“I have to thank you for your kind letter and for your valuable present, the Svarûpânusandhâna. If you had sent me a real necklace of precious stones it might have been called a magnificent present, but it would not have benefited myself, my true Âtman. The necklace of precious sentences which you have sent me has, however, benefited myself, my true Âtman, and I, therefore, consider it a far more precious present than mere stones or pearls. Besides, in accepting it, I need not be ashamed, for they become only my own, if I deserve them, that is, if I truly understand them. While we are still in our first and second Â_s_rama (station of life) we cannot help differing from one another according to the country in which we are born, according to the language we speak, and according to the Dharma (religion) in which we have been educated. But when we enter into the third and fourth Â_s_rama, into which you have entered and I am entering, we differ no longer, G_ñ_âtvâ Deva_m_ sarvapâ_s_âpahâni_h_, ‘When God has become really known, all fetters fall.’ “Though in this life we shall never meet, I am glad to have met you in spirit.” I received another letter from him when he was just on the point of retiring from the world altogether and becoming a Sa_m_nyâsin, as far as that is possible in modern India. By taking this step he showed that he was indeed a Vedântist in good earnest. What with us is but one of the many theories of life, was to him the only saving faith; and while with us an old Prime Minister clings to the end to his political interests, and loves to be surrounded and amused by those who belong to him, we see here a real hero of thought who, freed from all desires, turns his eyes away from the whole phenomenal world to dwell only on what is eternal and unchangeable, the Paramâtman—the Highest Self. To most of us this intellectual atmosphere, which he breathed to the very last, would prove too exhausting. We can never drop all fetters—nay, many of us glory in them to the very end. But whatever we may think of his philosophy, there can be no doubt that his life was consistent throughout. He tried to live up to the standard which had been handed down to him from remote antiquity, and which he fully believed to be the best and the truest. This last letter is dated July 11, 1886. In it he says:—