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Correspondence from George MacNie Cowie to Aleister Crowley
14 Glenisla Gardens, Edinburgh.
14 Oct. [1916]
Care Frater.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Your turn to be victimised by my attempts to master the typewriter. There! that is not too bad for a beginning. But it is difficult to compose a letter whilst I have painfully to think which key of for D and which for A and which M and where the devil is N, and remember to space, and all that sort of thing. But we are creeping on. And I've sent quite a few almost readable letters and can make copies at a pinch and already it is pleasanter than writing. You will have to have this, warts and all.
I want to say that I don't like the get up of the O.T.O. manifesto at all, the printers set the whole thing complete without showing a specimen par. I was in a hurry to have proofs whilst I was in London I felt I could not afford more than eight pages: as a matter of fact it requires sixteen to display the matter properly in bold type, I shall not reprint it in this form, but it serves immediate purposes. It should really be a booklet however and embody some more matter from the original manifesto, the first page is particularly ugly, nearly as bad as the green cover of the said manifesto.
From the same cause the setting of the J.B.K. Epistle is a failure, and I have ruthlessly scrapped it. Setting it now, exactly as the 'Law of Liberty' but eight pages. Got a dozen pulls for immediate use and send you a few, as likely to be useful for offering to Reviews etc.
About the china egg, I have not had time to arrange with a lawyer to draw up a deed of gift or whatever it is that is legally required. You had better advise. I am buying something. I saw advertised a 'Brick Safe'. It is just a cheap kind of small iron strong box. I have not had a really safe place to keep the MSS in hitherto. I shall send S.L. [William Steff-Langston] a duplicate key so that in case of accident he can come and secure all the papers. You should note that the mortgage paper on Boleskine has always been kept in a sealed package addressed to you, so as to avoid trouble in case of my death at any time.
One bother is that to tide us better over what I hoped would have been ended sooner, I have not paid my share of my step-sister's board for two years nearly, but instead have allowed her slender capital to be dipped into and it will by no means last for ever. Poor woman, she has an iron constitution and may herself live for ever. I had hoped to pay some of this by now, but had not bargained for all this printing. By the way, rather than fresh printing, it will be wise to spend on making the most of what we have now, i.e. advertising it and paving the way for fresh matter. At the same time as people are unable to imagine for themselves the results of a world ruled by the Law of Thelema I suggest a paper under some such title as "The World to Come". This no doubt is implied in the Manifesto, what I am thinking of is some more general and popular essay that will make people study the Manifesto itself.
Not sure that I've not been 'done' over that typewriter. Never mind when I've battered it to pulp I will dump it on some one for five pounds.
Love is the law, love under will.
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