JOHN BULL

London, England

6 June 1908

(page 539)

AMONG THE BOOKS.

“Konx Om Pax: Essays in Light." By Aleister Crowley. (London: Scott. 1907.)

Facing the title-page are the words "Review Copy—Not for Sale." I have never seen this intimation printed in any book before, and it is peculiarly unnecessary in the present case, as I am sure nobody would part with the book for untold gold. The author is evidently that rare combination of genius, a humourist and a philosopher. For pages he will bewilder the mind with abstruse exoteric pronouncements, and then, all of a sudden, he will reduce his readers to hysterics with some surprisingly quaint conceit. I was unlucky to begin reading him at breakfast and I was moved to so much laughter that I watered my bread with my tears and barely escaped a convulsion. The first chapter is entitled "The Wake World: A Tale for Babes and Sucklings" (with explanatory notes in Hebrew and Latin for the use of the wise and prudent)." It consists not only of apposite quotations in Hebrew, Arabic, Armenian, Egyptian hieroglyphics and other evidences of deep research, but a familiar Bible quotation attributed to “Anon." There is also the following pithy African proverb:—

Owe ni ifa ipa

Omoran ni imo—

Bi a ba wipe mo—

Onioran a mo.

Then we have a subtle flight of imagination entitled “Ali Sloper; or, The Forty Liars. A Christmas Diversion," from which I cannot forbear to quote a gem or two:

Bowley.—More coffee, please. I attribute the Baby to Malkuth. Mrs. Bones, may I paint the baby bright yellow all over? Heedless of Mother's sighs and groans He painted blue the Baby Bones, in the well-known 'porphyrean of the late John Keats, on whom be peace. . . . But as I say, your alleged husband trains neither his child nor his moustache; and I will contend with him, I will fight and overcome him; yea, I will inflict upon him my celebrated essay upon Truth—and he shall never rise again! It is written in the manner of Immanuel Kant. Ay, but of Immanuel Kant in bed with Bessie Bellwood. The hands are the hands of Schopenhauer, bid the voice is the voice of Arthur Roberts. . . . The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto the Man in the Moon, who stood on the shores of Lake Copernicus and said: "What a beautiful earth-rise! How wonderful are the dark shadows on yon silver globe! They are like a hare, like a dog, like a bally great rabbit with its tail in its mouth. One would say a young virgin in pink sandals with her hair in curl papers.”

Seriously, there are some really fine frenzied poems, almost as destitute of meaning as those of Swinburne, and the design on the cover is the finest prescription for a nightmare I have ever seen. The book ought very certainly to be popular in Bethlem Hospital.