Dear Adhyapakji...

Wish i could write everyday without fail but...it so happens that just can't make it. Forgive for the delay my atmiyas.

Today's day is so important because he came to stay with Professor John Henry Wright's family. On 24th He was at Boston with Mr.Franklin Sanborn, Kate Sanborn's cousin and Prof. Wright left to meet him there but missed. He satyed with them from Friday, 25th Aug. to 27th Aug.1893. Mrs. Wright's letter to her mother speaks about His arrival at Annisquam, a summer resort place near Boston.

"Annisquam,Mass.

August 29, 1893

My dear mother:

We have been having a queer time. Kate Sanborn had a Hindoo monk in tow as I believe I mentioned in my last letter. John went down to meet him in Boston and missing him, invited him up here. He came Friday! In a long saffron robe that caused universal amazement. He was a most gorgeous vision. He had a superb carriage of the head, was very handsome in an oriental way, about thirty years old in time, ages in civilization.

He stayed until Monday and was one of the most interesting people I have yet come across. We talked all day all night and began again with interest the next morning. The town was in a fume to see him; the boarders at Miss Lane's in wild excitement. They were in and out of the Lodge [the Wright's cottage] constantly and little Mrs. Merrill's eyes were blazing and her cheeks red with excitement. Chiefly we talked religion. It was a kind of revival, I have not felt so wrought up for a long time myself! Then on Sunday John had him invited to speak in the church and they took up a collection for a Heathen college to be carried on strictly heathen principles - whereupon I retired to my corner and laughed until I cried.

He is an educated gentleman, knows as much as anybody. Has been a monk since he was eighteen. Their vows are very much our vows, or rather the vows of a Christian monk. Only Poverty with them means poverty. They have no monastery, no property, they cannot even beg; but they sit and wait until alms are given them. Then they sit and teach people. For days they talk and dispute. He is wonderfully clever and clear in putting his arguments and laying his trains (of thought) to a conclusion. You can't trip him up, nor get ahead of him.

I have a lot of notes I made as stuff for a possible story - at any rate as something very interesting for future reference. We may see hundreds of Hindoo monks in our lives - and we may not."

 Though this meeting was important  for Swamiji to open the doors for Parliament of Religions, it also enriched the Wright family - those who were fortunate enough to have Swamiji as a guest never forgot him. The memory of this and later meetings became a part of the Wright family tradition. Professor Wright's younger son John who was only two years old when Swamiji visited them, always spoke in the family idiom of "our Swami".

It is Junior Wright's kindness that a few of his mother's letters and other papers were made available to Marie L Burke and in a small diary of Mrs. Wright was a faded note under the date Friday, August 25, 1893 - "Rain - swami Vivekananda came. Very warm."