https://britkewin.com britkewin Fri, 06 Mar 2026 22:52:23 +0000 https://britkewin.com en https://britkewin.com/Splash-Page Fri, 06 Mar 2026 22:52:20 +0000 britkewin https://britkewin.com/Splash-Page Chapter 1 Sanity is a CompromiseThe Earth dropped from beneath us like a stone into blind nothingness ︎ I could not bear the weight of the air. Let us soar higher, ever higher! Below, gray seas were tumbling. It seemed to me (insanely enough) that their moving wrinkles were the laughter of a very old man https://britkewin.com/Info Fri, 06 Mar 2026 22:52:21 +0000 britkewin https://britkewin.com/Info This is a true story. It has been rewritten only so far as was necessary to conceal personalities. It is a terrible story; but it is also a story of hope and of beauty.&nbsp;It reveals with startling clearness the abyss on which our civilization trembles. Book 1 ParadisoBook 2 InfernoBook 3 Purgatorio https://britkewin.com/Vedere-Napoli Fri, 06 Mar 2026 22:52:22 +0000 britkewin https://britkewin.com/Vedere-Napoli Chapter 8Vedere Napoli <img width="1933" height="1933" width_o="1933" height_o="1933" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f5a39b5463565730c711715ab3666cd7b991a5f6e1ac5e45503a548816522ac8/2.jpg" data-mid="245715892" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f5a39b5463565730c711715ab3666cd7b991a5f6e1ac5e45503a548816522ac8/2.jpg" />Over the Top <img width="1000" height="1000" width_o="1000" height_o="1000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/70c0df1c7144d624feede82be05e9c2ab0d9280d3eb7e969d87ae2a0a3279b65/1.jpg" data-mid="245715894" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/70c0df1c7144d624feede82be05e9c2ab0d9280d3eb7e969d87ae2a0a3279b65/1.jpg" />A Knight Out We had just time to get down to the Gare de Lyon for the train de luxe. A sense of infinite relief enveloped us as we left Paris behind; and this was accompanied with an overwhelming fatigue which in itself was unspeakably delicious. The moment our heads touched the pillows we sank like young children into exquisite deep slumber, and we woke early in the morning, exhilarated beyond all expression by the Alpine air that enlarged our lungs; that thrilled us with it keen intensity; that lifted us above the pettiness of civilisation, exalting us to communion with the eternal; our souls soared to the primaeval peaks that towered above the train. They flowed across the limpid lakes, they revelled with the raging Rhone. Many people have the idea that the danger of drugs lies in the fact that one is tempted to fly to them for refuge whenever one is a little bored or depressed or annoyed. That is true, of course; but if it stopped there, only a small class of people would stand in real danger. For example, this brilliant morning, with the sun sparkling on the snow and the water, the whole earth ablush with his glory, the pure keen air rejoicing our lungs; we certainly did say to ourselves, our young eyes ablaze with love and health and happiness, that we didn’t need any other element to make our poetry perfect. I said this without a hint of hesitation. For one thing, we felt like Christian when the burden of his sins fell off his back, at getting away from Paris and civilisation and convention and all that modern artificiality implies. <img width="1831" height="1831" width_o="1831" height_o="1831" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b7fb29b5ad57212dc70372216da2c91287d4482a6101b427810586d2d3fdcdb9/2.jpg" data-mid="245715895" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b7fb29b5ad57212dc70372216da2c91287d4482a6101b427810586d2d3fdcdb9/2.jpg" />Phaeton <img width="1938" height="1938" width_o="1938" height_o="1938" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c726a027ed4872109d963714914cdafb8a9f3faf6c32956a7f7ee92389ed5e0d/4.jpg" data-mid="245715890" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c726a027ed4872109d963714914cdafb8a9f3faf6c32956a7f7ee92389ed5e0d/4.jpg" /> The Glitter on the Snow We had neither the need to get rid of any depression,&nbsp;nor that to increase our already infinite intoxication; ourselves and our love and the boundless beauty of the ever changing landscape, a permanent perfection travelling for its pleasure through inexhaustible possibilities! Yet almost before the words were out of our mouths, a sly smile crept over Lou’s loveliness and kindled the same subtly secret delight in my heart. She offered me a pinch of heroin with the air of communicating some exquisitely esoteric sacrament and I accepted it and measured her a similar dose on my own hand as if some dim delirious desire devoured us. We took it not because we needed it; but because the act of consummation was, so to speak, an act of religion. It was the very fact that it was not an act of necessity which made it an act of piety. In the same way, I cannot say that the dose did us any particular good. It was at once a routine and a ritual. It was a commemoration like the Protestant communion, and at the same time a consecration like the Catholic. It reminded us that we were heirs to the royal rapture in which we were afloat. But also it refreshed that rapture. <img width="1831" height="1831" width_o="1831" height_o="1831" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b7fb29b5ad57212dc70372216da2c91287d4482a6101b427810586d2d3fdcdb9/2.jpg" data-mid="245715895" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b7fb29b5ad57212dc70372216da2c91287d4482a6101b427810586d2d3fdcdb9/2.jpg" />Short Commons<img width="1115" height="1115" width_o="1115" height_o="1115" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/39d7f97fda7fd86e36882a2a0f6eee353e4a1fcda553923ddfb638f03f89ec67/7.jpg" data-mid="245715893" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/39d7f97fda7fd86e36882a2a0f6eee353e4a1fcda553923ddfb638f03f89ec67/7.jpg" /> The Bubble Bursts Lou and I, my love and I, my wife and I, we were not merely going there; we had always been there and should always be. For the name of the island, the name of the house, the name of Shelley, and the name of Lou and me, they were all one name—Love. “The winged words with which my song would pierce Into the heights of love’s rare universeAre chains of lead about its flight of fire,I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire.” I noticed, in fact, that our physical selves seemed to be acting as projections of our thought. We were both breathing rapidly and deeply. Our faces were flushed, suffused with the sunlight splendour of our bloods that beat time to the waltz of our love. Waltz? No, it was something wilder than a waltz. The Mazurka, perhaps. No, there was something still more savage in our souls. I thought of the furious fandango of the gypsies of Granada, of the fanatical frenzy of the religious Moorish rioters chopping at themselves with little sacred axe till the blood streams down their bodies, crazily crimson in the stabbing sunlight, and making little scabs of mire upon the torrid trampled sand. I thought of the mcenads and Bacchus; I saw them through the vivid eyes of Euripides and Swinburne. And still unsatisfied, I craved for stranger symbols yet. I became a Witch-Doctor presiding over a cannibal feast, driving the yellow mob of murderers into a fiercer Comus-rout, as the maddening beat of the tom-tom and the sinister scream of the bull-roarer destroy every human quality in the worshippers and make them elemental energies; Valkyrie-vampires surging and shrieking on the summit of the storm. Next ︎ https://britkewin.com/First-Aid Fri, 06 Mar 2026 22:52:23 +0000 britkewin https://britkewin.com/First-Aid Chapter 16First Aid King Lamus had gone out, and Lala had only just returned, for she was taking off her furs as I woke. I had been covered with blankets. She came an took them off, and told me it was time to go and get my things from Greek Street and take them to the&nbsp;new rooms which she had engaged for us that morning.&nbsp;Lou, it seemed, was already there; and had fallen asleep again, said Lala, only a few minutes before she left. When I woke, the winter sun was already high. It streamed upon my face through the glass skylight of the studio. The sensation of waking was itself a revelation. For months past I had been neither awake nor asleep ; simply passing from the state of greater to one of less unconsciousness. But this was a definite act. <img width="2315" height="1322" width_o="2315" height_o="1322" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/78f22acc9ba34a220ded57ffb8420fe900b595d978d9ddb708a881ed7a847002/38.jpg" data-mid="245715899" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/78f22acc9ba34a220ded57ffb8420fe900b595d978d9ddb708a881ed7a847002/38.jpg" /> Chapter III The Voice of Virtue <img width="935" height="1000" width_o="935" height_o="1000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d32033a535b933c64836ed3395032482e5abb96ec1de6298f1e73d785cd70128/OBS-Magick-ASLKJ32232.jpg" data-mid="245715901" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/935/i/d32033a535b933c64836ed3395032482e5abb96ec1de6298f1e73d785cd70128/OBS-Magick-ASLKJ32232.jpg" />Chapter IV Out of Harms Way <img width="829" height="804" width_o="829" height_o="804" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/990e0b6e457988933bd08e390049639a23353e1b8a5f2be626d88ab7a0a9fd6f/OBS-Man-Myth-and-Magic-Illustrated-Encyclopedia-of-the-Supernatural-42.jpg" data-mid="245715902" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/829/i/990e0b6e457988933bd08e390049639a23353e1b8a5f2be626d88ab7a0a9fd6f/OBS-Man-Myth-and-Magic-Illustrated-Encyclopedia-of-the-Supernatural-42.jpg" />Chapter VI The True Will <img width="1502" height="1569" width_o="1502" height_o="1569" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1dea67072916ecc8e4256513303d764d85f099279dfffb0182c087d95664bf25/OBS-Occult-via-Mad-Mike-Magee-s-Musings.jpg" data-mid="245715900" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1dea67072916ecc8e4256513303d764d85f099279dfffb0182c087d95664bf25/OBS-Occult-via-Mad-Mike-Magee-s-Musings.jpg" /> Next&nbsp;︎ https://britkewin.com/The-Glitter-on-the-Snow Fri, 06 Mar 2026 22:52:23 +0000 britkewin https://britkewin.com/The-Glitter-on-the-Snow Chapter 6 The Glitter on the Snow— I woke to find Lou fully dressed. She was sitting on the edge of my bed. She had taken hold of my hand,&nbsp;and her face was bending over mine like a pallid flower. She saw that I was awake, and her mouth descended upon mine with exquisite tenderness. Her lips were soft and firm; their kiss revived me into life. She was extraordinarily pale, and her gestures were limp and languid. I realised that I was utterly exhausted. <img width="1376" height="1483" width_o="1376" height_o="1483" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/07433feea12c9fec55e9aca1b692a3884e6fd28bb29ea8bce9768034b2f008f8/c.jpg" data-mid="245715904" border="0" data-scale="66" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/07433feea12c9fec55e9aca1b692a3884e6fd28bb29ea8bce9768034b2f008f8/c.jpg" /> “I couldn’t sleep at all,” she said, after what seemed a very long time in which I tried to pull myself together. “My mind went running on like mad — I’ve&nbsp;had a perfectly ripping time — perfectly top-hole! I simply couldn’t get up till I remembered what that&nbsp;man Feccles said about a hair of the dog. So I rolled out of bed and crawled across to the H. and took one little sniff, and sat on the floor till it worked. It’s&nbsp;great stuff when you know the ropes. It picked me&nbsp;up in a minute. So I had a bath, and got these things on. I’m still a bit all in. You know we did overdo it, didn’t we, Cockie?” “You bet,” I said feebly. “I’m glad I’ve got a nurse.” “Right-o,” she said, with a queer grin. “It’s time for your majesty’s medicine.” She went over to the bureau, and brought me a&nbsp;dose of heroin. The effect was surprising! I had felt as if I couldn’t move a muscle, as if all the springs of my nerves had given way. Yet, in two minutes, one small sniff restored me to complete activity. <img width="1471" height="1459" width_o="1471" height_o="1459" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7cb17c5e3c24c582e8a83e48d93a1a04726ebe74cb82be9148773dd782ab414d/c2.jpg" data-mid="245715905" border="0" data-scale="70" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7cb17c5e3c24c582e8a83e48d93a1a04726ebe74cb82be9148773dd782ab414d/c2.jpg" /> There was in this, however, hardly any element of joy. I was back to my normal self, but not to what you might call good form. I was perfectly able to do anything required, but the idea of doing it didn’t appeal. I thought a bath and a shower would put me right; and I certainly felt a very different man by the time I had got my clothes on. When I came back into the sitting-room, I found Lou dancing daintily round the table. She went for me like a bull at a gate; swept me away to the couch and knelt at my side as I lay, while she overwhelmed me with passionate kisses. She divined that I was not in any condition to respond.&nbsp; “You still need your nurse,” she laughed merrily,&nbsp;with sparkling eyes and flashing teeth and nostrils twitching with excitement. I saw on the tip of one delicious little curling hair a crystal glimmer that I knew. She had been out in the snowstorm! My cunning twisted smile told her that I was wise to the game. “Yes,” she said excitedly, “I see how it’s done now. You pull yourself together with H. and then you start the buzz-wagon with C. Come along, put in the clutch.” Her hand was trembling with excitement. But on the back of it there shimmered a tiny heap of glistening snow. I sniffed it with suppressed ecstasy. I knew that it&nbsp;was only a matter of seconds before I caught the contagion of her crazy and sublime intoxication. Next&nbsp;︎