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[At head of letter]: It was a lovely day today, are you better &
could you get out?
Rolling Stone Orchard
Campden
March 25th [1942]
My dear Aleister,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I hastily return your sample sheet as I don't trust papers a
minute, it would get away I am sure.
1. It's lovely paper.
2. The type looks very nice.
3. The price is not outrageous but surely the size, if you mean
to put the book in with the cards, is too big. Perhaps you mean to
publish without, in which case I think you should at least have the
photographs of the cards reproduced don't you think?
I enclose a cutting from the Evesham Journal. Written by Gosse
& quite good I think.
I am having a funny time with the Show, very stuffy old ladies
& very ancient men. But the children! I don't understand, they crowd
in after school. I must have had at least 8 little boys today & they
ask intelligent questions & go solemnly round & stare. I have amused
myself with asking them which one they liked. Oh yes! they know at
once & generally I find it is the picture which fits with the month
in which they have been born. But one little boy aged 6, a little
gnome-like person obstinately declared for the Aeon. I tried to move
him but he clung to it--. What chord did it strike in him? Those
clear eyes looked so gravely at me.
"I walked home with a gold dark boy
And never a word I'd say
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Had taken my speech away
I gazed entranced upon his face
Fairer than any flower
O shining Popocatapetl
It was thy magic hour
The houses, people, traffic seemed
Thin fading dreams by day,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Had stolen my soul away."
Also a little person aged 2, scuttling & crawling, was asked
which picture: Straight she went to No 2. Cups, Love. I though she
would forget & asked her again 10 minutes later & she toddled off
to the same picture. "That" she said again.
Then they asked me "What is the meaning of `Lust'." That's a
knockout blow for a poor adult.
So somewhat timorously I said "Well you must understand the
feeling of it. Now how do you feel if you see nice chocolates &
there, you get them & how good they taste. That is a picture of how
you feel about those chocolates." And then we had a lovely
conversation about our favorite sweets & yum yum over sticky toffee
& the sweets that took longest to suck. But such concentration, how
I envied them.
I will try to send you Sol in Aries picture. [?] Mercury is
photographed but do I know I like him. We shall tell when we see the
photographs but all these reproducers are constipated. Where are the
2 new cards from the Sun--Oh dear!
I hope Pussy has sent you the poems by now. It is my fault I
have been supine. My rib is better but stops sleep.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours ever,
Frieda
Rolling Stone Orchard
Campden
May 9th [1942]
Dear Aleister,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I have written to Pearson to ask him to send you a copy of an
estimate which I have been trying to get from the Sun Engraving.
This, it was agreed, should cover all possible expences & give us
1000 packs of cards at [L]1/10 each instead [of] [L]10 a pack & only
a 100 packs. This includes boxes & any additional expence not tax
which must be left to the Sun Engraving to arrange with their usual
agent.
I am concerned at this part payment & buying single blocks. It
is not a good proposition because the question arises is the new
block the property of Hylton, yours or mine or whose?
I foresee great complications & would suggest we should have a
3rd party to whom all subscriptions should be paid, even if it means
forming a limited Tarot Co. with a treasurer.
How would Madge Porter do if I could get her to take it on?
If you don't like that idea--would Hylton do it or Cecil. You &
I with the possible chance of profits (I don't think) should not be
recipients of casual cheques or we shall soon be accused of
embezzling same. So far I have paid for everything & the question
has not arisen.
Love is the law, love under will
Yours
Frieda Harris
[P.S.] I am very feeble. I can't do a day's job & everyone seems to
lean on me & hope I will do it for them--I feel nothing is worth
troubling about except leisure.
Rolling Stone Orchard
Campden
May 14, 1942
My dear Aleister,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I am sorry I cannot allow my pictures to be reproduced as a
pack of cards unless I know who the person is who is putting down
the money, the exact details of your plan and how you propose to
raise so large a sum and am satisfied that the securities are real
business proposition and the scheme is a sound one.
As all this fuss and worry is too much for me will you kindly
write fully to my bank manager and not to me, as in future I want to
leave these complicated business agreements to experts.
I shall not reply to you again about them or discuss them with
you.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours,
Frieda Harris.
[P.S.] The Sun Engraving have enough cardboard to do 1000 packs.
Address The Bank Manager Midland Bank Chipping Campden Glos.
[Crowley to Pearson, the photoengraver]
STRICTLY PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL WITHOUT PREJUDICE
140 Picadilly,
W.1.
May 29th, 1942.
Dear Mr. Pearson,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Thank you for your letter received this morning. In view of
future relations I think it of the utmost importance that I should
make the situation clear to you. I should have preferred to do this
by word of mouth; and yet perhaps a letter may, in the long run,
serve the purpose better.
As you know, odd cards have been reproduced by you as funds
became available.
My very old and very dear friend Mr. Hylton was good enough to
send me [L]15.-.- for the purpose of producing one more trump, but
on discovering that two could be done for an extra [L]5.-.- or a
little less, I sent you the additional amount out of my own pocket.
Lady Harris, naturally, accepted this enthusiastically, and
sent you the originals necessary.
Let me say in parenthesis that one of the principal points in
wishing this to be done was that a friend of mine, who is proposing
to finance the entire production, wanted to see one of the smaller
cards, so that he might feel sure that they would stand up to the
trumps.
The next thing is that, to my amazement, I received a letter
from Lady Harris, including the following passage:--
"I am concerned at this part payment and buying single blocks. It
is not a good proposition because the question arises is the new
block the property of Hylton, yours or mine or whose?
I foresee great complications & would suggest we should have a
third party to whom all subscriptions should be paid,
even if it means forming a limited Tarot Co. with a treasurer.
How would Madge Porter do if I could get her to take it on?
If you don't like that idea--would Hylton do it or Cecil. You
and I with the possible chance of profits (I don't think) should not
be recipients of casual cheques or we shall soon be accused of
embezzling same."
Lady Harris never reads my letters carefully. I had told here
that these blocks were a present to us.
Madge Porter is a dear little old lady, who lives in a remote
cottage in a wood some distance from Newbury. She is only
approachable by a cart-track through the wood, and has no telephone.
I wrote to Lady Harris explaining the situation and then
received the following letter:
"May 14, 1942
"My dear Aleister,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I am sorry I cannot allow my pictures to be reproduced as a
pack of cards unless I know who the person is who is putting down
the money, the exact details of your plan and how you propose to
raise so large a sum and am satisfied that the securities are real
business proposition and the scheme is a sound one.
As all this fuss and worry is too much for me will you kindly
write fully to my bank manager and not to me, as in future I want to
leave these complicated business agreements to experts.
I shall not reply to you again about them or discuss them with
you.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours,
Frieda Harris"
If only she would have stuck to that! But instead of leaving
things to her Manager, she takes away the originals from you. I
suppose that you had already started work on the two cards. I can
well understand your annoyance.
I should like to emphasise that I am absolutely devoted to Lady
Harris, and have the evidence of countless acts of kindness on her
part, indicating that her feelings toward me are similar.
But from time to time she is subject to fits of panic in which
she does the most incomprehensible things. For instance, she writes
to people who are perfect strangers to her with the object of
interfering with their relations with me. I do not wish to quote
incidents, but I assure you that the facts are astounding.
To recur to the present situation. In the first place, I have a
two-thirds interest in this work on the Tarot. As to the cards
themselves, in nearly every case she has done her painting from
sketches made by me, and in every case the design and meaning of the
card and the particular colours to be used have been entirely my
work. There has been no cause of dispute. In fact, she has been most
docile in adapting herself to my requirements; in some cases I have
made her do the card over again as many as six or seven times.
There is no reason whatever why she should go back on the
proposition to reproduce these two cards. You told me that her
reason was that she though four should have been reproduced at once.
But in that case why not tell me? I should gladly have put up the
additional money required.
I am sorry to have had to write to you at such length, about
what is, after all, nothing at all; and I daresay that you were
quite right in suggesting to me over the telephone that if she were
left alone she would come to her senses.
But the point at issue is this: I cannot possibly ask my friend
to put up [L]1600 if at any moment she is liable to dash in on an
impulse and whisk the originals away!
For this reason, I am going to ask my solicitors, Messrs.
Gisborne & Lewis, 10 Ely Place, W.1., to draw up a proper business
Contract, which will make it impossible for her to interfere with
the work, once the financial arrangements with my friend are
completed.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours sincerely
Aleister Crowley
[P.S.] It seems important that you should understand my motive. To
me this Work on the Tarot is an Encyclopoedia of all serious
"occult" philosophy. It is a standard Book of Reference, which will
determine the entire course of mystical and magical thought for the
next 2000 years. My one anxiety is that it should be saved from
danger of destruction, by being reproduced in permanent form, and
distributed in as many distant places as may be. I am not anxious to
profit financially; if I had the capital available in this country,
I should send (say) 200 copies to State Libraries in all parts of
the world, and as many more to my principal representatives.
A.C.