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)