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Correspondence from MacGregor Mathers to Annie Horniman
22 November 1896.
Cara et V.H. Soror Fortiter et Recte,[1]
I have duly received your answer to my Manifesto, and am satisfied with the same; save that I expect submission in the working of the Order of the R.R. et A.C., and that of the G.D. [Golden Dawn], as well as in the teaching of both.
It is in matters concerning the working and administrative management that I have been so displeased with you and others of late, or I should say during the past twelve month.
The Order is a fraternity, wherein the feelings of fraternity should exist between the members. Of what use is it to call each other Frater and Soror, and advocate the principles of mutual love and harmony; unless these are carried out in practice as well as in theory! There are enough and to spare of Societies and clubs in the outer world , where social considerations and gossip are paramount, and where a thinly veiled system of private pique and hostility obtains. Let those who love such petty bickerings and disputes, belong to such dubs and societies; but I will have none of this in the G.D. Either the word "fraternal" implies such mutual forbearance and trust, as should be the mainspring of a higher and better life than that of ordinary Society; or it is simply a mockery to employ it. The nature or natures which can take a delight in injuring their co-workers, in professing friendship with the lips, the better to wound them when absent; and which endeavour to excuse this by the profession of zeal for the welfare of the Order; are not those in whom the Divine nature of the Higher Soul is paramount, nor are they those to whom the Divine Wisdom should be given.
But, however much I have been justly hurt at the utterly uncalled for spite and hostility, you have causelessly displayed towards me of late; injuring me by every means in your power, from endeavoring to undermine my authority in the Order, down to reducing me to poverty in the Outer World; I have always and shall always value the great amount of useful and unselfish work you did in both Orders, especially as the bearer of the Neophyte symbol, which latterly I only retook from you at the Corpus Christi, at the especial suggestion of S.A. [Sapere Aude—William Wynn Westcott], rearranging the officers according to his scheme; his wish being to retain L.O. [Percy W. Bullock], and change you, S.S.D.D. [Florence Farr] and Resurgam [Edward Berridge], while asking you to continue your teaching.[2] The only fault I found with the latter was that you were inclined to treat the instruction rather from the point of view of scholar rather than of student.
With S.A., also, I have been much annoyed of late, considering that he has all along known what no one else in the Order has, namely the severe strain of my labours therein and yet has deliberately endeavoured to reduce me to the level of a puppet.
1—Soror F.E.R. [Annie Horniman] sent Mathers a "written statement of voluntary submission", but he was unsatisfied with her reply and responded with this letter. 2—Here is another example of Sapere Aude's [William Wynn Westcott] intention to remove Resurgam as a governing officer of the Order. In retaliation for his removal, Resurgam may have exposed Westcott as "a prominent official of a society . . . possessed of magical powers" to his employers.
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