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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Wilfred Talbot Smith
55 Avenue de Suffren
24 Feb 29
Care Frater
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Thanks for yours of the 4th instant. By the same post arrived your letter forwarded by Yorke [Gerald Yorke]. I don't think the Mrs R. [Rosa Reynolds] is wholly responsible for the trouble. I think that this blackguard Hunt [Carl de Vidal Hunt] influenced K. [Kasimira Bass] against going on with the business, perhaps with the idea that he could get some influence over her himself, and employ her in one of the dirty games by which he lives and moves and has his being.
I enclose you a copy of a fake letter that she wrote to K. to show to Yorke. Unfortunately the typescript is not really adequate. The manuscript bears on the face of it the evidence of the fake. It is so obviously the fair copy of a carefully drafted letter, calculated to mislead, and K. actually admitted that it was sent under cover of another letter couched in quite contradictory terms for the definite purpose of throwing dust in our eyes.
I think you might easily bluff Mrs R into a confession. If she thought that the covering letter was in our hands, she would probably be scared stiff.
The mystery about Julius Caesar and the rent is very simple, and I may as well treat you as a real friend and tell you the whole story. Jane [Jane Wolfe] wrote me that some of your difficulty in getting things over with people was due to the fact that you were a little careless about your personal appearance and general presentation to the average boob. It is extremely important that you should always look and act like a Banker who came over on the Mayflower. It makes all the difference as to how people treat you. Of course it does not do you very much good to be manicured every three days, but it does you a lot of harm if you are not manicured every three days.
I feel very cheap talking this way. It seems as if I were compromising with the most stupid form of vanity, but the fact is that if you are working with snobs you have to humour their sensibilities. So put in the next few weeks with the dentist and the beauty parlour, and you will find it all improves your credit, and thereby your cash.
As far as I can make out, by dint of using credit as well as cash, we shall be able to get Magick [Magick in Theory and Practice] published. But as far as working expenses are concerned, we are likely to run dry in about a month's time. That is the urgency of the matter of K.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours fraternally
666
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