The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 9/Letters - Fifth Series/CXXV Mr. J. J. Goodwin’s Mother

To Mr. J. J. Goodwin's mother

[On receiving  news of the untimely death of Josiah J. Goodwin, Swami Vivekananda sent the following paragraph along with the poem “Requiescat in Pace” (This poem has been previously published in [6]Complete Works, IV.) to the newspapers as well as to Goodwin's mother.]

June 1898

With infinite sorrow I learn the sad news of Mr. Goodwin's departure from this life, the more so as it was terribly sudden and therefore prevented all possibilities of my being at his side at the time of death. The debt of gratitude I owe him can never be repaid, and those who think they have been helped by any thought of mine ought to know that almost every word of it was published through the untiring and most unselfish exertions of Mr. Goodwin. In him I have lost a friend true as steel, a disciple of never — failing devotion, a worker who knew not what tiring was, and the world is less rich by one of those few who are born, as it were, to live only for others.