Magick Without Tears

478 MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS exploratory-disinfection method, is to hide the gangrened mass with dirty poultices. He has always a text of Scripture or some other authority to paint his foulest acts in glowing colours; and if he wants a glass of beer, he hates the stuff, but "doctor's orders , my boy , doctor's orders ." There is really nothing new to be said about hypocrisy ; it has been analysed, exposed, lashed by every great Artist; quite without effect. It gets worse as the socialistic idea thrives, as the individual leans ever harder on the moral support of the herd. 2 P.P.S. Here is a very different set of reactions . I do not quite know why I am putting it in; is it some sub-conscious attraction of my own? Anyhow, here it is; call it: La Poule Aux Rats Time : a fine Sunday evening in June , just one and twenty 2. Here is a most pertinent story from I Write as I Please by myoId friend, Walter Duranty . It shows how the sentimental point of view blinds its addicts to the most obvious facts. My friend Freddy Lyon . .. told me a story . . . of the Volga Famine. Some A.R.A . 'higher·ups' from New York were making a tour of inspection. . .. Among them was a worthy but sentimental citizen who gushed about the unhappy Russians and the poor little starving children and what a privilege it was for Mr. Lyon to be doing this noble work for humanity and so on and so forth until Lyon SIlid he was ready to choke him . . .. After lunch the visitors suggested they would like to visit the cemetary. It was, said Freddy, a horrid sight, nude, dead bodies piled up ten high like faggots, because the population was so destitute that every stitch of clothing was needed for the living. The visitors were sickened by what they saw, and even the gushing one was silent as they walked back to the cemetary gate. Suddenly he caught Freddy by the arm. "Look there!" he said, "Is not that something to restore our faith in the goodness of God in the midst of all these horrors?" H painted to a big woolly dog lying asleep on a grave with his head between his paws, and continued impressively. "Faithful unto death and beyond. I have often heard of a dog refusing to be comforted when his master died, lying desolate on his grave, but I never thought to see such a thing myself" That was too much for Freddy Lyon. "Yes," he said cruelly, "but look at the dog's paws and muzzle "-they were stiff with clotted blood- "he's not mourning his master, he's sleeping off a meal." At which point, (Lyon concluded his story with gusto). that talkative guy did the opposite of sleeping off his lunch in a very thorough manner. and there wasn't another peep out of Min until we put him on the train.