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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Jane Wolfe
50 [rue Vavin] [Paris] VIe
14 - 2 - 21
Bien Aimée,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I am heartily homesick—I miss you terribly—my Still Waters are running amazingly deep. Why haven't you written? I am very anxious about the Abbey [Abbey of Thelema]: This is a sort of ordeal; we shall know in April whether we can all pull together in the boat "Great Work". I've got the MS of CCXX, thank the Gods: must see about reproducing it this morning. Fear it will be a shockingly heavy task—but Fear is Failure, so I'd better put on one of my new seven-year-old shirts, and trot down to Clot. Paris bores me. Good for me, I suppose: I had come to rely so much on your help and sympathy. I am looking forward with passionate longing to your [Magical] Retirement, which should destroy your Ego and make our Way clear to Great Things.
There is acute depression here; unemployment increases constantly; prices are sky high; but that means also that the gambler's spirit is abroad, and we need that in our business. I hope you're working desperately hard on our scenarios: I saw The Cheat last week. There is a bad anti-climax, and many absurdities. One does not invest money during an after-dinner dance and lose it in ten minutes; the markets close in the afternoon. Nor is it explained that the Brand is the Jap's way of marking things as his personal property. (The smoke is easy, by the way; her shoulder is close to the lower edge of the screen; it comes up from below.) My drawing is already improved; but I lack a regular model. I must concentrate on this when I get back to Cefalù—as I ache to do.
But you have got absolutely to arrange to get better food, and better cooking, and the wherewithal. I feel myself more hopelessly incompetent all the time—no, it isn't that exactly; it's lack of will to do 'business'. Even a most promising interview—a triumph almost—leaves me so bored that I could cry. I simply loathe practical details. This seems to get worse all the time. I think it is a defect in me, because the G.[reat] W.[ork] seems to need executive ability of the most contemptible kind (See! I can't help saying "contemptible"! I make a difference between Yoga and pawnbroking—and thereby cometh hurt.)
As you would say—Shit!
Love is the law, love under will.
Your devoted,
Beast 666.
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