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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Gerald Yorke
55 Avenue de Suffren, Paris, VII
February 19th, 1929
Care Frater:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Yours of the 15th. Thank you for sending me £10 to cover distributing the prospectuses. It is £2 too much. Please take it off the £12 required for the expenses connected with hospital pharmacies when you feel like sending that.
Regardie [Israel Regardie] is feeling much better; but he will have to take the greatest possible care of himself for the next two months. This is very serious.
I have myself been feeling pretty rotten, with coughs and colds and chills, and the rheumatism has begun to come back. I am taking good care of myself, and going more or less on a regime.
Bayley [James Gilbert Bayley] wrote me that Hunt [Carl de Vidal Hunt] had been writing abuse in the American papers. But it appears that it was a false alarm. He was referring to an article which appeared last April by the super-idiot Nigel Trask.
There were twelve of the Seabrook [William Seabrook] articles,[1] but I had, I think, only ten of them. There are apparently seven missing, not three as you suggest. Incidentally, I understand from the police that they had the articles Hunt stole from me. It is also pretty certain that he gave them a copy of the Gilbert operetta.[2]
I don't propose to take any action at present, but I do think the matter may be usefully discussed the next time you and Aumont [Gerard Aumont] are with me. Aumont is just the sort of man to pull the strings.
About the publicity, the chess point seems to be that mud is as thick and black as it can be, and there is no room to put any more. Any change would be a change for the better, and as long as we take no notice we are liable at any moment to have our operations messed up at the most critical point. Whereas if we once hit back successfully, no one will ever try the game on again. Bayley's information having been incorrect, the present is not a good opportunity.
Talking of chess, I am sending you a copy of a game[3] played for the Groupe de Paris. It took seven hours to play over the board. It is very encouraging to see how a game can be pulled out of the fire after such a childish blunder as that on my 11th move.
Yours of the 17th. Thanks for the proofs. But we sent them to you, not for correction, which is our business—it is an art which I strongly recommend you not to learn; as long as there are any sewers to clean, you would be ill-advised to adopt it as a profession—but that you might handle the matter with Simpkin Marshall. You may, however, as well wait until we have the proofs of the book, not the appendices, complete.
I am interested to know your ideas about the IX°.
I not what you say about K. I am sending a letter to Smith which he will hand to Mrs. Reynolds [Rosa Reynolds] if he thinks it good policy. The situation is certainly mysterious.
I should certainly approach Simpkin Marshall. If Holroyd Reece takes over the book, he simple takes over the standing arrangements, and the further those arrangements have gone, the better we shall be able to bargain.
Frank Harris, who is probably the greatest bargainer that ever lived, once impressed upon me the importance of cash in the hand and the general air of prosperity. It put s one in a stronger position in dealing with any possible customers. As you may be aware, a great number of respectable aged citizens keep expensive mistresses, who are no more use to them than a cautery on a wooden leg, as the French say, simply because it improves their credit on the Bourse, that they are known to be maintaining an expensive ménage.
Mr. Estiez, the principal of Lecram, called here last night, as I was not well enough to go out. I arranged with him to sign a traite for the approximate balance of his account, payable June 21st. So we have until then to get in that amount for that purpose. Galignani already sent in one order. It is too early to expect anything from the other booksellers or from America. Shakespeare & Co. are taking some prospectuses as soon as the next 1,000 are printed off, and I hope to plant a goodly number on Titus [Edward W. Titus]. There are one or two other people, but I have not been well enough to find them out. I hope to do so in the course of the present week.
Please see Longman. But do explain to them, just as soon as they have eaten up the synopsis with relish, that the book, as written, is not properly speaking a book at all. It is a collection of documents, from which a book can be prepared by some skilful biographer. I am sure that is the proper form for the book to appear in at first.
When that is exhausted will be the time to offer the entire manuscript, as it stands, privately printed at a fabulous figure, advertising that it contains all the suppressed passages. That is good business, and it is also wanted from the point of view of history.
You will not compromise my relations with Reece. On the contrary, if we have got an offer from Longman, it will be a right bower.
I hope you remembered hat the rent is due on the 20th.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours fraternally,
666.
Gerald Yorke, Esq., 9, Mansfield Street, London, W. 1.
2—[The pornographic one: a Crowley typescript.]
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