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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Pearl Brooksmith
The Bell Inn, Aston Clinton, Bucks.
12 Oct 44
My darling Girl.
It is so sweet of you to remember my birthday. I should of course have asked you to the party, but I knew it was no good. Anyway I have not sent out invitations in the ordinary way, this is too much of a desert island.
It does seem indeed a long time since you were within hailing distance. I am absolutely terrified at your getting hit by a doodlebug and you are a mean cat not to give up all the chattering details. Where was it, when was it, how many houses fell on top of you, how long did it take to dig you out? Were you completely buried, were you in a cellar? All these details please by return of post. It is a long while ago, but all the same I feel completely shattered at thinking of you having gone through such a frightful experience. Such bad luck, too, apparently you had only run up for the day and walked right into it.
I don't think you have much hope of finding a place near London in which to dump your respective lady mother. It seems to me just the sort of thing plainly impossible. I wish we could start an Abbey of Thelema on the lines of Cefalů. If we could get a big house, preferably furnished, I know quite a number of people who would be very glad to come in with us. This would make a very great economy all round. If you are running round house-hunting you might look for something of the sort. I should think 13-17 bedrooms with at least a few acres of ground round it.
I feel rather a cad for not having written you before now, but the Tarot book [The Book of Thoth] has been overwhelming me. The astonishing thing is that it keeps on selling. We have got rid of over 60 copies already and orders are still coming in. This, although it has not yet been even so much as shown to the trade, except in three cases. If it goes on it will pull me out of the worst of the financial hole. There is a much better side to this question. The mere appearance of the book has blotted out everything else that has ever been done on the subject. That fact appears to be generally realised. I can feel in the atmosphere a complete difference in my position in the occult world. The book is a perfect answer in everything that was being said about me. The get-up of the book and the wealth of scholarship combined with the patent excellence of the designs is quite sufficient to convince anyone even if they are absolutely strangers to the subject.
There is another piece of news even more important from the ordinary standpoint. After two years of futile struggle, 'La Gauloise' has got over to its own country and is being sung in public, so we may have a perfectly stupendous success in a ridiculously short time if the luck holds.
Now I do hope things will brighten up in your direction and that you will be able to get a little spare time to come and look me up. I don't think you can be so very far away. Aylesbury is on the main line from Manchester to London, and from that town it is fifteen minutes in an excellent bus service. They put you down at the door of the Inn, so perhaps you will make a special effort. Don't forget my magical birthday on November 18th[1]. I am not quite sure though, whether I shall still be here. If the war were to collapse suddenly, I might go back to Jermyn Street [93 Jermyn Street]. One cannot make any estimate of the likelihood of a German collapse from the daily incidents. They give no indication whatever of the internal conditions prevailing in Germany, and as for the reports of those conditions from neutrals and people who have just come from Berlin and so on, they all contradict each other.
Well, here's hoping to see you soon, my beautiful. Until then
Love is the law, love under will.
1—This refers to anniversary of his initiation into the Golden Dawn on 18 November 1898.
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