Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Gerald Kelly

Calcutta.

13/12/01 [13 December 1901]

Dear Gerald.

Here's your letter from Rue Vaugirard. I think your ménage absurd: never mind: you will get to understand bye-and-bye. There is a life beyond Cambridge: there is beauty in Bohemianism and "unpaid for w's c [whore's cunt]". Georges Sand and de M in preface to Gami ani [?] say you must have for a change "un amour de catin" un amour not a vulgar 5 fr worth. That is the point few people see. Get behind the sordidness of your whore's life with other men and yourself. See what woman is behind. Read and analyse Fifine—a woman doesn't open her soul for 5 fr as a rule—and these bitches have souls and are just as much God as you and I are. But as long as there is a business relation of any sort you don't see it. This is a quaint doctrine let us pass on.

On W[aikiki] Beach. Your raptures, justifiable perhaps, but absurd addressed to me! You are of course very very nice. Your raptures are rather contradictory—your letter and your notes to typed pome disagree. I return you latter with one or two alterations. But I must explain. W. Beach was written on "The Third Day". "She was more graceful than the royal palm" etc. See the connection?

     S

tanza 2. lion-shapen. Lion-couchant perhaps better. Moves in bridal passions empery. Bad as you say. Lion bull eagle  man wheel the Kerubim. The man is introduced watching what is only nature.

6 silvern shape and span.

Instantly the man is caught up from nature to the soul of nature. This marks the division of the poem—from observation to rapture—day to moonlight—matter to spirit, as shown clearly in the last line.

Stanza 4. Perceive period—pass like pale faces. The pendulum of life has ceased—the years pass: not vibrating—a single steady movement. The change from 2 to 1. So day and night and tides are not noted "no more, no more:"

Alice [Alice: an Adultery].

Tell Fust from me he absolutely must not. It's moral and intellectual ruin. "You pay in vain for Carrousel". You have cut the throat of my girl-princess. Thanks. I accept all your emendations. I want this introduction to be you and Fust not me. There is already me in the bulk of the poem. The obvious difference of style will puzzle the critics, q.e.f.

The order of Alice is now

Introduction by editor. Brief criticism by ? Introduction by author (heartless pathetic) What lay before includes White Poppy, Messaline, melusine, Margaret (? this I might do elsewhere bar "I'm that fair fountain, this." equals "They united the organs they previously kissed with!")

Days 1-4. Reincarnation. 5-12 Red Poppy. 13-16 Alice. 17 Love and Fear. 18-26 Under the Palms. 27-36 Lethe. 37- end and "After".

What I want is you to take the whole responsibility of Intro. and Criticism and to give your detailed views on the text.

Tannhäuser. Have you seen the dedication and preface and passed the latter? I think it will do.

Send me some of your studies and photos of your pictures (if you have the latter) I shall be art-sick in Kashmir.

Not a word more. I am overwhelmed with Tannhaüser proofs: Orphy [Orpheus] etc, I can't do with K.F.^[1] but it might be handy in Kashmir.

Seen G∴D∴ [Golden Dawn] in newspapers? You should call Macgregor [MacGregor Mathers] of Paris. Allan [Allan Bennett] only cares for the "sublime hymn". I don't think I showed him On W.B. [On Waikiki Beach].

Ever as ever.

Aleister Crowley.

The Picture Portrait. Of course. Cf. On W. Beach. You can not imitate Nature you must beat her. See Fra Lippo Lippi towards the end. Nature is nearly always marred (surely I know who have lived with her in so many aspects) by incongruities in the soul of her e.g. a windmill canal scene in sunset (Holland)—"Melancholy"? And there's a laughing girl in the foreground! But an artist must make everything subservient to his one idea.

1—[King's Friend. A play that Crowley was writing. It does not survive. Gerald Yorke.]

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