The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 9/Letters - Fifth Series/CCXXIII Mademoiselle

To Mme. Emma Calvé

[This letter of condolence was written upon the death of Mme. Calvé’s father and enclosed in a letter to Miss Josephine MacLeod.]

the 15th May 1902

MY DEAR MADEMOISELLE,

With great sorrow I learn the sad bereavement that has come upon you.

These blows must come upon us all. They are in the nature of things, yet they are so hard to bear.

The force of association makes out of this unreal world a reality; and the longer the company, the more real seems the shadow. But the day comes when the unreal goes to the unreal, and, ah, how sad to bear.

Yet that which is real, the Soul, is ever with us, omnipresent. Blessed is the person who has seen the real in this world of vanishing shadows.

I hope, dear Mademoiselle, you have greatly improved in health since our last meeting in Egypt.

May the Lord always shower His choicest blessings on you is the everlasting prayer of

VIVEKANANDA