wilderness, whence it can only return charioted 
by the horses of Apollo and the lions of Deme-
ter, or where it must for ever wander tortured 
and cast out, uttering ever the hyaena cry of 
madness, and making its rare meal upon the 
carrion of the damned. 
This yearning has made all the saints and 
all the sinners; it severs man from his fellows, 
and sets his feet upon a lonely road, where 
God and Satan alone, no lesser souls, com-
mune with it. 
This yearning is the mother of all artists; in 
Baudelaire it reaches its highest and most con-
scious expression. It is for this reason that I 
tremble and weep, being as it were the bearer 
of his ashes into those smug lands where the 
noblest of al languages is prostituted to no 
other uses than those of gluttony, snobbery 
and greed. 
The condition of England and America to-
day makes it a profanation to translate Baude-
laire; yet such is his virtue, and such the in-
nate virtue of humanity, that if this volume 
only fall into the hands of the young, it may 
produce a crop of saints and artists even in 
those barren fields. 
  
               ALEISTER CROWLEY.