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Correspondence from George MacNie Cowie to Aleister Crowley
14 Glenisla Gardens, Edinburgh.
1 Feb 1917.
Care Frater.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Thank God your letter (no date) arrived again at a psychological moment. I was feeling unfit for work this forenoon and just as I reached home the post girl handed in your letter which has bucked me up a bit, tho' it shows you are suffering even worse than I am. Also it's come just in time for a reply in the letter I was anyway meditating to send.
A fresh bolt from the blue (if we can call it 'blue' except in the sardonic sense) came this morning (see encl:) and implies a fresh burden on the already oversaddled B. [Boleskine] estate. With one thing and another I'm getting quite broken hearted and in dread of a collapse. Altho' I'm not starving yet, not should you if you were here, I believe I feel all these mean worries about money more keenly than you do, being a man who can't sit still and who thinks himself a slave if he's in debt to the extent of six pence.
It seems to me that the moment has come, when in the melodrama, only the descent of a god in a plumed hearse will prevent everything from going to hell. As far as that goes however the arrival of a million dollar cheque next week, after the first satisfaction, would only increase my agonies in another way as—for the 1,000,000th time—can no more keep books than I can keep a bar. I often think that no future success materially can compensate you or me either for these last three years.
[Note: The remainder may be part of another letter.]
Now about that pestilence, the dem H[un] who has been the cause of the only doubtful feeling I've ever had against you, my virulence (hot hate, one doesn't have a bad smell) is due entirely to the remembrance of that M.S. you gave me to read and the persistent way in which you have, whether in jest of earnest I don't know, held up and whitewashed the H[un]. It would have taken another M.T. [Magister Templi] to have seen in that an endeavour to raise me on a higher plane.
I do not call him 'names'—I give him his due titles. The German is a born servile and as is the nature of slaves a merciless and inhuman tyrant when he gets to be, or imagines he is, top dog. He's a dirty dog in any case, boor and true bully. See how he whines when he gets what he is so eager to give others. Observe the crass stupidity with which he sets the whole world against him. Such is not of Thelema, not to be held up as an encouragement or an example of the Law of the Strong as suggested in your M.S., something by which we will be enabled to lift our heads in turn. We totally misunderstood you, but anyway that's my position.
I understand quite well that many things people look on as virtues are really vices and vice versa. But I draw the line if it comes to the paradox that sheer dastardliness, card sharping, sadism, and mean lying are to be held up as virtues. Not for G.M.C.—and whilst I am talking straight, here is another thing straight, but withal brotherly—I think it is time you said something nice about your other brother the Englishman who is any way behaving as a Man should do. It is shameful to hate the Hun, but not to hate the English and the English pharisee? There are plenty him I know and he and the Fiat Paxes (why did you label me with that rotten name!) will do their best when it comes to peace being signed to let the bully down gently, becos he is their Brother, and give him a chance to begin the mischief all over again.
Now I've spat that out, tell me I misunderstood you with regard to Thelema and I can regard the whole business when I choose as if it were happening in the Pole Star. If the Hun is to have his horn exalted what would I care for all your future millions? Dem 'em. But if we have to fight about this, it's brotherly, always.
F.P. (Dephiant Pax!)
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