AIRLIE LODGE, RIDGEWAY GARDENS,
WIMBLEDON, ENGLAND,
17th Sept., 1896.
DEAR SISTER, (Miss Harriet Hale.)
Your very welcome news reached me just now, on my return here from Switzerland. I am very, very happy to learn that at last you have thought it better to change your mind about the felicity of “Old Maids Home”. You are perfectly right now — marriage is the truest goal for ninety-nine per cent of the human race, and they will live the happiest life as soon as they have learnt and are ready to abide by the eternal lesson — that we are bound to bear and forbear and that life to every one must be a compromise.
Believe me, dear Harriet, perfect life is a contradiction in terms. Therefore we must always expect to find things not up to our highest ideal. Knowing this, we are bound to make the best of everything. From what I know of you, you have the calm power which bears and forbears to a great degree, and therefore I am safe to prophesy that your married life will be very happy.
All blessings attend you and your fiancé and may the Lord make him always remember what good fortune was his in getting such a wife as you — good, intelligent, loving, and beautiful. I am afraid it is impossible for me to cross the Atlantic so soon. I wish I could, to see your marriage.
The best I can do in the circumstances is to quote from one of our books: “May you always enjoy the undivided love of your husband, helping him in attaining all that is desirable in this life, and when you have seen your children’s children, and the drama of life is nearing its end, may you help each other in reaching that infinite ocean of Existence, Knowledge, and Bliss, at the touch of whose waters all distinctions melt away and we are all one!” (A reminiscence of Kalidasa’s Shakuntalam, where Kanva gives his benedictions to Shakuntalâ on the eve of her departure to her husband’s place.)
“May you be like Umâ, chaste and pure throughout life — may your husband be like Shiva, whose life was in Uma!”
Your loving brother,
VIVEKANANDA.