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Correspondence from George MacNie Cowie to Aleister Crowley
Wed 27 [27 January 1915?]
Re draft lease of Boleskine—Dennes referred me to Williamson & Watt to prepare it is Scottish form.
I was hampered by the fact that the final instructions were made by you, and I never heard the result as to e.g. the proposal to let us have the use of Boleskine occasionally, in the tenants absence.
To guide me as to terms I had Dr M Leslie's letter of offer, and a letter from Mrs Brooke's lawyers asking the draft lease to be prepared. It seemed from that that you had agreed to make certain repairs to the house, and it being impossible to refer to you for precise details, I have therefore agreed that we repair the ceilings etc inside, after an estimate being prepared—the rest seems all right, tenant bound to keep the place in habitable order and so on, rent £150, lease 5 years.
I have been expecting every day this and last week to hear from Dennes, but up to this morning nothing has come to hand, and I must write as I cannot help feeling anxious to get the whole thing signed and sealed and off my mind.
I had the draft prepared many days ago and sent by W.W. & Co. to Dennes. Previously I sent it to Mother [Leila Waddell] to look over, in case she knew the details or saw anything to take exception to, so I think it all right, and that you may be easy about it.
I never wrote you such a screed before! or such a collection of stray sheets. It's not only that there are things of importance to inform you about, but I'm also taking the chance of having been able to write at leisure, to air my views on certain points,—and probably get steam-rollered for them.
I may as well go on, and make another point or two clear. I daresay you understand well enough that I am not hampered as to the reality of your Knowledge or the importance of the future, or of your Mission. With regard to Liber Legis, the simple and obvious commonsense, alone of the new Law would have convinced me had I needed it. It will one day abolish half or more of the misery of the world. The adjurations to you to become a Hun I don't know
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The apostles of the Latest Law of Do-as-you-wouldn't-like-to-be-done-by are not achieving any splendid success, so far, though one is always apprehensive that by some filthy trick they will get the upper hand for a while. A people who have said goodbye to Honour, Chivalry, and Art, whose fighting creed is to hit below the belt preferably, are quite outside of Thelema and I don't believe you if you tell me they are not.
It's not that I am horrified at mere War, or moved at the spectacle of death by battalions, it's the baseness, the meanness, the low motives that prevent sympathy for any of the better qualities of the Huns. They know how to fight and how to die, but so do our own men, and better, and there's no foul fighting with them.
Certain passages in Liber Legis are hard, but as I understand them they in no wise are intended to glorify mere bullying or rapacity. The evident purpose is to produce a fitter and more virile race by the mercy of stamping out the unfit to live. We have come to the pass that everything possible is done to keep alive the most unfit, and nothing to improve conditions for the fit. I cannot walk down the Bridges without seeing scores of poor wretches whom it would be kindness and mercy to send painlessly out of existence.
Take my own case, I agree that it would have been the kinder thing to have let me die after the disease had done its work. Life had been good on the whole, and the latter part of it worth having lived for, but that does not follow in every case. Alas one cannot help feeling that it would be nothing to weep for if most parts of London were and our big cities were levelled to the ground never to rise again under such inhuman conditions. But dear god don't let the dogs of Prussians be the minsters of this—a few good honest cut-throats of Montenegrine would be preferable.
One comfort is that whatever happens we have put up a good (and fair) fight to begin with, and even the Government has for the most part shown good sense and there has been less (or no) muddling through.
The disquieting thing is the apathy shown about ending the war swiftly by every man rising as one—there's a pitiful spectacle at Parkside, a big room of young fellows (a few of whom have been trained) content to sit docketting tickets, when they might at least be living a manly out-of-door life, and no concern about bread. All is not well with a nation like that.
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