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Mary Butts Diary Entry Tuesday, 16 August 1921
We gave the Abbey 200 lire to buy food. 100 lire they pinned up on to door as a [illegible] awards Pro Gradior’s [Frank Bennett] [magical] retirement in Sept. (If September ever gets here.)
If their [illegible] convinces me that the plan is a stunt—the acerbic side of their fanaticism came out into the flesh. Otherwise the place is a lunatic asylum.
Yesterday the woman from the [illegible] came to Lea [Leah Hirsig]—C.M. [Cecil Maitland] was furious because he said it confused them with me. I laughed—it meant nothing, and the [illegible] was pleased for him to be angry—He laughed, bit I’ve never seen a [illegible] before.
This place is good for me. My nature is to become indignant. Here one lâcheté—one absurdity follows the other, and one is forced to observe infamy, and idiocy, and insanity, as if “good and bad” were not yet invented (except in relation to one’s stomach. I want food.)
‘Infamy, idiocy, insanity’ how far are the terms justified?
Are these things infamous, idiotic, absurd?
I. Seth’s death,[1] and ritual preceding [on 30 July]. II. Bullying over cigarettes when the Abbey had no means of paying. III. Getting ‘Pro Gradior’ here from Australia. IV. C. and I from Paris. V. Sexual acts with children (uncertain). VI. Ex parte statements about the place, its charms, resources, etc—some of these are plain false pretences. VII. Taking our money for food, and putting aside half for a whim. VIII. Promise of regular teaching, Kabala, Yi King etc.—not given. IX. I am beginning to be petulant—We can take care of ourselves. Let us enquire how the Abbey passes any test at all. Shaw says that almost any system will work if enough human trouble is taken to make it work.
This winds the place well up. It is backed up by nature. This is the skeleton out-line of an interesting training, and a library. There is, in certain respects, great personal liberty. C.M. and I could embrace publicly if we were minded.
The people want reality.
Some force is engendered by the rituals.
I think the defect is want of common-sense—A leak of astral absurdity, and discontinuity. Some times they behave as if they were species that drift from another sort of world.
Part of this poverty business is part stunt—C.M. had additional proof when this afternoon, Lea flourished a 1,000 lira note in his face.
I have to do. Write to Tony Goldsmith + lice + Dave + Bank + Madame + Graham + Hilda + Shugie, J.R. + E.C.M. +
Read—when my three day’s vow not to is over—
Some Verlaine, [Flaubert’s] Bouvard et Pécuchet, Aphra Behn, finish Sinistrari [Demoniality]. Some Dr. Dee. [Hardy’s] Tess of the d’Urbervilles (complex about novels, because they rouse my fear of life).
1—On 30 July Crowley conducted a ceremony where he sacrificed a goat. Part of the ceremony supposedly included the goat copulating with Leah Hirsig.
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