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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Montgomery Evans
55 Avenue de Suffren Paris VII
January 17th, 1929
Dear Montgomery:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
Happy New Year to you,—God damn you!
I had begun to think that you were completely dematerialized again.
I was quite happy at the end of the year; my one sorrow was losing Rayner. We really must get her free from her present circumstances. She seems not able to call her soul her own, and that from such a false and ridiculous situation, that it really ought not to exist.
What I want to do is to get my Work properly backed, and I do think this could be done through her and her friend. We are just on the edge of big success, if we can only stick things out for the next few months.
Germer's [Karl Germer] address is 206 Lincoln Place, Brooklyn. You should also call on Miss Cora Eaton, 355 West 57th Street., New York.
Please let me have Seabrook [William Seabrook] on Haiti[1] without fail. I should be very glad to have your "Prodigal Son." I will ask Ogden [C. K. Ogden] to arrange for me to review it; of course anonymously.
Of course there was no one like Bob, and never will be again. There have been about four men in my life that I could say I have loved, and he was certainly one of them. Call me a bugger if you like, but I don't feel the same way about women. One can always replace a woman in a few days. There is a certain l. c. m. in every one of them, which is the thing one really wants, so that (roughly speaking) any woman will do, unless there are accessories which make her impossible. But with men it is altogether different. What attracts one is the positive individuality.
I quite understand about Van Vechten. There is something unsympathetic, at least, superficially, but I have an idea that if one knew him really well, one would get to like him very much.
Please send my greetings to Jacobs [Samuel Aiwaz Jacobs].
I do wish you people in New York, who know me and my Work, would organize and get something done, as I am sure you could if you were working together. I think, moreover, that you are the man to pull the strings, if you would only get right down to business.
I have been to the Auberge once or twice, and Lallouel is rather pathetic in his enquiries after you. He complains that he has not heard from you since you left Paris.
I am the last man in the world to say what I am going to say. But I am going to say it. I think it is much better policy to write to people like this, even if it is only to say that you are very sorry that something terrible has happened, which will prevent you from writing as you would like to, for the next two months, shall we say. But I am sure it is a bad plan to let the man think that you have merely vanished.
The news of Paris simply does not exist. We have not been out of the house of over a month, except when really urgent business made it necessary. I never struck anything so completely dead in my life. There is nowhere to go, and if there were, one would not want to go there.
With regard to Miss Eaton, take her out and cheer her up, and make her realize what a fine place Paris is. She is a person who has just woken up sufficiently to realize what a wonderful life she has missed. Soothe her declining years!
I wish to God, I could get away to the sunshine, if it were only for a fortnight. But we have important conferences in Paris for the end of the month.
Give me good notice of your return. I think we could have lots more fun at about the tenth of the price if we were fixed up in some big house with a car and could do some entertaining, it would be very much better business. In the meanwhile, I have a severe pain, because her ladyship is still asleep, at 12:20 p.m. and the prospect of my getting any lunch today is extremely remote.*
Love is the law, love under Will.
Yours fraternally,
Aleister
* P.S. We got it.
1—[Refers to William Seabrook's book on Haiti, The Magic Island.]
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