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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Edward Noel Fitzgerald
The Gardens,
Dec 12th. 1940.
Dear Noel,
93.
Good of you to answer so quickly. No, I don't know that quotation: please tell me. Also: "Where you and I beneath the trees Bartered our bold virginities" once quoted to me by James Stephens, but I can't place it. Can you?
But Torquay is anything but grey and shapeless. It is astonishingly beautiful. Flowers bloom afresh daily in my garden, and the woods, the hills, the harbour and the sea are just a constant benediction. This morning, one of the loveliest dawns I have seen anywhere in the world. All clear unearthly green and blue, with rose-pink clouds of superb shape: all pink, with no white to spoil it.
My sanity is less in jeopardy; I have found the Chess club, with at least three players who give me a reasonable game. I have yet to play the strongest, who may be a match for me. Poetry is not butter, and does not come by churning. I could only feel the impulse again if I were in totally new conditions—that is, as regards lyrics. I have done the "Law and the Lady" and "The loving ballad of John Anthony Long" quite recently; the latter is quite first class. But not for unsophisticated souls. Here food is quite ample. Eggs are always scarce and dear at this time of year: I usually get six or nine a week, though. Meat absolutely A.1. The onion famine is a scandal, but all the fault of controlling the price.
Cammell [Charles Cammell]—he wrote me he had gone to Bideford for good. He owes me a letter; if you can reach him, do ask him to write. Pearl [Pearl Brooksmith] has been ill, dangerously. John too, measles. Both better now. My small son [Aleister Ataturk] gay in Jerusalem; his mother [Patricia MacAlpine] lively, but complains of cooking. Her grandmother seems to be running the place out there. Could you leave Lady H. [Frieda Harris] her Yi [King] till Mike [Michael Juste] or Watkins [Bookshop] send her a copy for herself? I do not know why they have not done so already. She dashed over here last month and rescued me. Mrs. Goodall is still in Peebles with her daughter etc. When she gets back to Richmond I may return myself—I simply must get some work done. I don't seem to have much more to say, except that it is about time we started to do more hard thinking about the establishment of the Law of Thelema. Those friends of yours—if they want show, let them buy "The Equinox of the Gods" (I have some here.) and get the full force of the Flame.
93 93/93
F∴[raterna]ly
666.
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