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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Louis Umfreville Wilkinson
24 Apr. 46.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
My eyes seem much better some times than at others. This morning they seemed almost right, and I managed to struggle through your letter fairly well, but this afternoon I cannot get them to work, so I shall have to answer your letter more from memory than from anything else.
First about your book. How convenient the title is for dictation: here is the script:—
"Quote Forth capital F like the Firth capital F comma Beast capital B like a cow screamer unquote".
It is a provocative title, and I think a very good one for that reason, although to understand it one would have to be very familiar with Chaucer; which seems to me limiting the appeal. I think that probably we agree about Bread: I cannot bear any English white bread. I am talking of the real bread not this post-war filth, but at the best I always preferred it toasted and Melba at that. As far as I can remember that is all that I need say on that subject.
I gave your book very wide publicity with the Progressive League while it was down here, and think that it should result in the sale of quite a few copies. Thank God they are now all gone. Progressive League indeed! A most ghastly type of intelligentsia, and amateurs at that.
Oh yes, about the four biographies—2 dexters, 2 "I's" and now if we bring in Louis Wilkinson, Louis Marlow and Frater PTAA [Per Terram Ad Astra—Wilkinson's magical motto] the computation becomes serious. I don't think that anyone will find out by himself that the "I" in the two books was an imaginary friend of Dexter's; they might regard one of the two as yourself and the other as his conscience, or it might be that your discussions showed an indecision in your own mind, a setting forth of the pros and cons on any particular subject. I certainly never suspected that the "I" was real enough to be an imaginary friend. You see how terribly mixed up you have got me; Never mind, carry on. I think that is all.
Love is the law, love under will.
P.S. No not really all. I've got through, and it's quite A.!. TO me the women are less interesting that the rest; but to women readers probably more so. I enclose odd recent poems to show I'm alive. Lots more to say, but too irritating with one's eyes baffling one all the time. A.C.
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