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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Gerald Yorke
Ivy Cottage, Knockholt, Kent
Dec. 27th, 1929.
Care Frater:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I had talked to Mr. Edgar [of the Glaridge Gallery] into a satisfactory frame of mind, and asked you to clinch the matter. You did not, and so he has had time to think, with the painful result enclosed.[1] However, I don't think that this is necessarily final, provided that we do something spectacular by the time he returns from his holiday.
Goldston [Edward Goldston] seems to be in a very bad state. He has doublecrossed Stephensen [P.R. Stephensen] just as badly as, or rather worse than, he has doublecrossed me. I want you to go very carefully, if necessary, after taking legal opinion, into this question of the partnership. Stephensen consulted a friend of his, a leading barrister, and apparently, though no papers exist, a state of partnership may be presumed to exist when people act as partners.
The point for us is that if they are partners, the firm is bound by anything Stephensen may have promised us just as much as if Goldston had promised it, in which case the foolishness is evidently more Goldston's than Stephensen's. Goldston seems to be a crook of the tupenny hapenny kind, always doing cunning little things without any clear idea of the legal aspects of his actions, and if he is brought to book firmly, I think he will wilt. But I feel pretty sure that he ought to be spoken to in a tone which will not allow him to suppose that we have any illusions about his social prestige or his integrity. (It turns out, by the way, that he is no more or less than a receiver of stolen goods. He bought the escutcheon of the town of Yprès, and the Yard, at the instigation of the municipality, went after him. He denied he had it in his possession, and smuggled it off to the States. I think this should be kept in mind in dealing with him.
The American Express Co. have been very sensible about Astarte. The difficulty about getting her on to the boat we hope to turn by means of a letter from the British Consul at Amiens, to whom I have written this morning.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours fraternally
666.
P.S. When do we meet? By the way, Specialist-No.-1 is a bit of a bore. I am definitely on the side list, and have to take a long and serious treatment if I am to recover. 666.
1—Mr. Edgar worked for the Glaridge Gallery and had planned to put on a show of Crowley's paintings until he had a change of mind due to being "scared of the Press."
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