opportunity, and the assurance that no first seduction or
corruption of anyone was in question, they would prove quite
irrepressible.

"Certainly, long before puberty--which was early with me--I
remember being greatly attracted to certain boys, and wishing to
have an opportunity of sleeping with them. Had I been able to do
so, I am sure I should have been impelled to get into as close
contact with their naked body as possible, and I do not think I
should then have craved for anything more. I knew some
boys--perhaps a little older--who even then had relations, which
were certainly not innocent, with a girl who was a year or two
older than any of us. She once kissed me, to my intense shame.
But I felt that these relations would have been unspeakably
disgusting and I took no particular interest in hearing about
them. I remember being fondled and caressed by a very
good-looking boy of 16 when I was three or four years younger and
had sustained some hurt at play; and I am still able to recall
the thrill of delight that I experienced at his touch. Nothing
took place that all the world might not have seen, but I remember
being taken between his knees as he sat, and his arms being put
around my neck, and the warm, soft pressure of his thighs had an
unspeakable effect on me.

"About this time, too, an older boy, perhaps about 18, used to
get hold of smaller boys when on country walks, to throw them
down and then look at and toy with their genitals. He was
himself a handsome boy, and I was greatly excited when told about
this by boys who had experienced it, and wished greatly to have
it done to me. It never was; and if it had been attempted I know
I should have resisted with all my strength, although my desires
would have set me aflame. This boy died before he was 20, with a
psoas abscess, and I remember crying myself to sleep the night I
learned of his death. Another boy, about three years older than
myself, who had very silky hair, I used to be attracted by and I
was always trying to stroke his hair, but he always objected.

"I must have been about 12 when I first was taught to masturbate
by a cousin who was slightly older. At first I thought it silly,
but I used to watch him at it, and practised it myself from time
to time until I became old enough to experience the proper
sensation. Then I have reason to think I gave myself up to it
rather freely, but it was generally done in solitude, although it
was long before I realized that there was anything wrong about it
or that it might prove hurtful. Looking back now, I feel
perfectly certain that my instincts were wholly homosexual from
the very first. This cousin, who possessed notable intellectual
and artistic gifts, married, but I feel sure his liking for his
own sex was not normal.

"With another cousin, almost years my junior, I was always on
terms of the most affectionate intimacy. My holidays at his
parents' house were my greatest delight. We were always together
by night or day; we slept in the same bed, literally in each
other's arms. To me it afforded the keenest sexual pleasure to
press close to his naked body. We used mutually to handle and
caress our parts, but without any attempt at mutual masturbation,
although at that period I regularly practised it on myself. I
asked him once about it, but he had not been taught it by others;
and to my great pride and satisfaction I can say that I never
either did it to him or asked him to do it to me. This I mention
as an instance of my restraint in act, although my thoughts and
desires knew no such curb. I remember also an elder brother of
his, perhaps three or four years my senior, once showing me (then
about 12, I suppose) his semierect penis. He would not allow me
to touch it, but showed me how to draw back the foreskin so as to
uncover the glans. His penis was large, and the incident was not
forgotten. We had no other relation and I know that both he and
my own friend grew up to be quite normal men.

"I think I must have been about 17 when I got frightened about
the occurrence of nocturnal emissions, which I believed were the
evil result of masturbation, and for two or three years I
continued in considerable mental distress until, when in my
second or third year at college, I summoned up courage enough to
consult our good old family doctor, who reassured me, but made, I
now think, too light of my confidences, so that I relapsed the
more readily, although much later on, into old habits.

"From our windows at home we looked over a bit of common or down
to the beach, and I used to keep watch on warm summer afternoons;
over boys who might be bathing, to observe them through our
telescope. All this I kept strictly secret and I was never
surprised. I might just as well, and without arousing the
slightest suspicion of my motive, have walked down to the beach
and seen them and chatted with them; but this I could not have
brought myself to do. It gave me considerable sexual satisfaction
when I was able to see them bathing without pants. I also used to
watch them at play on the common, and felt rewarded when I saw,
as I not infrequently did, sexual familiarities taking place.
These violently excited me and sometimes brought on orgasm,
always erection with pleasure. Indeed, it was an experience of
this kind that made me return to masturbation after I had given
it up for a while. I remember one day seeing two lads of about 16
lying on the grass in the sunshine; all at once the bigger lad
put out his hand and tried to open his companion's trousers. He
resisted with all his might, and a long struggle ensued, ending
in the smaller lad having his penis exposed and manipulated by
the other. Even at this day the recollection of this excites me.
Both lads grew up to be normal men.

"Twice only have I been approached by grown-up people. When I was
about 13 I used to meet often, when going to school by train, an
old gentleman who courted me, as it were, used often to talk to
me and asked me to come to see his well-known scientific
collections, but I always had a vague distrust of him and never
went. One day in the summer during a spare hour I met him in an
empty room in the museum, where there were usually very few
visitors at that time of day, and where large show-cases gave
concealment. He came up to me and told me he had been away in the
country, and that, when making his way home through hedges and
thorny bushes, some of the thorns got stuck amongst his clothes
and were still giving him uneasiness. 'I would be very grateful,'
he said, 'if you would put your hand down and try if you can feel
any thorns sticking in my underflannels and pull them out.' He
then unbuttoned his braces on one side, undid his trousers and
made me thrust my hand over his groin and lower abdomen. I
avoided touching his genitals, but he pushed my hand down in that
direction until, burning with shame, I made my escape and ran
off, not stopping until I was safe in school. I scarcely
understood it, but never spoke of it, and avoided him ever
afterward. I learned later on that he was a well-off bachelor
who took a great interest in working lads and young men and did
much to help them on in life and keep them, so it was said, from
falling into bad company. He died at a great age and left most of
his fortune to an institution for lads, as well as large legacies
to youths in whom he had been interested.

"The other time was on top of a tramcar when a grown-up man who
was near pressed as close to me as he could, began to talk,
praised my dark eyes, then put his hand on my thigh under my
loose cloak and felt up toward my parts. At the same time he took
hold of my hand, caressed it and put it over his parts (it was in
the dusk). This excited me and, if we had not been at our
destination, I think I would gladly have permitted further
familiarities. He tried to ask me where I lived, but there was no
time to answer, and the female relative who was with me (on
another seat) would no doubt have prevented this from having any
further sequel.

"On more than one occasion I have experienced the sexual orgasm
as the result of mental anxiety. The first time this occurred was
when I was hurrying to avoid being late for school. Another time
was when I was about 24, and was extremely anxious to fill an
appointment for which I was late. So copious was the emission
that I had to go home and change.

"As a medical student, the first reference bearing definitely on
the subject of sexual inversion was made in the class of Medical
Jurisprudence, where certain sexual crimes were alluded to--very
summarily and inadequately--but nothing was said of the existence
of sexual inversion as the 'normal' condition of certain unhappy
people, nor was any distinction drawn between the various
non-normal acts, which were all classed together as
manifestations of the criminal depravity of ordinary or insane
people. To a student beginning to be acutely conscious that his
sexual nature differed profoundly from that of his fellows,
nothing could be more perplexing and disturbing, and it shut me
up more completely in my reserve than ever. I felt that this
teaching must be based on some radical error or prejudice or
misapprehension, for I knew from my own very clear remembrance of
my own development that my peculiarity was not acquired, but
inborn; my great misfortune undoubtedly, but not my fault.

"It was still more unfortunate that in the course of the lectures
on Clinical Medicine there was not the slightest allusion to the
subject. All sorts of rare diseases--some of which I have not yet
met with in the course of twenty-one years of a busy
practice--were fully discussed, but we were left entirely
ignorant of a subject so vitally important to me personally, and,
as it seems to me, to the profession to which I aspired. There
might have been an incidental reference to masturbation--although
I do not remember it--but its real significance received no
attention; and what we students knew of it was the result of our
reading or of our personal experiences.

"In the class of Mental Disease there was, naturally, more
detailed and systematic reference to facts in the sexual life and
to sexual inversion as a rare pathological condition. But still
there was not a comforting word to reassure me, growing ever more
hopelessly ashamed of what it seemed was a criminal or a gravely
morbid nature.

"Among all my fellow-students I knew of no one constituted like
myself; but my natural reserve--increased, of course, by my
consciousness of what I saw would be thought to be a criminal
tendency--did not urge me to exchange of confidences or to the
formation of; close friendships.

"After graduation I became a resident medical officer in the
hospital and private assistant to one of the professors--a
physician and teacher of worldwide reputation. With him I
associated on the most cordial and affectionate terms; and often
in the course of conversation I tried to bring him to discuss the
subject, but without success. It was obviously unpleasant and
uninteresting to him. Enough was said, however, to enable me to
realize that he held the current ideas on the subject; and I
would not for worlds have allowed him, to guess that I myself
came under the despised and tainted category.

"I have seldom heard sexual inversion discussed among my
professional friends. They speak of it with disgust or amusement.
I have never met a professional man who would consider it
dispassionately and scientifically. For them it was a subject
entirely belonging to psychological medicine.

"I have had no admitted case of it among my patients; but I have
often instinctively felt that some who consulted me about other
matters would have taken me into their confidence about that, but
for their fear of being cruelly misunderstood.

"As to my moral attitude I fear to speak. Grossness disgusts me;
but I am not sure that I should be able to resist temptation
placed in my way. But I am absolutely sure that I should never,
under any circumstances, tempt others to any disgraceful act. If
I ever committed any sexual act with one of my own sex whom I
loved, I could not look at it or approach it in any other than a
sacramental way. This sounds blasphemous and shocking, but I
cannot otherwise express my meaning.

"As regards the marriage of inverts, my own feeling is that for a
congenital invert--no matter how fully the situation be explained
beforehand--it is a step fraught with too great possibilities of
tragedy and of the deepest unhappiness, to be advised at all. My
view is that for the invert, far more than for the ordinary
person, there is no escape from the supreme necessity of
self-control in any relationship he may form. If that be attained
then the ideal is a relationship with another man of similar
temperament--not a platonic one, necessarily--by means of which
the highest happiness of both may be reached. But this can occur
_very_ seldom.

"To poetry and the fine arts I am very susceptible, and I have
given a great deal of time to this study. I am devoted heart and
soul to music, which is more and more to me every year I live.
Trivial or light music I cannot endure, but of Beethoven, Bach,
Haendel, Schumann, Schubert, Brahms, Tschaikowsky, and Wagner I
should never hear enough. Here, too, my sympathies, are very
catholic, and I delight in McDowell, Debussy, Richard Strauss,
and Hugo Wolf."


HISTORY VII.--"My parentage is very sound and healthy. Both my
parents (who belong to the professional middle class) have good
general health; nor can I trace any marked abnormal or diseased
tendency, of mind or body, in any records of the family.

"Though of a strongly nervous temperament myself, and sensitive,
my health is good. I am not aware of any tendency to physical
disease. In early manhood, however, owing, I believe, to the
great emotional tension under which I lived, my nervous system
was a good deal shattered and exhausted. Mentally and morally my
nature is pretty well balanced, and I have never had any serious
perturbations in these departments.

"At the age of 8 or 9, and long before distinct sexual feelings
declared themselves, I felt a friendly attraction toward my own
sex, and this developed after the age of puberty into a
passionate sense of love, which, however, never found any
expression for itself till I was fully 20 years of age. I was a
day-boarder at school and heard little of school-talk on sex
subjects, was very reserved and modest besides; no elder person
or parent ever spoke to me on such matters; and the passion for
my own sex developed gradually, utterly uninfluenced from the
outside. I never even, during all this period, and till a good
deal later, learned the practice of masturbation. My own sexual
nature was a mystery to me. I found myself cut off from the
understanding of others, felt myself an outcast, and, with a
highly loving and clinging temperament, was intensely miserable.
I thought about my male friends--sometimes boys of my own age,
sometimes elder boys, and once even a master--during the day and
dreamed about them at night, but was too convinced that I was a
hopeless monstrosity ever to make any effectual advances. Later
on it was much the same, but gradually, though slowly, I came to
find that there were others like myself. I made a few special
friends, and at last it came to me occasionally to sleep with
them and to satisfy my imperious need by mutual embraces and
emissions. Before this happened, however, I was once or twice on
the brink of despair and madness with repressed passion and
torment.

"Meanwhile, from the first, my feeling, physically, toward the
female sex was one of indifference, and later on, with the more
special development of sex desires, one of positive repulsion.
Though having several female friends, whose society I like and to
whom I am sincerely attached, the thought of marriage or
cohabitation with any such has always been odious to me.

"As a boy I was attracted in general by boys rather older than
myself; after leaving school I still fell in love, in a romantic
vein, with comrades of my own standing. Now,--at the age of
37,--my ideal of love is a powerful, strongly built man, of my
own age or rather younger--preferably of the working class.
Though having solid sense and character, he need not be specially
intellectual. If endowed in the latter way, he must not be too
glib or refined. Anything effeminate in a man, or anything of the
cheap intellectual style, repels me very decisively.

"I have never had to do with actual pederasty, so called. My
chief desire in love is bodily nearness or contact, as to sleep
naked with a naked friend; the specially sexual, though urgent
enough, seems a secondary matter. Pederasty, either active or
passive, might seem in place to me with one I loved very
devotedly and who also loved me to that degree; but I think not
otherwise. I am an artist by temperament and choice, fond of all
beautiful things, especially the male human form; of active,
slight, muscular build; and sympathetic, but somewhat indecisive
character, though possessing self-control.

"I cannot regard my sexual feelings as unnatural or abnormal,
since they have disclosed themselves so perfectly naturally and
spontaneously within me. All that I have read in books or heard
spoken about the ordinary sexual love, its intensity and passion,
lifelong devotion, love at first sight, etc., seems to me to be
easily matched by my own experiences in the homosexual form; and,
with regard to the morality of this complex subject, my feeling
is that it is the same as should prevail in love between man and
woman, namely: that no bodily satisfaction should be sought at
the cost of another person's distress or degradation. I am sure
that this kind of love is, notwithstanding the physical
difficulties that attend it, as deeply stirring and ennobling as
the other kind, if not more so; and I think that for a perfect
relationship the actual sex gratifications (whatever they may be)
probably hold a less important place in this love than in the
other."


HISTORY VIII.--M.N., aged 30. "My grandfather might be said to be
of abnormal temperament, for, though of very humble origin, he
organized and carried out an extremely arduous mission work and
became an accomplished linguist, translating the Bible into an
Eastern tongue and compiling the first dictionary of that
language. He died, practically of overwork, at the age of 45. He
was twice married, my father being his third son by the second
wife. I believe that two, if not more, of the family (numbering
seven in all) were inverted, and the only one of them to marry
was my father. My grandmother was the last representative of an
old and very 'wild' Irish family. She died at an advanced age, of
paralysis. My father was 36 and my mother 21 at the time of their
marriage. I was born three years after and was their only child.
The marriage proved a most unhappy one, they being utterly
unsuited to each other in every way.

"My father's health during the first years of his marriage was
very delicate, and I have reason to believe that it had been
undermined in certain ways by his life abroad. I understand I was
born with slight gonorrheal affection, and as a child my health
was very indifferent. This latter may have been brought about by
the peculiarly unhappy and unnatural life I led. I had no
companions of my own age, and did not even attend any school
until after my mother's death. My father superintended my
education up to that time, and I had free access to a large and
very varied library, and a great deal of solitary leisure to
enjoy it in. There were a number of medical and scientific books
in it, which were my principal favorites, and I remember deciding
at a very early age to be a doctor. When about 5 years old I
recollect having a sexual dream connected with a railway porter.
It afforded me great pleasure to recall this dream, and about
that time I discovered a method of self-gratification (there is
not much 'teaching' required in these matters!).

"I cannot say that the dream I have mentioned constituted
absolutely the first intimation of inverted feeling, but rather
that it crystallized vague ideas which I might have already had
on the subject. I can recollect that when about between 3 and 4
years of age a young fellow of about 20 came to our house several
times as a visitor. He was fond of children, I suppose, and I
generally sat on his knee and was kissed by him. This was a
source of great pleasure to me, but I cannot remember if it was
accompanied by erection. I can only recall that his attention and
caresses made a greater impression upon me than those of women.
When about that age too I was often aroused when sleeping with my
mother, and told not to lie on my face. I remember that erection
was always present on these occasions. The dream was the first of
many of its kind, and in my case they have never been accompanied
by emission. They have always been of an 'inverted' character,
though I have occasionally had dreams about women. These latter,
however, have usually partaken somewhat of the nature of a
nightmare!

"Up to the age of 14 I felt much perplexed and depressed by my
views on sexual desire, and was convinced that they were peculiar
to myself. This, combined with the solitary condition of my
life, and about four years' continued ill-treatment prior to my
mother's death (she had given way to drink for that period), had
a very injurious effect on my health, mental and bodily. Looking
back from my present point of view, I can understand and forgive
many things which appeared monstrous and unjust to me as a child.
My mother's life must have been a very unhappy one, and she was
bitterly disappointed in many ways, very likely in me as well. My
unfortunate, misunderstood temperament led me to be shy and
secretive, and I was often ailing, and my training was not
calculated to improve matters. At last, however, change and
freedom came, and I was sent to a boarding-school. Here, of
course, I soon met with attachments and gratifications with other
boys. I arrived at puberty, and my health improved under happier
surroundings. I was not long in discovering that my companions
viewed the pleasures that meant so much to me from an entirely
different standpoint. Their gratifications were usually
accompanied by conversation about, and a general direction of
thought toward, females. When I had turned 15, owing to monetary
difficulties I was obliged to leave school, and was soon not only
thrown on my own resources, but accountable to no one but myself
for my conduct. Of course, my next discovery was that my case, so
far from being peculiar, was a most common one, and I was quickly
initiated into all the mysteries of inversion, with its
freemasonry and 'argot.' Altogether my experience of inverts has
been a pretty wide and varied one, and I have always endeavored
to classify and compare cases which have come under my notice
with a view to arriving at some sort of conclusion or
explanation.

"I suppose it is due to female versatility or impressibility that
it is possible for me to experience mentally the emotions
attributable to either sex, according to the age and temperament
of my companion; for instance, with one older than myself,
possessing well-marked male characteristics, I am able to feel
all that surrender and dependence which is so essentially
feminine. On the other hand, if with a youth of feminine type and
behavior I can realize, with an equal amount of pleasure, the
tender, yet dominant, attitude of the male.

"I experience no particular 'horror' of women sexually. I should
imagine that my feeling toward them resembles very much what
normal people feel with regard to others of their own sex." M.N.
remarks that he cannot whistle, and that his favorite color is
green.

In this case the subject easily found a moral _modus vivendi_ with his
inverted instinct, and he takes its gratification for granted. In the
following case, which, I believe, is typical of a large group, the subject
has never yielded to his inverted impulses, and, except so far as
masturbation is concerned, has preserved strict chastity.


HISTORY IX.--R.S., aged 31, American of French descent. "Upon the
question of heredity I may say that I belong to a reasonably
healthy, prolific, and long-lived family. On my father's side,
however, there is a tendency toward pulmonary troubles. He
himself died of pneumonia, and two of his brothers and a nephew
of consumption. Neither of my parents were morbid or eccentric.
Excepting for a certain shyness with strangers, my father was a
very masculine man. My mother is somewhat nervous, but is not
imaginative, nor at all demonstrative in her affections. I think
that my own imaginative and artistic temperament must come from
my father's side. Perhaps my French ancestry has something to do
with it. With the exception of my maternal grandfather, all my
progenitors have been of French descent. My mother's father was
English.

"I possess a mercurial temperament and a strong sense of the
ludicrous. Though my _physique_ is slight, my health has always
been excellent. Of late years especially I have been greatly
given to introspection and self-scrutiny, but have never had any
hallucinations, mental delusions, nor hysterics, and am not at
all superstitious. Spiritualistic manifestations, hypnotic
dabblings, and the other psychical fads of the day have little or
no attraction for me. In fact, I have always been skeptical of
them, and they rather bore me.

"At school I was an indolent, dreamy boy, shirking study, but
otherwise fairly docile to my teachers. From earliest childhood I
have indulged in omnivorous taste for reading, my particular
likings being for travels, esthetics, metaphysical and
theological subjects, and more recently for poetry and certain
forms of mysticism. I never cared much for history or for
scientific subjects. From the beginning, too, I showed a strong
artistic bent, and possessed an overpowering love for all things
beautiful. As a child I was passionately fond of flowers, loved
to be in the woods and alone, and wanted to become an artist. My
parents opposed the latter wish and I gave way before their
opposition.

"In me the homosexual nature is singularly complete, and is
undoubtedly congenital. The most intense delight of my childhood
(even when a tiny boy in a nurse's charge) was to watch acrobats
and riders at the circus. This was not so much for the skillful
feats as on account of the beauty of their persons. Even then I
cared chiefly for the more lithe and graceful fellows. People
told me that circus actors were wicked, and would steal little
boys, and so I came to look upon my favorites as half-devil and
half-angel. When I was older and could go about alone, I would
often hang around the tents of travelling shows in hope of
catching a glimpse of the actors. I longed to see them naked,
without their tights, and used to lie awake at night thinking of
them and longing to be loved and embraced by them. A certain
bareback rider, a sort of jockey, used especially to please me on
account of his handsome legs, which were clothed in fleshlings up
to his waist, leaving his beautiful loins uncovered by a
breech-clout. There was nothing consciously sensual about these
reveries, because at the time I had no sensual feelings or
knowledge. Curiously enough, the women-actors repelled me then
(as they do to this day) quite as strongly as I was attracted by
the men.

"I used, also, to take great pleasure in watching men and boys in
swimming, but my opportunities for seeing them thus were
extremely rare. I never dared let my comrades know how I felt
about these matters, but the sight of a well-formed, naked youth
or man would fill me (and does now) with mingled feelings of
bashfulness, anguish, and delight. I used to tell myself endless
stories of a visionary castle inhabited by beautiful boys, one of
whom was especially my dear chum.

"It was always the _prince_, in fairy tales, who held my interest
or affection. I was constantly falling in love with handsome boys
whom I never knew; nor did I ever try to mix in their company,
for I was abashed before them, and had no liking nor aptitude for
boyish games. Sometimes I played with girls because they were
more quiet and gentler, but I cared for them little or not at
all.

"As is usually the case, my parents neglected to impart to me any
sexual knowledge, and such as I possessed was gathered furtively
from tainted sources, bad boys' talk at school and elsewhere. My
elders let me know, in a vague way, that talk of the kind was
wicked, and natural timidity and a wish to be 'good' kept me from
learning much about sexual matters. As I never went to
boarding-school, I was spared, perhaps, many of the degrading
initiations administered by knowing boys at such institutions.

"In spite of what has been said above, I do not believe that I
was sexually very precocious, and even now I feel that more
pleasure would ensue from merely contemplating than from personal
contact with the object of my amorous attentions.

"As I grew older there came, of course, an undefined physical
longing, but it was the _beauty_ of those I admired which mainly
appealed to me. At the time of puberty I spontaneously acquired
the habit of masturbation. Once while bathing I found that a
pleasant feeling came with touching the sexual organs. It was not
long before I was confirmed in the habit. At first I practised it
but seldom, but afterward much more frequently (say, once a
week), though at times months have elapsed without any
indulgences on my part. I have only had erotic dreams three or
four times in my life. The masturbation habit I regard as
morally reprehensible and have made many resolutions to break it,
but without avail. It affords me only the most momentary
satisfaction, and is always followed by remorseful scruples.

"I have never in my life had any sexual feeling for a woman, nor
any sexual connection with any woman whatsoever. The very thought
of such a thing is excessively repugnant and disgusting to me.
This is true, apart from any moral considerations, and I do not
think I could bring myself to it. I am not attracted by young
women in any way. Even their physical beauty has little or no
charm for me, and I often wonder how men can be so affected by
it. On the other hand, I am not a woman-hater, and have several
strong friends of the opposite sex. They are, however, women
older than myself, and our friendship is based solely on certain
intellectual or esthetic tastes we have in common.

"I have had practically no physical relations with men; at any
rate, none specifically sexual. Once, when about 19 or 21, I
started to embrace a beautifully formed youth with whom I was
sleeping, but timidity and scruples got the better of my
feelings, and, as my bedfellow was not amorously inclined toward
me, nothing came of it. A few years after this I became strongly
attached to a friend whom I had already known for several years.
Circumstances threw us very much together during one summer. It
was now that I felt for the first time the full shock of love. He
returned my affection, but both of us were shy of showing our
feelings or speaking of them. Often when walking together after
night-fall we would put our arms about each other. Sometimes,
too, when sleeping together we would lie in close contact, and my
friend once suggested that I put my legs against his. He
frequently begged me to spend the night with him; but I began to
fear my feelings, and slept with him but seldom. We neither of us
had any definite ideas about homosexual relations, and, apart
from what I have related above, we had no further contact with
each other. A few months after our amorous feelings had developed
my friend died. His death caused me great distress, and my
naturally religious temperament began to manifest itself quite
strongly. At this time, too, I first read some writings of Mr.
Addington Symonds, and certain allusions in his work, coupled
with my recent experience, soon stirred me to a full
consciousness of my inverted nature.

"About eight months after my friend's death I happened to meet in
a strange town a youth of about my own age who exerted upon me a
strong and instant attraction. He possessed a refined, handsome
face, was gracefully built, and, though he was rather
undemonstrative, we soon became fast friends.

"We were together only for a few days, when I was obliged to
leave for my home, and the parting caused me great unhappiness
and depression. A few months after we spent a vacation together.
One day during our trip we went swimming, and undressed in the
same bathhouse. When I saw my friend naked for the first time he
seemed to me so beautiful that I longed to throw my arms about
him and cover him with kisses. I kept my feelings hidden,
however, hardly daring to look at him for fear of being unable to
restrain my desires. Several times afterward, in his room, I saw
him stripped, with the same effect upon my emotions. Until I had
seen him naked my feelings for him were not of a physical
character, but afterward I longed for actual contact, but only by
embraces and kisses. Though he was fond of me, he had absolutely
no amorous longings for me, and being a simple, pure-minded
fellow, would have loathed me for mine and my inverted nature. I
was careful never to let him discover it, and I was made very
unhappy when he confided that he was in love with a young girl
whom he wished to marry. This episode took place several years
ago, and though we are still friends my emotional feelings for
him have cooled considerably.

"I have always been very shy of showing any affectionate
tendencies. Most of my acquaintances (and close friends even)
think me curiously cold, and often wonder why I have never fallen
in love or married. For obvious reasons I have never been able to
tell them.

"Three or four years ago a little book by Coventry Patmore fell
into my hands, and from its perusal resulted a strange blending
of my religious and erotic notions. The desire to love and be
loved is hard to drown, and, when I realized that homosexually it
was neither lawful nor possible for me to love in this world, I
began to project my longings into the next. By birth I am a Roman
Catholic, and in spite of a somewhat skeptical temper, manage to
remain one by conviction.

"From the doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, and Eucharist, I
have drawn conclusions which would fill the minds of the average
pietist with holy horror; nevertheless I believe that (granting
the premises) these conclusions are both logically and
theologically defensible. The Divinity of my fancied paradise
resembles in no way the vapid conceptions of Fra Angelico, or the
Quartier St. Sulpice. His physical aspect, at least, would be
better represented by some Praxitilean demigod or Flandrin's
naked, brooding boy.

"While these imaginings have caused me considerable moral
disquietude, they do not seem wholly reprehensible, because I
feel that the chief happiness I would derive by their realization
would be mainly from the contemplation of the loved one, rather
than from closer joys.

"I possess only a slight knowledge of the history and particulars
of erotic mysticism, but it is likely that my notions are neither
new nor peculiar, and many utterances of the few mystical writers
with whose works I am acquainted seem substantially in accord
with my own longings and conclusions. In endeavoring to find for
them some sanction of valid authority, I have always sought
corroboration from members of my own sex; hence am less likely to
have fashioned my views after those of hypersensitive or
hysterical women.

"You will rightly infer that it is difficult for me to say
exactly how I regard (morally) the homosexual tendency. Of this
much, however, I am certain, that, even, if it were possible, I
would not exchange my inverted nature for a normal one. I suspect
that the sexual emotions and even inverted ones have a more
subtle significance than is generally attributed to them; but
modern moralists either fight shy of transcendental
interpretations or see none, and I am ignorant and unable to
solve the mystery these feelings seem to imply.

"Patmore speaks boldly enough, in his way, and Lacordaire has
hinted at things, but in a very guarded manner. I have neither
the ability nor opportunity to study what the mystics of the
Middle Ages have to say along these lines, and, besides, the
medieval way of looking at things is not congenial to me. The
chief characteristic of my tendency is an overpowering admiration
for male beauty, and in this I am more akin to the Greeks.

"I have absolutely no words to tell you how powerfully such
beauty affects me. Moral and intellectual worth is, I know, of
greater value, but physical beauty I _see_ more clearly, and it
appears to me the most _vivid_ (if not the most perfect)
manifestation of the divine. A little incident may, perhaps,
reveal to you my feelings more completely. Not long ago I
happened to see an unusually well-formed young fellow enter a
house of assignation with a common woman of the streets. The
sight filled me with the keenest anguish, and the thought that
his beauty would soon be at the disposal of a prostitute made me
feel as if I were a powerless and unhappy witness to a sacrilege.
It may be that my rage for male loveliness is only another
outbreaking of the old Platonic mania, for as time goes on I find
that I long less for the actual youth before me, and more and
more for some ideal, perfect being whose bodily splendor and
loving heart are the realities whose reflections only we see in
this cave of shadows. Since the birth and development within me
of what, for lack of a better name, I term my homosexualized
Patmorean ideal, life has become, in the main, a weary business.
I am not despondent, however, because many things still hold for
me a certain interest. When that interest dies down, as it is
wont from time to time, I endeavor to be patient. God grant that,
after the end _here_, I may be drawn from the shadow, and
seemingly vain imaginings into the possession of their
never-ending reality _hereafter_."


HISTORY X.--A.H., aged 62. Belongs to a family which cannot be
regarded as healthy, but there is no insanity among near
relations. Father a very virile man of high character and good
intelligence, but not sound physical health. Mother was
high-strung and nervous, but possessed of indomitable courage and
very affectionate; she lived very happily with her husband. She
became a chronic invalid and died of consumption. A.H. was a
seven months' child, the third in the family, who were born very
rapidly, so that there is only three years difference in the ages
of the first and third children. A.H. believes that one of his
brothers, who has never married and prefers men to women, is also
inverted, though not to the same degree as himself, and he also
suspects that a relation of his mother's may have been an invert.
Sister, who resembles the father in character, is married, but is
spoken of as a woman's woman rather than a man's woman. The
family generally are considered proud and reserved, but of
superior mental endowment.

In early life A.H. was delicate and his studies were often
interrupted by illness. Though living under happy conditions he
was shy and nervous, often depressed. In later life his health
has been up to the average, and he has usually been able to
conceal his mental doubts and diffidence.

As a child he played with dolls and made girls his companions
until an age when he grew conscious that his conduct was unusual
and became ashamed, while his father seemed troubled about him.
He regards himself as having been a very childish child.

His conscious sexual life began between the ages of 8 and 10. He
was playing in the garden when he saw a manservant who had long
been with the family, standing at the door of a shed with his
penis exposed and erect. The boy had never seen anything of the
kind before, but felt great delight in the exhibition and moved
shyly toward the man, who retreated into the shed. The boy
followed and was allowed to caress and play with the penis until
ejaculation took place, the man replying, in reply to the child's
innocent inquiries, that it "felt good." This experience was
frequently repeated with the same man, and the boy confided in a
boy friend, with whom he tried to ascertain by personal
experience what the "good feeling" was like, but they were too
young to derive any pleasure from the attempt beyond the joy of
what was instinctively felt to be "eating forbidden fruit."

From this period his sexual tendencies began to become fixed and
self-conscious. He has never at any period of life had a moment's