|
Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Louis Umfreville Wilkinson
140 Picadilly W.1.
2 Sept. [19]42
Dear Louis
Do What you Wilt Shall be the Whole of the Law.
It was a gleam from Heaven, your letter, piercing the roof of the hell of Mother Hogg [Deborah Hogg]: partly “approved school”, but mostly Dachau, mixed with a criminal lunatic asylum without any warders. The interest of the schizophrenic symptoms has kept me here so far, but now I have reached the limit. I have kept my temper, but my mind is so preoccupied with planning a “perfect murder” that I have no time for anything else. That is, in the brief intervals between waves of dive-bombing. The harridan has a hideously raucous voice, and the habit of talking to herself at the top of it—even when there is no one within a couple hundred yards.
There is also, after 6 P.M., a termagant daughter (age 19) who has no control over her voice, if you can call it so, at all; it is part squeal, part squawk. She either sulks or rehashes the last piece of rubbish she has read loudly, angrily, and with an air of authority which would shame the most vehement tub-thumper.
There are two really curious features in the household; one, the gallant General has not been completely cowed by all these years of horror: two, that old Gammer Hogg has an extraordinarily kind heart. But it seems as if there were some alien compulsion in her nature, to cross-examine, to say things calculated to annoy merely for that reason. One instance: she happened to meet for 5 minutes a man I know quite slightly. Ever since then she has from time to time shot out volley after volley of questions about him and his private and domestic affairs: 85% of them such that I couldn’t possible know the answers.
Well, there’s your chance to write another novel! (By the way, I picked up a Mr. Amberthwaite the other day, and promise myself renewal of much pleasure when I get peace to read it). If you could bear it, it is easy enough to get invited here—(Facilis descensus Averni or do you prefer o?) and really it’s a gold-mine.
Yes, indeed, I am annoyed at having missed you in London. I expect to be there for some time—but I still need the rest, in fact, more than ever. I am glad you approved my answer to O.H.M. No, he is not a disciple. He may be Atlantis Bookshop, who hate and fear me, and are annoyed withFrieda [Frieda Harris]. Strangely there have been no reactions so far. Not a word from F[rieda]. herself. No, I disagree about the teapots. Your friend forgets that not 12, nor 12,000, could fill that cup.
Love is the Law, Love Under Will.
Yours ever
Aleister
|