Swami Vivekananda group photo in Green Acre

Swami Vivekananda seated in front. Ralph Waldo Trine (standing) in cowboy hat. In this photo Swamiji is seated under the “Swami’s Pine” with his class. “This photograph was discovered by Elva Nelson [of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society, Boston] and may well be the photograph he spoke of in his letter to the Hale sisters: ‘Herewith I send a photograph Cora Stockham took of the group under the tree. It is only a proof and will fade away under exposure, but I cannot get anything better at present.’ Very likely a more durable print was made for both pictures [30 and 33] which have been taken from finished photographs.” 21 ❊ ❊ ❊ “Instead of materializing the spirit, i. e. dragging the spiritual to the material plane as these fellers do,” [Swamiji] wrote to the Hale sisters, “convert the matter into spirit—catch a glimpse at least every day of that world of infinite beauty and peace and purity, the spiritual, and try to live in it day and night.” (ND [1984] 2:153)