I fancy I must have been impressed by
the _ecriture artiste_ which the French writers of the time had not yet
entirely abandoned, and unwisely sought to imitate them.
Though Aleister Crowley served, as I have said, as the model for Oliver
Haddo, it is by no means a portrait of him. I made my character more
striking in appearance, more sinister and more ruthless than Crowley ever
was. I gave him magical powers that Crowley, though he claimed them,
certainly never possessed. Crowley, however, recognized himself in the
creature of my invention, for such it was, and wrote a full-page review
of the novel in _Vanity Fair_, which he signed 'Oliver Haddo'. I did not
read it, and wish now that I had. I daresay it was a pretty piece of
vituperation, but probably, like his poems, intolerably verbose.
I do not remember what success, if any, my novel had when it was
published, and I did not bother about it much, for by then a great change
had come into my life. The manager of the Court Theatre, one Otho Stuart,
had brought out a play which failed to please, and he could not
immediately get the cast he wanted for the next play he had in mind to
produce.
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