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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Louis Umfreville Wilkinson
7 Mar 44
Dear Louis
1000 thanks for yours, with book. It gave me the one break I had in the monotony of four days' faceache (in the vulgar, maxillary pericatitis) which had come to vary my pleasures. Bombs? Oh, yes: an H.E. [High Explosive] 250 yards S.W. of this house. Wiped out most of King St and Duke St: Willis' Auction Rooms, Spink's etc. all flat. I had just gone downstairs to observe the shrapnel effects: like a very heavy hailstorm. So I came in, and had reached the top of the basement stairs when the front door—the wrong side of the house! —had its lock blown clean off. Returning to flat for my torch (lights having gone out) found apparently nothing wrong bar some pictures blown down. Then I saw that my bed was a mess of window glass; one piece was 2 feet x 9 inches. It had blown it clean past the thin black-out curtains, the heavy shutters, & the medium heavy curtains, afterwards replacing them with the most praiseworthy sense of tidiness! If I had been in bed, I should have been cut to ribbons. The lights came on again an hour or so later, and I had a delightful night in front of the fire in my armchair.
It's much worse now! No coal, coalite, or coke to be had, although we are entitled to plenty; depend on wood, so-called "loga" which blaze and expire, being nearly all hardly more than slivers. It takes 6 or more to make a moderate fire, and that lasts no more than 10 minutes or so. Short of everything else too, especially money. 18/4 1/2 between me and the :Institution", and a long while till the 16th. Particularly annoying, as Upchurch asks me smilingly how many bottle of cognac and how many of whiskey I should like.
Enough of my woes! You are right about p. 213 of course; but he has phrased it badly. He means "people felt that his f g-n was of a kind that might easily change etc". I am really rather wretched. The printer has let me down again. Wherever I turn I am frustrated. Nearly everyone I know has taken 'violent evasive action'. I should have done the same, if I had had any place to go to. I find it quite impossible to do creative work when raids get so frequent, and their droppings so close, as of late.
Much love—do write—and do be here for the Equinox!
Thine
Aleister
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