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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Cordelia Sutherland
The Bell [Bell Inn]
Nov 23 [1944]
Sweetest thing on earth!
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Bab made me happier than the happiest of men! Oh thank my Star Cordelia, who has always the Golden Key of Heaven for me!
[Quite enough, thank you Mr. Crowley; a spot of sanity if you please!]
I wonder what edition it is; I miss lots that I remember well; I could put down at least a dozen titles—and much of the text—from memory. Per contra, several are here that I doubt ever having seen before and stand the removal that is (said the Duchess) that I shall have to get after the Hypochondriac Gadfly some more.
It is infinitely dark, dull, dumb, depressing, dirty, drear, dead and decomposing in this hideous hell-hole.
You will be wondering why I haven't started to scold you. Don't fret: it starts now.
Nothing I say or write seems to get through the elephantine epidermis, that megalotherus membrane, that crocodilian cortex.
I will try once more. It is not rheumatism, not influenza, not conjunctivitis, not any other thing than the weak spots which our Mother Nature finds in the course of the ceaseless effort to eliminate accumulated toxins.
Giving up the job was D-day: did I warn you at the time? I did; may, even before it took place.
It was always so with me when I started a Great Magical Retirement (or cure) in some desert. In the first week out popped half a dozen small ailments of which I had been long 'cured'. A few days later they had all gone. Desert air and exercise and food did it all.
I tell you again that you need to see to your general health instead of tinkering at details. Three months, and you would be a different woman: I swear it!
So much for my paternal [illegible]!
Janet [Taylor (Crowley's current secretary)] has excelled herself; posted letters to people without the formality of enclosing them in an envelope.
Good work for one so young.
Now I'll make a noise like a bishop and post this. Other mail can wait. But do please listen to my reproof and hearken unto mine advisement. I'm really very anxious about your personal condition.
Love is the law, lover under will.
Yours, but worried about you,
Aleister
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