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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Austin Harrison
[Undated: circa September 1913]
Dear Austin Harrison,
I am afraid you will never acquire literary sense. My letter was not sincere. It was merely a sample of the kind of letter you lay yourself open to by such conduct as I have had to deplore. I thought I made it clearly understood that I could not work on the magazine [the English Review] until paid for it. I have tried writing articles to suit you, but you always want me to write them again and you keep on doing this, so that if I were to comment, I might have to work for the rest of my life on this on meagre article. However on receipt of the £20 I will endeavour to remove any spark of liveliness or wit that may be lurking in the article, and in every other way try to lower it to the standard of the "English Review". But, if in the course of an honest day's work I do my best in this matter, and if you then want me to put it into poetry or Dorsetshire dialect, or in the style of Tolstoi or Josh Billings, I shall require a refresher.
By this means, I hope, we shall keep as much goodwill in business as we have in golf, with regard to which I should like to make a few further remarks. I was under the impression that we were to play three days, 36 holes a day, on three courses and that this was to constitute a single match, payment to be made on the evening of that match. But on the fateful day at Mitcham, you wanted to do an entirely different set of things. You wanted 18 holes to count as 36, and as we might be a little late for the train, proposed 16 would be as good as 18, and "didn't it look like rain"? "Let us play 14". Now I was giving you odds considerably in excess of 1/4, the difference between our handicaps, and under such circumstances I think you ought to have been particularly scrupulous not to try for any further advantage. An 18 hole match is not the same as one of 108 holes. It is quite possible for me to catch Harry Vardon on an off day and beat him for a stroke in the course of a final round, but it is a million to one against me doing so in 6 rounds. Well, then, with regard to the incident of the 12th green, when you said "I never claim a hole on penalty: but I always expect my opponent when he loses the hole in this manner—to offer to give it up, so that I may have the exquisite pleasure of saying 'Why, of course not, dear old chap, this is a friendly game' " You can never have had a clear picture of yourself.
Let me recall what happened in stirring yet sober language. My ball was on the edge of the green, yours near the other hole. It was my turn to play. A dog picked up your ball, was chased away by the caddie, and dropped it. Your caddie then picked up the ball, and put it what he perhaps thought was in its previous place, but which appeared to me much nearer the hole. You then holed out, although it was my turn to play: in fact, you behaved throughout as if I was not there, and indeed I was not, being transported into the 85th Heaven by the extraordinary spectacle before me.
Now all this continued so very high handed, and would not have been done by anyone with a single figure handicap. If a point arises in the smallest degree out of the ordinary course of the game, every golfer at once draws his opponent's attention to the circumstance, and is very careful to do nothing without reaching an agreement. These unusual circumstances continually crop up, but it is very rare to find disputes take on unfriendly form. But you told me that because my handicap was 3, I should immediately give way to one whose handicap was 14, however illegal his proceedings might be. I was rather offended. What spoils golf is these wretched long-handicap man, I think ignorance of the rules of humanity as to contract deliberately out of the rules. They agree not to play stymies, in other words, they agree not to play golf. Why then, do they frequent the links.
It is this unconscious Roman Spirit in myself, and possibly like Love and Gordon Smith, that keeps the game anything like Golf. Innovations are always prowling at our gates. If we are not always careful, the millions who have already broken away from Golf by using illegal clubs will introduce billiard cue putters, and howitzer drivers, and get their balls out of bunkers by electricity. The Rules of Golf should be studied as conscientiously as the study of the works of the Fathers, and the rigour of their application should remind one of the Trappists.
Now it is off my chest.
Yours ever.
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