SWAMI VIVEKANANDA - Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture

Memorable Events in the Life of Swami Vivekananda21
have gone through the books attentively, and if you have
any doubt about it, you may ask any question you like
from the books.' The librarian then asked a number of
questions and Swamiji correctly answered them. The
librarian was astonished. Never before had he seen such
a person as Swamiji!
The Raja of Khttri was equally amazed by
Swamiji's mode of reading. Swamiji would simply
turn over the pages of a book quite hurriedly from
beginning to the end, and that was all—the book had
been read! When the Raja asked how that was possible,
Swamiji explained that when a child first learns to read
he fixes his attention on a particular letter of the
alphabet, pronounces it twice or thrice, and then moves
on to the next letter to utter the whole word. As he
masters the art of reading a little, he keeps his attention
on each word. After much practice he can read a
sentence at a glance. If one goes on increasing his power
of concentration, one can read a page in the twinkling of
an eye. Swamiji said that was exactly what he did and
added that three things were necessary—continence,
practice, and concentration. Anybody could achieve this
power if he scrupulously adhered to these three things.
Once he astonished Haripada Mitra, the Subdivisional
Forest Officer of Belgaum, by reciting from
memory a large portion of Dickens's Pickwick Paper.?.
Haripadababu was more wonder-struck when Swamiji