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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Gerard Aumont
The Metropole Hotel, Brussels, Belgium.
May 28th, 1929
Dear Aumont:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Your letter of the 23rd of May. It appears to me that this letter is simply an evasion. Your engagements, as you admit, are perfectly precise and you ought to have delivered those manuscripts on the 1st of May. These were required as a guarantee of your good faith. It is after that you have delivered the manuscripts that we can discuss whether it will be advisable to wait for your return to Paris before marketing them. But it is absolutely essential that we should have them in our possession.
It is, incidentally, extremely silly on your part to act in this way. What you want is sufficient money to come to Paris, and believe me you will not extract from either Yorke [Gerald Yorke] or myself another cent while you hang on to the manuscripts, which you are engaged to deliver. On the contrary, you must not forget that Yorke is a business man of the severest kind and you are making the worst possible impression upon him by the way in which you are acting. Furthermore, if for any reason the books are not placed within the time agreed you lose your right to the 50% royalties, and are simply in the position of owing us 5,000 francs with nothing to balance it. Please rest assured that Yorke is going to insist upon the letter of the contract, and I shall support him in every way. We shall simply wash you out, sue you for the money owing, possibly take criminal proceedings if you fail to deliver the manuscripts which you admit you have in your possession, and any mitigation of these rigours will be purely in the nature of an act of grace.
We don't care one single hoot of the mangiest owl in the most ruined forest of the most desolate country in the world what the conditions are as regards ourselves and any possible publisher. We have a contract with you, and we intend that its terms should be kept inviolable.
It is quite possible hat after we have made our arrangements with the publisher, if we choose so to do, we may advise, if his opinion concurred, that he should return the manuscript for further amelioration. But all this is a matter of the publisher and not for you. You have taken our money and you have got to make good.
I wish you would get some elementary notion of the business arrangements that obtain in Anglo-Saxon circles. Suppose for example that we have a £100,000 to spend on this campaign, are we going to trust you with a penny, when you have shown nothing but disinclination to comply with your obligation? For all you know, this is the situation. We are not going to tell you our business, and we are not going to argue with you about literary questions. We are simply concerned to see that the money which has been paid to you in good faith is balanced by the delivery of the manuscripts as per the contract.
If you will read this letter over 16,000 times you will save me the trouble of having it retyped 15,999 times.
I am sending your letter and a copy of this to Yorke. I am perfectly sure that he will agree with everything I say.
My final advise to you is to send the manuscripts, such as they are, to Yorke, and leave it to his good feeling to make further arrangements, if such appear desirable after due consideration. But until you do that, you can expect nothing but direful judgments.
I am very sorry, personally, that this sort of trouble should be constantly arising. I am willing to believe that it is your colonial ignorance of how business is transacted, and if I am called upon to give evidence against you, that will be the line that I will take.
But it will be very annoying from every point of view if Yorke suddenly decided to get after you.
Yours ever,
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