Confessions of Aleister Crowley

15 As a matter of fact, there must have been more than this in it. Alick had assuredly a special aptitude for the game; for he never met his master till one {48} fatal day in 1895, when W. V. Naish, the President of the C. U. Ch. C., took the "fresher" who had beaten him to Peterhouse, the abode of Mr. H. E. Atkins, since seven times amateur champion of England and still a formidable figure in the Masters' Tournament. It may here be noted that the injudicious youth tried to trap Atkins with a new move invented by himself. It consists of playing K R B Sq, instead of Castles, in the Muzio Gambit, the idea being to allow White to play P Q 4 in reply to Q B 3. In 1885 Alick was removed from St. Leonards to a school kept by a Plymouth Brother, an ex- clergyman named H. d'Arcy Champney, M.A. It is a little difficult to explain the boy's psychology at this period. It was probably determined by his admiration for his father, the big, strong, hearty leader of men, who swayed thousands by his eloquence. He sincerely wished to follow in those mighty footsteps and so strove to imitate the great man as best he might. Accordingly, he aimed at being the most devoted follower of Jesus in the school. He was not hypocritical in any sense. All this strikes one as absolutely natural; what is extraordinary is the sequel. A letter dating from his early school life at Cambridge: Dear Papa & Mama, For my holiday work prize I have got a splendid knife, 2 blades, a saw, a screwdriver, a thing to pull out thorns, another to get stones out of horse's shoes, another I don't know what for, a leather piercer, a gimlet & a corkscrew and name plate. It is nicol plated in some parts, but the handle is ivory. The asphalt2 gave way near the middle. We were nearly blown hup bu the hoiler3 a little while ago, no jokes. We had a ý holiday given us on Friday. Please send me a little money for fireworks. Send up my bankbook by the 1st please. I am awfully well, thank you! I have joined a sort of band of chaps, who are with God's blessing, going to try & help others & speak to them about their souls. I will write soon again. Write quick please. Good bye Yr loving son Alec He was thoroughly happy at this school; the boys liked and admired him; he made remarkable progress in his studies and was very proud of his first prize, White's Selborne, for coming out top in "Religious Knowledge, Classics and French". But to this day he has never read the book! For certain lines of study he had {9} a profound, instinctive and ineradicable aversion. Natural history, in any form, is one of these. It is hard to suggest a reason. Did he dislike to analyse beauty? Did he feel that certain subjects were unimportant, led to nothing that he wanted to explore? However this may be, he used to make up his mind with absolute finality as to whether he would or would not take some particular course. If he would, be panted after it like the hart after the water brooks; if no, nothing would persuade him to waste an hour on it. It was while he was at this school that he began to write poetry. He had read none, except "Casabianca", "Excelsior", the doggerel of Sir Walter Scott and such trash. But he had a genuine love for the simple Hymns for the little Flock compiled by the "Brethren". His first taste of real poetry was Lycidas, set for the Cambridge Local Examination, if his memory serves him aright. He fell in