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Page 127 of 1291929 · PDF PAGE 106
…also very awkward for a man absorbed in intense magical effort to have to communicate with the external world about the business of everyday life. Jones did not see his way to come, so I asked Rosher, who consented. But before he had been there a month he found the strain intolerable. I cam down to breakfast one morning; no Rosher. I asked the butler why he was absent. The man replied, in surprise at my ignorance, that Mr. Rosher had taken the early morning boat to Inverness. There was no word of explanation; I never saw him or heard of him for…
1929 · PDF PAGE 377
…ublishers, as a class, are persuaded that the public prefer rubbish. The fact is that there are hardly half a dozen writers in England today who have not sold out to the enemy. Even when their good work has been a success, Mammon grips them and whispers, "More money for more work." One ought to have an independent income or another profession. There is hardly one first-rate writer in the last century who has not been starved, persecuted, slandered, bullied, exiled, imprisoned or driven to drink or drowning. To return to The Equinox, there was n…
1929 · PDF PAGE 248
… jeu d'esprit and the psychology involved. I have for my solicitor one of the most acute observers in the world. He said to me the other day, "You seem never to be able to do anything as anyone else would." I retorted, "No; nor by halves," which was smart --- but hardly a rebuttal. The fact is, I consider everything sub specie universali, sub specie aeternitatis. It come natural to me to write an article on the parish council election in Little Piddlington for the eyes of the philosophers of two centuries hence. {412} I cannot bring myself to b…
1929 · PDF PAGE 553
…n sense by any means soever. Not long afterwards some trivial incident touched the same spot. I thought he would be the better for a holiday from the abbey. He was working so hard that his health began to make me anxious. He interpreted {872} my suggestion as a banishment and instead of going, as I proposed, to Palermo, and putting in a month working up the interest of the people there about us, he went off to the top of the Rock without any provisions of any kind. He had taken an oath not to come down before eight days. In subsequent clauses a…
1929 · PDF PAGE 357
… fairest and dearest and purest of God's creatures. Of course he would never speak to me again either. I let him suffer for two or three days, then one afternoon I went across to his hotel and told him that this nonsense had gone on long enough; and it was time for him to learn something of life; I told him the facts. He regarded them as outrageous lies. I pointed out a hundred indications that they were true, but he was absolutely convinced of her purity and my infamy. I realized that I was wasting my breath. "Come across the road", I said wea…
1929 · PDF PAGE 384
…oad with it. I told him that I knew he could do it and wouldn't insult him by asking for proof. He went away, prancing and purring. Next day I had a postcard from him and guessed from his shaky upstrokes what was the matter. It chimed in with his talk. A month passed, then I heard that he had been diagnosed as suffering from general paralysis of the insane. The man who had been singled out from the herd for splendour of strength could not move a muscle; he rolled from side to side with regular rhythm. The man who boasted could no longer speak; …
1929 · PDF PAGE 564
…l opposition of one of their staff, a man whom I had never met. I found a new warehouse in due course and called to arrange a convenient day to remove the books. To my surprise a perfect stranger came into the outer office, a weird creature of nightmare, long, loose-jointed, shaking and tottering with palsy, with a head grotesque and ghastly, rocking upon narrow sloping shoulders that seemed to shrink from its weight. This fantastic horror announced itself as the managing director of the new company. I stated my business. To my amazement, he br…
1929 · PDF PAGE 574
…g that, should I be unable through any misfortune to repay her, it should be regarded as an advance on her dues to the abbey. Only a few days later came her relapse and from that time she did all in her power to prevent my bringing off any of my business deals. It was, therefore, entirely her own fault that I could not meet the note on the date it fell due. I explained the position and she had a generous movement of real regret that her moral collapse had injured me as well as herself. She promised amendment and said that she would come to Cefa…
1929 · PDF PAGE 394
…ut a girl who invokes, by means of her music, a demon belonging to one of the Elemental Watch Towers. She become his mistress. {629} One day her husband returns to the house. He kisses her and falls dead. The demon has conferred this power upon her lips. Excuse the digression: back to Bartzabel! In the Triangle was Frater Omnia Vincam, to serve as a material basis through which the spirit might manifest. Here was a startling innovation in tradition. I wrote, moreover, a ritual on entirely new principles. I retained the Cabbalistic names and for…
1929 · PDF PAGE 354
…", I said, "that you were an important writer." I had begun, I do not in the least remember how, to try my hand at short stories. Even today having written more than seventy such, I do not quite understand why this form of art should appeal to me. I take fits of it. I go for a month without thinking of the subject at all, and then all of a sudden I find myself with ideas and writing them down. I entirely agree that the short story is one of the most delicate and powerful forms of expression. It forms a link with poetry because one can work up t…
1929 · PDF PAGE 528
…tters. However, I was completely baffled. I gave it up as a bad job, cursing Amalantrah heartily for having made me waste my time. On Monday morning I went to the office of The International. It was a "workless Monday", Dr Garwood having ordered that no office buildings should be heated on Monday for five weeks, on account of the coal famine. I stayed only a few minutes to look over my mail. On Tuesday I returned to the office, and found on my desk a letter addressed to Viereck and transferred by him to me to be answered. This letter had theref…
1929 · PDF PAGE 205
…r Morals". But I anticipate. Clouds without Water came four years later. I am still sitting sleepily in the twilight in Europe; after my day's labour three years long in the blazing sun of the great world. I spent many of my evenings at a little restaurant called the Chat blanc in the rue d'Odessa, where was "an upper room furnished" and consecrated informally to a sort of international clique of writer, painters, sculptors, students and their friends. It has been described with accurate vigour in the introduction to Snowdrops from a Curate's G…
1929 · PDF PAGE 302
…ragedy in this connection. We had some tins of coffee and milk, and we had come to the last portion of the last tin. We treasured it for days, looking forward to enjoying it on some great occasion as never an epicure looked forward to a bottle of rare wine. The moment came, we prepared the great drink with almost reverential care. And just as we were going to drink it, my wife shifted her position and spilled it. It would be hopeless to try to express the bitterness of our disappointment. Stay-at-home people can form no idea of the strength of …
1929 · PDF PAGE 298
…endure it; and take advantage of their circumstances to vivisect the poor far more freely than is done in London hospitals. Almost every day blesses the traveller with some delightful geographical surprises. I recall, for instance, plodding wearily up a pass of decidedly rugged character. It was natural to expect that the other side of the pass would be not very dissimilar. I reached the top --- and was stupefied. Instead of looking down into a valley, I saw the ground stretching away from me perfectly level, a
1906 · PDF PAGE 215
…ut of MSS. of doubtful authorship and date, bear- ing all the ear-marks of dishonesty. For we must not forget that the absurdities of to-day were most cunning proofs for the poor folk of seventeen centuries ago, Talking of fish-stories, read John xxi. 1-6, * A twentieth century medium, VOL. II. or Luke V. 1-7 (comparisons are odious). But once I met a man by a lake and told him that I had toiled all the morning and had caught nothing, and he advised me to try the other side of the lake ; and I caught many fish. But I knew not that it was the Jo…
1929 · PDF PAGE 347
…youth named Neuburg, Victor Benjamin of that ilk, who was at Trinity College, Cambridge, and knew my work. Having to go to Cambridge one day on some business or other, I thought I would look the lad up. I was not sure of the name, and there were several similar "burgs" in the university register, but having drawn my bow at a venture, the first arrow struck the King of Israel between the harness at the very first shot. I use the words "King of Israel" advisedly, for Neuburg was certainly a most distinguished specimen of that race. He was a mass …
1929 · PDF PAGE 54
…ficient to take me through the university examinations without my doing any work for them. In fact, during my three years I only did one day's work for the university, and that consisted in employing a boy to read through a translation of a Greek play while I followed it in the text. I got either a first or second class in every subject. One of the dons at Pembroke, a clergyman named Heriz Smith, ran a sort of secret cult which was disrespectfully called by outsiders the Belly- banders. There were said to be seven degrees of initiation, in the …
1904 · PDF PAGE 74
…ut of MSS. of doubtful authorship and date, bear- ing all the ear-marks of dishonesty. For we must not forget that the absurdities of to-day were most cunning proofs for the poor folk of seventeen centuries ago. Talking of fish-stories, read John xxi. 1-6 * A twentieth century medium. or Luke V. 1-7 (comparisons are odious). But once I met a man by a lake and told him that I had toiled all the morning and had caught nothing, and he advised me to try the other side of the lake ; and I caught many fish. But I knew not that it was the Lord. In Aus…
1929 · PDF PAGE 47
…ots and makes foothold impossible. In dry weather the dust takes possession of the eyes and throat. But for all that, may of my happiest days have been spent on the face. I must record a very strange phenomenon in connection with my adventures on Beachy Head. One summer day I went up with my mother and took her down to the grassy slopes (the Grass Traverse) which used to extend eastward from Etheldreda's Pinnacle. I say "used to extend", for since that time there has been an extensive landslide. It was rather a scramble for an old lady to reach…
1929 · PDF PAGE 50
…w slopes. If I had been alone I could have got down by that route in under three hours. As it was, we took nine and a half. But the next day the guide had no lack of nerve; he wanted me to pay him for his services! Nothing doing. I made a number of other ascents in the district, for the most part alone, but once or twice with some chance-met English. My chief aim was to master the technique of snow and ice; and by dint of using my senses and my sense I found out most of the tricks of the trade in the course of the season. I am particularly prou…