At 36 Clarendon Square, Leamington, Warwickshire,
England, at 10.50 p.m. on the twelfth day of October, in
the
Eighteen Hundred and Seventy-Fifth Year of the vulgar
era, was born the person whose history is to be
recounted.
His father was named Edward Crowley; his mother, Emily
Bertha, her maiden name being Bishop. Edward Crowley was
an
Exclusive Plymouth Brother, the most considered leader in
that sect. This branch of the family of Crowley has been
settled in England since Tudor times, but is Celtic in
origin, Crowley being a clan in Kerry and other counties
in the
South-West of Ireland, of the same stock as the Breton
`de Querouaille' or `de Kerval' which gave a Duchess of
Portsmouth to England. It is supposed that the English
branch---the direct ancestry of Edward Alexander
Crowley---came
to England with the Duke of Richmond, and took root at
Bosworth.
In 1881 he went to live at The Grange, Redhill, Surrey.
In I884 the boy, who had till then been educated by
governesses
and tutors, was sent to a school at St. Leonards, kept by
some extreme Evangelicals named Habershon. A year later
he
was transferred to a school at Cambridge kept by a
Plymouth Brother of the name of Champney. (The dates in
this
paragraph are possibly inaccurate. Documentary evidence
is at the present moment unavailable. Ed.)
On March 5, 1887, Edward Crowley died. Two years later
the boy was removed from the school. Those two years were
years of unheard-of torture. He has written details in
the Preface to "The World's Tragedy." This
torture seriously
undermined his health. For two years he travelled, mostly
in Wales and Scotland, with tutors. In 1890 he went for a
short
time to a school at Streatham, kept by a man named
Yarrow, his mother having moved there in order to be near
her
brother, an extremely narrow Evangelical named Tom Bond
Bishop. This prepared him for Malvern, which he entered
at
the summer term of 1891. He only remained there a year,
as his health was still very delicate. In the autumn he
entered
for a term at Tonbridge, but fell seriously ill, and had
to be removed. The year 1893 was spent with tutors,
principally in
Wales, the north of Scotland, and Eastbourne. In 1895 he
completed his studies in chemistry at King's College,
London,
and in October of that year entered Trinity College,
Cambridge.
With this ends the first period of his life. It is only
necessary to state briefly that his brain developed
early. At four years
old he could read the Bible aloud, showing a marked
predilection for the lists of long names, the only part
of the Bible
which has not been tampered with by theologians. (This
curious trait may perhaps be evidence of his poetical
feeling, his
passion for the bizarre and mysterious, or even of his
aptitude for the Hebrew Qabalah. It may also be
interpreted as a
clue to his magical ancestry.) He could also play chess
well enough to beat the average amateur, and though
constantly
playing never lost a game till I895.(The first man to
beat him was H. E. Atkins, British Chess Champion
(Amateur) for
many years.) He was taught by a tailor who had been
summoned to make clothes for his father, and was treated
as a
guest on account of his being a fellow "Plymouth
Brother". He beat his teacher uniformly after the
first game. He must
have been six or seven years old at this time.
He began to write poetry in 1886, if not earlier. Vide
"Oracles".
After the death of his father, who was a man of strong
common sense, and never allowed his religion to interfere
with
natural affection, he was in the hands of people of an
entirely contrary disposition. His mental attitude was
soon
concentrated in hatred of the religion which they taught,
and his will concentrated in revolt against its
oppressions. His
main method of relief was mountaineering, which left him
alone with nature, away from the tyrants.
The years from March, 1887, until entering Trinity
College, Cambridge, in October, 1895, represented a
continual
struggle towards freedom. At Cambridge he felt himself to
be his own master, refused to attend Chapel, Lectures or
Hall,
and was wisely left alone to work out his won salvation
by his tutor, the late Dr. A. W. Verrall.
It must be stated that he possessed natural intellectual
ability to an altogether extraordinary degree. He had the
faculty of
memory, especially verbal memory, in astonishing
perfection.
As a boy he could find almost any verse in the Bible
after a few minutes search. In 1900 he was tested in the
works of
Shakespeare, Shelley, Swinburne (1st series of Poems and
Ballads), Browning and The Moonstone. He was able to
place
exactly any phrase from any of these books, and in nearly
every case to continue with the passage.
He showed remarkable facility in acquiring the elements
of Latin, Greek, French, Mathematics and Science. He
learnt
"little Roscoe" almost by heart, on his won
initiative. When in the Lower Fifth at Malvern, he came
out sixth in the school in
the annual Shakespeare examination, though he had given
only two days to preparing for it. Once, when the
Mathematical Master, wishing to devote the hour to
cramming advanced pupils, told the class to work out a
set of
examples of Quadratic Equations, he retorted by asking at
the end of forty minutes what he should do next, and
handed
up the whole series of 63 equations, correct.
He passed all his examinations both at school and
university with honours, though refusing uniformly to
work for them.
On the other hand, he could not be persuaded or
constrained to apply himself to any subject which did not
appeal to him.
He showed intense repugnance to history, geography, and
botany, among others. He could never learn to write Greek
and Latin verses, this probably because the rules of
scansion seemed arbitrary and formal.
Again, it was impossible to him to take interest in
anything from the moment that he had grasped the
principles of "how it
was, or might be done." This trait prevented him
from putting the finishing touches to anything he
attempted.
For instance, he refused to present himself for the
second part of his final examination for his B.A. degree,
simply
because he knew himself thoroughly master of the subject!
(Swinburne similarly refused to be examined in Classics
at
Oxford on the ground that he knew more than the
examiners.)
This characteristic extended to his physical pleasures.
He was abjectly incompetent at easy practice climbing on
boulders,
because he knew he could do them. It seemed incredible to
the other men that this lazy duffer should be the most
daring
and dexterous cragsman of his generation, as he proved
himself whenever he tackled a precipice which had baffled
every other climber in the world. (In Chess also he has
beaten many International Masters, and ranks on the
Continent
as a Minor Master himself. But he cannot be relied upon
to win against a second-rate player in a Club Match.)
Similarly,
once he had worked out theoretically a method of climbing
a mountain, he was quite content to tell the secret to
others,
and let them appropriate the glory. (The first ascent of
the Dent du Geant from the Montanvers is a case in
point.) It
mattered everything to him that something should be done,
nothing that he should be the one to do it.
This almost inhuman unselfishness was not incompatible
with consuming and insatiable personal ambition. The key
to the
puzzle is probably this; he wanted to be something that
nobody else had ever been, or could be. He lost interest
in chess
as soon as he had proved to himself (at the age of 22)
that he was a master of the game, having beaten some of
the
strongest amateurs in England, and even one or two
professional "masters." He turned from poetry
to painting, more or
less, when he had made it quite certain that he was the
greatest poet of his time. Even in Magick, having become
The
Word of the Aeon, and thus taken his place with the other
Seven Magi known to history, out of reach of all possible
competition, he began to neglect the subject. He is only
able to devote himself to it as he does because he has
eliminated
all personal ideas from his Work ; it has become as
automatic as respiration.
We must also put on record his extraordinary powers in
certain unusual spheres. He can remember the minutest
details
of a rock- climb, after years of absence. He can retrace
his steps over any path once traversed, in the wildest
weathee or
the blackest night. He can divine the one possible
passagr through the most complex and dangerous ice-fall.
(E.g. the
Vuibez seraes in I897, the Mer de Glace, right centre, in
I899.)
He possesses a "sense of direction" independent
of any known physical methods of taking one's bearings;
and this is as
effective in strange cities as on mountains or deserts.
He can smell the presence of water, of snow, and other
supposedly
scentless substances. His endurance is exceptional. He
has been known to write for 67 consecutive hours : his
"Tannhauser" was thus written in 1900. He has
walked over 100 miles in 2 1/2 days, in the desert : as
in the winter of
1910. He has frequently made expeditions lasting over 36
hours, on mountains, in the most adverse connditions. He
holds the World's record for the greatest number of days
spent on a glacier--65 days on the Baltoro in 1902; also
that for
the greatest pace uphill over 16,000 feet--4,000 feet in
1 hour 23 minutes on Iztaccihuatl in 1900; that for the
highest
peak (first ascent by a solitary climber)--the Nevado de
Toluca in 1901; and numerous others. (Written in 1920
e.v.:
these records may no longer stand.)
Yet he is utterly fagged-out by the mere idea of a walk
of a few hundred yards, if it does not interest him, and
excite his
imagination, to take it; and it is only with the greatest
effort that he can summon the energy to write a few lines
if, instead
of his wanting to do them, he merely knows that they must
be done.
This account has been deemed necessary to explain how it
is that a man of such unimaginable commanding qualities
as
to have made him world-famous in so many diverse spheres
of action, should have been so grotesquely unable to make
use of his faculties, or even of his achievements, in any
of the ordinary channels of human activity; to
consolidate his
personal pre-eminence, or even to secure his position
from a social or economic standpoint.
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