|
Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Gerald Yorke
55 Avenue de Suffren VII
[undated: circa 11 March 1929]
C∴F∴
93
I had your telegram of Sunday, and now your registered letter of Saturday with fr[ancs] 200.
I must be plain with you about your last paragraph.
Did not you read—Fear is failure it is the first word said to the Neophyte? It is quite useless for you to aspire to any magical attainment whatever while you take this attitude. Better clinch it.
But there is more to come. Men do fundamentally despise a coward whatever his reasons are for running away. And they respect the silliest fool who runs into danger for his side. That is what the V[ictoria] C[ross] is given for. Hang it, the first charge you brought against me was that I 'abandoned my [illegible].
No, you've got to be ready to spill the last drop of your blood in the cause of righteousness.
Men who do this are men, and go down to history as heroes. The other kind often succeed in life, but they earn their own contempt as they do that of their fellows. Even the cowards snigger at then behind their backs.
"Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." If I were to acquiesce in your attitude which would be the obviously good policy for me to pursue, I should never be able to look myself in the face again.
You have got to choose between John Hampden and George Bubb Dodington Lord Melcombe.
It hurts me very much to write like this, but for all your fine qualities, this one vice will kill you spiritually and morally unless you stamp on it once and for all like a man.
93 93/93
Fraternally
To Mega Therion 666
Aleister Crowley
|