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Correspondence from George MacNie Cowie to Aleister Crowley
14 Glenisla Gardens, Edinburgh.
[Undated: circa 1916?]
[The first two pages of the letter are missing]
My return home was greatly saddened by the news that my old friend Captain Nelson had been killed in France—I was much in contact with him in the years just before the war—and learned his unusual value as a man (huckstering was not his strong side). When the war broke out, he instantly dropped and sacrificed everything, gave up his town house for a hospital and having been in the Yeomanry for years was at once an efficient fighting man. He was the most popular man of his time at Oxford, and would be there whilst you were at Cam[bridge]. A quite unusually favoured life and character have ended in a glorious death, but another link with the past has snapped for me, and a light gone out of the place, for good.
You never mentioned if you got the Hymn to the American Republic printed over there, I expect do. The on in 'Winged Beetle' I cannot recall and my copy is not at hand at the moment. I can understand how hampered you must feel in not having the means to move about freely, and it's a puzzle, why, so to speak, you are expected to make bricks, but left to find the straw.
It's all getting worse instead of better, living will soon be a serious problem and I seem in for running a free guest house. I have two just now, and the whole lot, inspired by Mary's [Mary Davies] accounts, would descend on me, but for the prohibitive fares. The Hawkes I hope to have, they were enormously kind to me. In Hammond's [Benjamin Charles Hammond] case I'll have to pay his fare, and one other. Poor H[ammond] will be the better of a holiday.
What's better than money is that this week I had a chance to bind up the broken-hearted and to put new spirit into one of our new B[rethren]. It's something of which you will fully approve one day.
I found all going rightly in London, Mary has to keep a tight hand, I think, to keep Wolfe from introducing Martinist touches. He signs himself—e.g. I noticed—instead of III degree and a few appear to think this clever and follow suit. It wasn't worth while noticing, but on another point I told Mary that she must see that in the I degree, the l.b. is really not nominally b, the preparing officer to explain the symbolism to the candidate. Obvious exceptions permissible at the L[odge] M[aster]'s discretion.
They do love swank! Officers now have Templar cloaks—correct enough I suppose? I don't know everything. When I took my seat in the first I degree reception, my gravity was in some danger, at the spectacle of a certain B[rother] sitting solemnly in the gown you used to wear for the 'Phoenix' with his Mason's apron and collar over it.
By the way I'm an ignorant A.G. J. G. and you'd better tell me what are the proper gee-gaws to wear to assert dignity. I never thought! but they lent me a blue collar and apron. H[ammond] has a VI degree sash etc at home, that would make S. L. [William Steff-Langston] green with envy. The latter has been spoken to about misusing the A.A. robe, but——— ——— I fear nonessentials get mistaken for essentials.
But on the whole I think all goes wonderfully well, and a good and firm foundation is being built. Olney turned up by the way, I had pictured him as a grey-beard. I saluted him as due to one of the Old Guard.
Personally, I'm well, merely getting rid of the remnants of a cold, and I feel more braced up. I don't feel however that no fresh troubles are ahead. You've had a pretty tough time and I wish that some 'funeral' of sorts would come on.
It will be too late this mail (I am writing early) to let you know what the results of the afternoon's interview. Something will depend on the lawyer's advice. Well, I must stop, I hope M.O.H. [Mother of Heaven—Leila Waddell] is all right? All salutations and good wishes to you both.
Love is the law, love under will. (I have re-read the Canon of the Mass, before sending it off.)
Ever fraternally.
Geo M Cowie.
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