that of Rammohan Roy and Keshab Chandra Sen. The London Daily Chronicle wrote
that he reminded people of Buddha. Even the heads of churches showed their warm
appreciation.
But the Swami's greatest acquisition in London was Miss Margaret E. Noble, who later
became his disciple, consecrating her life to women's education in India. She also
espoused the cause of India's political freedom and inspired many of its leaders with
her written and spoken words.
Miss Noble, the fourth child of Samuel Noble, was born in Northern Ireland in 1867.
Both her grandfather and her father were Protestant ministers in the Wesleyan church
and took active part in the political agitation for the freedom of Ireland. Her
grandmother and her father gave her instruction in the Bible. Her father, who died at
the age of thirty-four, had a premonition of his daughter's future calling. One of the last
things he whispered to his wife was about Margaret. 'When God calls her,' he said, 'let
her go. She will spread her wings. She will do great things.'
After finishing her college education, Margaret took the position of a teacher at
Keswick, in the English Lake District, where contact with the High Church stirred her
religious emotions. Next she taught in an orphanage in Rugby, where she shared the
manual labour of the pupils. At twenty-one, Miss Noble was appointed as mistress at
the secondary school in Wrexham, a large mining centre, and participated in the
welfare activities of the town, visiting slum households and looking for waifs and
strays. Next she went to Chester and taught a class of eighteen-year-old girls. Here she
delved into the educational systems of Pestalozzi and Froebel. And finally she came to
London, where, in the autumn of 1895, she opened her own school, the Ruskin School,
in Wimbledon.
The metropolis of the British Empire offered Miss Noble unlimited opportunities for
the realization of her many latent desires — political, literary, and educational. Here
she joined the 'Free Ireland' group, working for Ireland's home rule. She was also
cordially received at Lady Ripon's exclusive salon, where art and literature were
regularly discussed. This salon later developed into the Sesame Club, with rooms in
Dover Street, where Bernard Shaw, T.H. Huxley, and other men of literature and
science discussed highly intellectual subjects. Margaret Noble became the secretary of
the club, and lectured on 'The Psychology of the Child' and 'The Rights of Women.'
Thus even before she met Swami Vivekananda she was unconsciously preparing the
ground for her future activities in India.
At this time Margaret suffered a cruel blow. She was deeply in love with a man and
had even set the wedding date. But another woman suddenly snatched him away. A
few years before, another young man, to whom she was about to be engaged, had died
of tuberculosis. These experiences shocked her profoundly, and she began to take a
more serious interest in religion. She was very fond of a simple prayer by Thomas à
Kempis: 'Be what thou prayest to be made.'
One day her art teacher, Ebenezer Cook, said to Margaret: 'Lady Isabel Margesson is