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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Gerald Yorke
Ivy Cottage, Knockout, Kent
November 14th, 1929.
Care Frater:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Thanks for yours of the 13th. I have sent Nick [Lieutenant Colonel John Carter] a copy of volume 1 of the Hag [The Confessions of Aleister Crowley] with a pretty little note.
You don't say anything of any conversation with Tattersall about Beaverbrook [Lord Beaverbrook] or the syndicate.
It is really quite essential to fix up the finances in some reasonable way. For example, the filing cabinet is ready for delivery and we have not got £3 - 11 - 6 to have it sent down here, though it is most urgent for business reasons that it should arrive at once. (Mandrake [Mandrake Press] kick about paying this, though it is for transport) Also it is extremely annoying to have to stay down here with small debts owing to poor people and no possibility of going to London if events demanded it.
Tattersall's symbol is not bad for the Beaverbrook issue.
I note that you don't say exactly what question you asked the Yi. It ought always to be very precise. It is true that I got into the lazy habit of asking for a "general symbol" for somebody, or a "message" with regard to him; but I am not proud of this, and if it is allowable at all, it is only as a result of years of daily practice.
Your postscript. A fat cheque means nothing to me. Any obesity specialist can inform you that fat is the enemy of figures. And I am for the latter.
Thanks for sending down the easel and the paints.
You don't seem to have understood about this cheque. It was sent at the moment when there was supposed to be money in the bank and if the money had been put in direct instead of by this laborious and lengthy method of transfer it would have been all right. In any case, we could not let Regardie [Israel Regardie] starve in Brussels.
I wish you could be gotten to realize exactly what it means when you are working on a shoestring, and money promised for one week does not arrive until the next. It means complete paralysis during the week of delay, if one is in a place like London. Down here it is not so bad, and one can go on working; but it means a great deal of petty annoyance and a great deal of nervous strain.
What with 'pauvre Marie' [Maria de Miramar] and the rest of it, I don't know whether I shall not have to go to the South Pole for a rest cure. We can't possibly reduce expenses below the present figure, if we knew what that figure was—which we don't! But it is always quite senseless to tie us down to this figure, whatever it may be, as it makes it impossible for me to carry out all sorts of business in London, and from meeting new people who might be valuable.
You say you are coming down for the evening on Tuesday. But I take it you mean for the night. I hope so as I propose to go to London on Wednesday morning. There are many things to be settled there.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours fraternally
666.
P.S. Marie very bad again. Please get Duranty's [Walter Duranty] address from N.Y. Times, and find out if he is still in Moscow.
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