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Correspondence from Leah Hirsig to Frank Bennett
COLLEGIUM AD SPIRITUM SANCTUM
Cefalu, Sicily
Jan. 14, 1922.
Dear AHA [Frank Bennett],
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I started to write you a few days after you left us. We were put out of the Hotel de France two days after you left. Weinen got scared because all the male and other cats talked to our dear little friend Jack Stenning and told him what a terrible person A.C. was—The British Counsul and the Canon of the English Church and Fighting Bob of the English Tea Rooms. We protected dear little Jack and told him to visit us in Cefalu which he did the day after we left Palermo. He stayed with us three days and then beat it with 100 lire and my watch and ring. He has been fleecing all the British Counsuls in Sicily and as yet the police have not been able to locate him. In the mean time, A.C. sent a copy of The Equinox to the worthy McBean and the latter is very much changed in his attitude.
Other things have been happening here too. For instance, Shummy's [Ninette Shumway] sister spent a month with us and that show ended with A.C.’s putting her out at five minutes notice. She is a well-meaning person whose business is to upset people like Ninette on the plea that she is trying to save her. We have pacified Giosue[1] about the 12000 lire and as you see by A.C.’s letter, the London money is not yet here. What a wait Erna would have had had she waited at the Villa Aegiea for her beloved!
I am correcting your copy of Liber C and will enclose same unless something happens to delay me. The kids are fine—Lulu is a great big girl and gets more fascinating every day.
We were glad to find from the prospectus that you were to reach home in time for your Christmas dinner. Every time that we sit down to our somewhat sumptuous tea, (which is nearly every evening) good little Shummy says “I wish Bennett were here when I think of the poor teas we used to have when he was here!—“ We are not any more prosperous but our credit is good and we are trusting in the good things that are to come.
Thank you very much for the letters you wrote us from the ship. It gives us the greatest pleasure to hear from one who was so very much one of us—and still is, though far away. I am only sorry that you had such a bad time of it but perhaps that was all part of the game and any way, the Yi [King] said it would be so, so of course you couldn’t cheat the Yi.
The Yi and Jane [Jane Wolfe] have decided that her time here is not up—she is postponing her trip to America for a while longer.
By the way, we had snow a few days ago—the first time in the history of Cefalu! as far as any of the present natives know. The hills across and beyond the valley were covered with whiteness and the courtyard, our very own courtyard had nice little deposits of ice in corners to say nothing of a fine covering of hail on the window sills and elsewhere. The boys acted like loons when they saw it—they gathered a whole pail of it and messed around for a great time. Hansi slipped and slid and of course got his bottom all wet.
A.C. has been very patient—it was no joke for him to have to come back to Cefalu but he is taking it well and has worked a great deal under the most trying circumstances. We are both hoping to get away in the near future to do some stirring up in the world of people. As you well know, his place is not to be secluded permanently—the world is what he needs and it need him.
Now I must stop—All wish to be remembered to you and wish you every success. Keep on the Job—we all will—and Thelema will be pass-word and the Word for the work.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours fraternally,
Alostrael, the S[carlet]. W[oman]. (Leah)
P.S. I’m sorry the enclosed ΑΓΑΠΗ [Liber Agape Azoth sal Philosophorum] is not a better looking copy—partly my fault, partly Beast’s—he always manages to mess things up and I have caught the habit. Lea.
P.P.S. Am also enclosing letter of authority—should you have located the one I thought I had given you, please destroy one or the other. Love—Lea.
1—Don Giosuč was the proprietor of a local shop who appears to have acted as rental agent for Barone Carlo La Calce, the owner of the Villa Santa Barbara: the building Crowley rented for his Abbey of Thelema. The money referred to is presumably rental arrears.
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