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Correspondence from John Quinn to Aleister Crowley
December 9, 1915.
My dear Crowley:
I just got back from Washington. I got your letter from San Francisco. At that time I had a moment's leisure and I answered it. My letter was returned from the St. Francis a few days ago. It is too stale now to send.
I have been hellishly driven and busy and harassed and annoyed and irritated, till I have almost had murder in my heart and hell outside, and nearly all over preventable and unnecessary irritations and stupidities. The big things in life like illness, worry over friends, and so on, one can stand without the quiver of a nerve. But the other things, and the people who make all sorts of demands on one's purse and person, they are the devils. I remarked this to a friend of mine the other day, and promptly came back a letter stating that he had two girls in his office "either one of whom believes she could help me to successfully withstand these assaults that I hourly endure." Which I thought slightly ambiguous. I wonder if their willingness to help me to endure assaults meant that they were willing to participate in assaults? And the man that wrote that letter wasn't a Greek either. But I follow the old maxim: "Beware of such offers even when they come as a gift". They are even more dangerous as a gift than as a commodity.
Some time in the course of the next two or three weeks I am going to have Francis Grierson up to my place some night, and if you are here and free I shall want to ask you.
I hope you had a pleasant trip in the west.
Sincerely yours,
John Quinn
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