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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Montgomery Evans
1a Wuitzbuyestrasse Berlin
Feb 18 '31
Dear ME2
93
Yes indeed, and many thanks. (But why "The Wilderness"? I found it totally unreadable.) Biggs and Kate are done to the life; Candor better, as less photographic. You rightly quote Cabell [James Branch Cabell], for yours is the plaint of the romantic against the realist. The really great art is to make the type appear in an individual. I don't think romantic work—planetary-personifications of qualities e.g. d'Artagnan = shrewdness, courage, loyalty, élan—are perfect. Give me my Uncle Toby and Sergeant, the nurse in R & J, Betteredge in The Moonstone perhaps even Illidge in 'Point Counterpoint'—you know.
I am working desperately hard painting; some even think that I have found myself. You should come to Berlin—where I expect to be for some months. It pleases me far better than Paris or London, and is A.1. for work. I think you could put big things over here; incidentally, you could help me to place films etc. My woe is that I can't speak German yet, and Germer [Karl Germer] is full of inhibitions about business deals. He resents the method necessary in talking to people in the artistic world, their point of view, their mode of life—everything.
My dearest love to my ravishing Rayner, and kind regards to Pauline.
By the way, a man threw himself into the "Mouth of Hell" about Feb 10. Force of example?
I wish you were here. Do write prospects.
93 93/93
Your ever
Aleister Crowley
The fabulous monster would like to see you in Berlin, because you are too good looking!
Anu. [Hanni Jaeger]
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