sick of what he termed 'the nonsense of public life and
newspaper blazoning.'
The Swami had sincere admirers and devotees among the Americans, who looked after
his comforts, gave him money when he lacked it, and followed his instructions. He was
particularly grateful to American women, and wrote many letters to his friends in India
paying high praise to their virtues.
In one letter he wrote:
'Nowhere in the world are women like those of this country. How pure, independent,
self-relying, and kind-hearted! It is the women who are the life and soul of this
country. All learning and culture are centred in them.'
In another letter:
'[Americans] look with veneration upon women, who play a most prominent part in
their lives. Here this form of worship has attained its perfection — this is the long and
short of it. I am almost at my wit's end to see the women of this country. They are
Lakshmi, the Goddess of Fortune, in beauty, and Sarasvati, the Goddess of Learning,
in virtues — they are the Divine Mother incarnate. If I can raise a thousand such
Madonnas — incarnations of the Divine Mother — in our country before I die, I shall
die in peace. Then only will our countrymen become worthy of their name.'
Perhaps his admiration reached its highest pitch in a letter to the Maharaja of Khetri,
which he wrote in 1894: