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Page 1 of 101929 · PDF PAGE 231
… soles from Britain's dust; I shall not go there till I must; And when I must! --- I hold my nose. Farewell, you filthy-minded people! I know a stable from a steeple. Farewell, my decent-minded friends! I know arc lights from candle-ends. Farewell-a poet begs your alms, Will walk awhile among the palms, An honest love, a loyal kiss, Can show him better worlds than this; Nor will he come again to yours While he knows champak-stars from sewers. (This play has been analysed in such detail by Captain J. F. C. Fuller in The Star in the West that it …
1929 · PDF PAGE 477
…o get into the full confidence of the Germans if I had the right sort of assistance. They idiotically assumed that I already possessed a knowledge of the enemy's secrets and they sent me a test question on a matter of no importance --- did I know who, if anybody, was passing under the name of so-and-so? I was not going to risk my precarious position asking questions. The official English idea of a secret agent seemed to be that he should act like {753} a newspaper reporter. The result was that the negotiations came to very little, though I turn…
1929 · PDF PAGE 3
…rowley, but to every form of biography, biology, even chemistry, these words are key. "Every man and every woman is a star." What can we know about a star? By the telescope, a faint phantasm of its optical value. By the spectroscope, a hint of its composition. By the telescope, and our mathematics, its course. In this last case we may legitimately argue from the known to the unknown: by our measure of the brief visible curve, we can calculate whence it has come and whither it will go. Experience justifies our assumptions. Considerations of this…
1929 · PDF PAGE 446
…mystery I was suddenly stabbed to the soul by a suggestion so simple, yet so stupendous, that I was struck into shuddering silence for I know not how long before I could bring myself to switch on the electric light and snatch my notebook. At the first trial the solution sprang like sunlight in my spirit. I remained all that night in an ecstasy of awe and adoration. I had discovered the lost Word! The obvious line of criticism is this: How can you be sure that the Word which you have discovered is really the lost Word after all? This may be made…
1929 · PDF PAGE 409
…l possible forms of delight to the utmost possible extent. I am not blasé; I can still enjoy everything as well as I ever could. More: I know how to extract infinite rapture from the most insignificant incidents, but this faculty depends on the refusal to accept such currency at its own valuation. This being so, it is on the whole easier to obtain pleasure from those things which soothe rather than from those things which excite. It has just struck me that these remarks may seem very perverse. Average people associate Arab dances with animal ex…
1929 · PDF PAGE 278
…ught soever as to whether my shot might have hit anybody. There was not the faintest sound; but the alley seemed somehow empty. I do not know whether I stepped over fallen bodies or not. (I was facing the archway when I fired.) I thought: I will get out of this alley at once. Those people may be lying in ambush in the archway, especially as I do not know whether there are doors opening out of it or not. I will keep my forefinger on the trigger and {455} at the same time light a match to make sure of the archway. When I get out into the open str…
1929 · PDF PAGE 405
…ullo," said I, as I entered the studio; "you've been doing the Man of Vitruvius, have you?" "Man of what?" said Epstein. "Vitruvius; you know --- the Microcosm?" I might have been talking Choctaw. I could not believe that Epstein did not know all about it. But he did not know even which of his statues I was talking about. I pointed. "Nonsense," said he, "that is my Sun-God. What has Besubius got to do with it?" I was struck dumb. Vitruvius was (of course, but I suppose I had better explain!) the great Augustan architect, whose treatise on the s…
1929 · PDF PAGE 81
…cked various essential parts, and on Eckenstein pointing out the uselessness of making observations of this kind, the reply was, "Yes, I know, but it's good enough for the Royal Geographical Society." Anything of this sort roused Eckenstein to a pitch of indescribably violent rage. I could not have had a better teacher in matters of conscience. He taught me thoroughness and accuracy in every department of the game. It illustrate one point. I had considered myself a very good glissader, and as compared with the other people whom I met on the mou…
1929 · PDF PAGE 105
…r sad because it did not sleep; {187} But with calm eyes abode Patient, its leisure the galactic load, Abode alone, nor even rejoiced to know that it was God. Moneys-grubbing does its best to blaspheme and destroy nature. It is useless to oppose the baseness of humanity; if one touches pitch one runs the risk of being defiled. I am perfectly content to know that the vileness of civilization is rapidly destroying itself; that it stinks in my nostrils tells me that ti is rotting and my consolation is in the words of Lord Dunsany. In the meantime,…
1929 · PDF PAGE 248
…in themselves mere varieties of breathing, yet one helps to make "hag", and the other "hog" --- one "cot", and the other "cat". Unless I know the consonants I cannot tell whether I need an "a" or an "o". Now this perception is obvious to everybody, yet everybody acts as if he knew exactly what would be the result of writing "a" instead of "o", assuming that he is free to choose which he will do --- which he isn't. But I bring this principle into my life; it governs me in every action outside my regular reflexes. I am really aware that I do not …
1929 · PDF PAGE 344
…annot read such stuff with patience. I do not mind a background of love properly subordinated to the true interest of life; but I do not know any single book of which it is the main theme which does not disgust me. Am I reproaching myself, then, for having written as I have on the subject? My defence is duplex. In the first place, I have no objection to lyrical love. "I arise from dreams of thee" and "O lover, I am lonely here" are legitimate. It is the sacrament by which man enters into communion with God. There remain my narrative and dramati…
1929 · PDF PAGE 201
…ips. Sad wisdom, scornful shame, grand agony In the coffin folds of the cloak, scarred mountains, lie, And pity hides i' th' heart. Grim knowledge grips The essential manhood. Balzac stands, and laughs. The upshot was that Rodin invited me to come and stay with him at Meudon. The idea was that I should give a poetic interpretation of all his masterpieces. I produced a number of poems, many of which I published at the time in the Weekly Critical Review, an attempt to establish an artistic entente cordiale. The entire series constitutes my Rodin …
1929 · PDF PAGE 480
…ther disgusted when my own solicitors sent me half a page of ravings about myself and asked the explanation of my crimes. They must have known that {757} 1. John Bull, Christmas number, 1919. 2. I wrote this in January 1922, when Mr Bottomley was prosecuting Mr Bigland for criminal libel, and the magistrate made this remark. there was hardly one statement which was true in fact. The article was full of careless blunders about matters within their knowledge. But that was not what worried me. I kept on saying to myself, "Why only half a page?" Th…
1929 · PDF PAGE 455
… symbol is also common to Christ as Mercury; fish are sacred to Mercury (owing presumably to their quality of movement). (This I did not know before.) Many of Christ's disciples were fishermen and he was always doing miracles in connexion with fish. Note also Christ as the mediator: "No man cometh unto the Father but by Me", and Mercury as Chokmah through whom alone we can approach Kether. The caduceus contains a complete symbol of the Gnosis; the winged sun or phallus represents the joy of life on all planes from the lowest to the highest. The…
1929 · PDF PAGE 166
…hing with the dissatisfaction that springs from insecurity. Men can adapt themselves to pretty well any conditions, but when they do not know from one day to another whether some fundamental principle may not be abolished in the interests of progress, they no longer know where they are. They tend to adopt the principles of the man who flits from one place to another, grabbing portable property and dodging creditors and policemen. Civilization has become a hysterical scramble for momentary material advantage. Thrift is senseless when one is thre…
1929 · PDF PAGE 275
…ical and (it might appear to some) almost scandalous form. I testified to the tremendous truth by piling fiction upon fiction. I did not know it. I did not suspect it, but the Bagh-i-Muattar is a symptom of supreme significance. I was on the brink of a totally new development. On Sunday, October 22nd, I had an astral interview with Soror F. which brought my up with a shock. She was accompanied by a golden hawk, in whom I later recognized one of the Secret Chiefs of the A.'. A.'.. The conversation turned on the subject of the Great Work. It was …
1929 · PDF PAGE 237
…ately in so short a space. Top return the the general question of religion. The fundamental problem has never been explicitly stated. We know that all religions, without exception, have broken down at the first test. The claim of religion is to complete, {396} and (incidentally) to reverse, the conclusions of reason by means of a direct communication from some intelligence superior in kind to that o any incarnate human being. I ask Mohammed, "How am I to know that the Koran is not your own compilation?" It is impertinent to answer that the Kora…
1929 · PDF PAGE 235
… impudence of Ouarda to offer independent remarks. I want her to see the sylphs. I must have been impressed by one point. How did Ouarda know that I had offended Horus? The troubles of Mathers were due to his excessive devotion to Mars, who represents one side of the personality of Horus, and no doubt I was inclined to err in the opposite directions, to neglect and dislike Mars as the personification of unintelligent violence. But was her bull's-eye a fluke? Her mention of Horus gave me a chance to cross-examine her. "How do you know that it is…
1929 · PDF PAGE 475
…iar temper of the United States, whose people, however ignorant and dishonest individually, are always, as a whole, curiously anxious to know the truth and to do justice, this propaganda was infernally dangerous to British interests. I talked to my friends about it. All they could say was that Viereck was personally despicable. Some, like Captain Gaunt, affected to ignore the importance of The Fatherland. Others, even more hopeless from my point of view, seemed to think that they could suppress "The Fatherland" by continuing their lifelong poli…
1929 · PDF PAGE 100
100 people are necessarily narrow in this one respect. They may know how all sorts of people treat them, but they cannot know, except at second hand, how those same people treat others. To return to Allan Bennett. I found him staying with V. H. Frater Aequo Animo1 in a tiny tenement in Southwark or Lambeth --- I forget which. It was a mean, grim horror. AE. A., whose name was Charles Rosher, was a widely travelled Jack-of-all-trades. He had invented a patent water-closet and been court painter to the Sultan of Morocco. He wrote some of the wors…