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Correspondence from Jane Wolfe to Aleister Crowley
[12 May 1938]
No I haven't written in a long, long time—I have been too down. This teaching job (as least I give it the credit) has opened my eyes and brought me to my knees. And it's heavy slogging. I just can't be a "successful" teacher—so far at least. One needs success of some sort so badly. How can the whipped and beaten endure without a philosophy for support, without satisfactions of some kind? Are all the whipped and beaten the "poor" - those who need the movies, the Aimees, etc., to keep them from imbecility, insanity, or violence of some sort.
As Chairman 1) of the Cultural Arts Program of Los Feliz Womens' Club, 2) of the Drama Section of the same Club, meeting twice a month, 3) of Observers' Club—book reviews, current events, etc., twice a month . . . all two-year tenures—I was successful, building up attendance, in the latter case from an average of 12 or 13 a meeting to an average of 33. There was emotional and intellectual come-back. But this three-hour-an evening, four-night-a-week job bewilders and befuddles me. Fridays we make reports and attend a three-hour lecture. This summer I will have to do some University work, if I am to continue this mode of livelihood.
Regina [Regina Kahl] thrives on it like the bay trees of Lebanon . . . she will be heard from in a large way; with me it is a heavy task. Mixing with people has. always been difficult - one or two I find easier. I need people so badly, so why don't I feel at home with them!
The four of us are alone again—folks can't stand us long—with the exception of a youth who occupies the screen porch but does not board with us.
Lu[ther] Carroll [Luther Carroll], divorced from Toni two or three months ago, has now become one of 4 occupying a remodelled stable and is going to town with sundry and various of his kind in this his first month away from the house. He still functions as the Deacon, praise be, and many times some 8 or 10 of the boys attend the Mass with him.
The news from my angle of the House? I do not feel free to do this. Not that I think there is anything to conceal, but in some ways Wilfred [Wilfred Talbot Smith] wants to work alone, and I can be frightfully stupid about interpretations. He never felt at ease regarding me, after I moved here, until I wrote breaking with Headquarters when the London trial was on. This letter hurt me. (Incidentally, I am not yet over the hurt of giving him my Tunis AL, which I regret as I would wish for a clean gift.) But I am living here, working with him and therefore—perhaps mistakenly—keeping silent about House happenings just because it does make him uneasy.
I type the letters Wilfred drafts on paper while we are out to school. They annoy me, the composition annoys me, the grammar which I used to correct. I still straighten out the spellings.
One other item. On two occasions Wilfred confronted the possibility of being ousted—one the summer of the London trial, the other the Jacobi [Oliver Jacobi]-books affair, and on the first occasion he surprised me by insisting that I go with him, that I would suffer a big backwash otherwise, etc. As if anything could be more devastating than the Paris revolt. I suppose it is possible, but I can't imagine it. Wilfred has fine qualities, as I am sure you know—he has a really noble head, and I have faith in him, though I do act some times like a hen disturbed over the antics of her chick.
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