Ordericus Vitalis, who was himself half Norman and half English, says that the Normans had become very effeminate in his time, and that after the death of William the Conqueror sodomy was common both in England and Normandy. Guillaume de Nangis, in his chronicle for about 1120, speaking of the two sons of Henry and the company of young n.o.bles who went down with them, in the White Ship, states that nearly all were considered to be sodomists, and Henry of Huntingdon, in his History, looked upon the loss of the White Ship as a judgment of heaven upon sodomy. Anselm, in writing to Archdeacon William to inform him concerning the recent Council at London (1102), gives advice as to how to deal with people who have committed the sin of sodomy, and instructs him not to be too harsh with those who have not realized its gravity, for hitherto "this sin has been so public that hardly anyone has blushed for it, and many, therefore, have plunged into it without realizing its gravity."[81] So temperate a remark by a man of such unquestionably high character is more significant of the prevalence of h.o.m.os.e.xuality than much denunciation.
In religious circles far from courts and cities, as we might expect, h.o.m.os.e.xuality was regarded with great horror, though even here we may discover evidence of its wide prevalence. Thus in the remarkable Revelation of the Monk of Evesham, written in English in 1196, we find that in the very worst part of Purgatory are confined an innumerable company of sodomists (including a wealthy, witty, and learned divine, a doctor of laws, personally known to the Monk), and whether these people would ever be delivered from Purgatory was a matter of doubt; of the salvation of no other sinners does the Monk of Evesham seem so dubious.
Sodomy had always been an ecclesiastical offense. The Statute of 1533 (25 Henry VIII, c. 6) made it a felony; and Pollock and Maitland consider that this "affords an almost sufficient proof that the temporal courts had not punished it, and that no one had been put to death for it, for a very long time past."[82] The temporal law has never, however, proved very successful in repressing h.o.m.os.e.xuality. At this period the Renaissance movement was reaching England, and here as elsewhere it brought with it, if not an increase, at all events a rehabilitation and often an idealization of h.o.m.os.e.xuality.[83]
An eminent humanist and notable pioneer in dramatic literature, Nicholas Udall, to whom is attributed Ralph Roister Doister, the first English comedy, stands out as unquestionably addicted to h.o.m.os.e.xual tastes, although he has left no literary evidence of this tendency. He was an early adherent of the Protestant movement, and when head-master of Eton he was noted for his love of inflicting corporal punishment on the boys. Tusser says he once received from Udall 53 stripes for "fault but small or none at all." Here there was evidently a s.e.xual s.a.d.i.s.tic impulse, for in 1541 (the year of Ralph Roister Doister) Udall was charged with unnatural crime and confessed his guilt before the Privy Council. He was dismissed from the head-mastership and imprisoned, but only for a short time, "and his reputation," his modern biographer states, "was not permanently injured." He retained the vicarage of Braintree, and was much favored by Edward VI, who nominated him to a prebend of Windsor. Queen Mary was also favorable and he became head-master of Westminster School.[84]
An Elizabethan lyrical poet of high quality, whose work has had the honor of being confused with Shakespeare"s, Richard Barnfield, appears to have possessed the temperament, at least, of the invert. His poems to male friends are of so impa.s.sioned a character that they aroused the protests of a very tolerant age. Very little is known of Barnfield"s life. Born in 1574 he published his first poem, The Affectionate Shepherd, at the age of 20, while still at the University. It was issued anonymously, revealed much fresh poetic feeling and literary skill, and is addressed to a youth of whom the poet declares:-
"If it be sin to love a lovely lad, Oh then sin I."
In his subsequent volume, Cynthia (1595), Barnfield disclaims any intention in the earlier poem beyond that of imitating Virgil"s second eclogue. But the sonnets in this second volume are even more definitely h.o.m.os.e.xual than the earlier poem, though he goes on to tell how at last he found a la.s.s whose beauty surpa.s.sed that
"of the swain Whom I never could obtain."
After the age of 31 Barnfield wrote no more, but, being in easy circ.u.mstances, retired to his beautiful manor house and country estate in Shropshire, lived there for twenty years and died leaving a wife and son.[85] It seems probable that he was of bis.e.xual temperament, and that, as not infrequently happens in such cases, the h.o.m.os.e.xual element developed early under the influence of a cla.s.sical education and university a.s.sociations, while the normal heteros.e.xual element developed later and, as may happen in bis.e.xual persons, was a.s.sociated with the more commonplace and prosaic side of life. Barnfield was only a genuine poet on the h.o.m.os.e.xual side of his nature.
Greater men of that age than Barnfield may be suspected of h.o.m.os.e.xual tendencies. Marlowe, whose most powerful drama, Edward II, is devoted to a picture of the relations between that king and his minions, is himself suspected of h.o.m.os.e.xuality. An ignorant informer brought certain charges of freethought and criminality against him, and further accused him of a.s.serting that they are fools who love not boys. These charges have doubtless been colored by the vulgar channel through which they pa.s.sed, but it seems absolutely impossible to regard them as the inventions of a mere gallows-bird such as this informer was.[86] Moreover, Marlowe"s poetic work, while it shows him by no means insensitive to the beauty of women, also reveals a special and peculiar sensitiveness to masculine beauty. Marlowe clearly had a reckless delight in all things unlawful, and it seems probable that he possessed the bis.e.xual temperament. Shakespeare has also been discussed from this point of view. All that can be said, however, is that he addressed a long series of sonnets to a youthful male friend. These sonnets are written in lover"s language of a very tender and n.o.ble order. They do not appear to imply any relationship that the writer regarded as shameful or that would be so regarded by the world. Moreover, they seem to represent but a single episode in the life of a very sensitive, many-sided nature.[87] There is no other evidence in Shakespeare"s work of h.o.m.os.e.xual instinct such as we may trace throughout Marlowe"s, while there is abundant evidence of a constant preoccupation with women.
While Shakespeare thus narrowly escapes inclusion in the list of distinguished inverts, there is much better ground for the inclusion of his great contemporary, Francis Bacon. Aubrey in his laboriously compiled Short Lives, in which he shows a friendly and admiring att.i.tude toward Bacon, definitely states that he was a pederast. Aubrey was only a careful gleaner of frequently authentic gossip, but a similar statement is made by Sir Simonds D"Ewes in his Autobiography. D"Ewes, whose family belonged to the same part of Suffolk as Bacon"s sprang from, was not friendly to Bacon, but that fact will not suffice to account for his statement. He was an upright and honorable man of scholarly habits, and, moreover, a trained lawyer, who had many opportunities of obtaining first-hand information, for he had lived in the Chancery office from childhood. He is very precise as to Bacon"s h.o.m.os.e.xual practices with his own servants, both before and after his fall, and even gives the name of a "very effeminate-faced youth" who was his "catamite and bedfellow"; he states, further, that there had been some question of bringing Bacon to trial for sodomy. These allegations may be supported by a letter of Bacon"s own mother (printed in Spedding"s Life of Bacon), reproving him on account of what she had heard concerning his behavior with the young Welshmen in his service whom he made his bedfellows. It is notable that Bacon seems to have been specially attracted to Welshmen (one might even find evidence of this in the life of the Welshman, Henry VII), a people of vivacious temperament unlike his own; this is ill.u.s.trated by his long and intimate friendship with the mercurial Sir Toby Mathew, his "alter ego," a man of dissipated habits in early life, though we are not told that he was h.o.m.os.e.xual. Bacon had many friendships with men, but there is no evidence that he was ever in love or cherished any affectionate intimacy with a woman. Women play no part at all in his life. His marriage, which was childless, took place at the mature age of 46; it was effected in a business-like manner, and though he always treated his wife with formal consideration it is probable that he neglected her, and certain that he failed to secure her devotion; it is clear that toward the end of Bacon"s life she formed a relationship with her gentleman usher, whom subsequently she married. Bacon"s writings, it may be added, equally with his letters, show no evidence of love or attraction to women; in his Essays he is brief and judicial on the subject of Marriage, copious and eloquent on the subject of Friendship, while the essay on Beauty deals exclusively with masculine beauty.
During the first half of the eighteenth century we have clear evidence that h.o.m.os.e.xuality flourished in London with the features which it presents today in all large cities everywhere. There was a generally known name, "Mollies," applied to h.o.m.os.e.xual persons, evidently having reference to their frequently feminine characteristics; there were houses of private resort for them ("Molly houses"), there were special public places of rendezvous whither they went in search of adventure, exactly as there are today. A walk in Upper Moorfields was especially frequented by the h.o.m.os.e.xual about 1725. A detective employed by the police about that date gave evidence as follows at the Old Bailey; "I takes a turn that way and leans over the wall. In a little time the prisoner pa.s.ses by, and looks hard at me, and at a small distance from me stands up against the wall as if he was going to make water. Then by degrees he siddles nearer and nearer to where I stood, till at last he was close to me. "Tis a very fine night," says he. "Aye," say I, "and so it is." Then he takes me by the hand, and after squeezing and playing with it a little, he conveys it to his breeches," whereupon the detective seizes the man by his s.e.xual organs and holds him until the constable comes up and effects an arrest.
At the same period Margaret Clap, commonly called Mother Clap, kept a house in Field Lane, Holborn, which was a noted resort of the h.o.m.os.e.xual. To Mother Clap"s Molly-house 30 or 40 clients would resort every night; on Sunday there might be as many as 50, for, as in Berlin and other cities today, that was the great h.o.m.os.e.xual gala night; there were beds in every room in this house. We are told that the "men would sit in one another"s laps, kissing in a lewd manner and using their hands indecently. Then they would get up, dance and make curtsies, and mimic the voices of women, "Oh, fie, sir,"-"Pray, sir,"-"Dear sir,"-"Lord, how can you serve me so?"-"I swear I"ll cry out,"-"You"re a wicked devil,"-"And you"re a bold face,"-"Eh, ye dear little toad,"-"Come, bus." They"d hug and play and toy and go out by couples into another room, on the same floor, to be "married," as they called it."
On the whole one gains the impression that h.o.m.os.e.xual practices were more prevalent in London in the eighteenth century, bearing in mind its population at that time, than they are today.[88] It must not, however, be supposed that the law was indulgent and its administration lax. The very reverse was the case. The punishment for sodomy, when completely effected, was death, and it was frequently inflicted. h.o.m.os.e.xual intercourse, without evidence of penetration, was regarded as "attempt" and was usually punished by the pillory and a heavy fine, followed by two years" imprisonment. Moreover, it would appear that more activity was shown by the police in prosecution than is nowadays the case; this is, for instance, suggested by the evidence of the detective already quoted.
To keep a h.o.m.os.e.xual resort was also a severely punishable offense. Mother Clap was charged at the Old Bailey in 1726 with "keeping a sodomitical house"; she protested that she could not herself have taken part in these practices, but that availed her nothing; she could bring forward no witnesses on her behalf and was condemned to pay a fine, to stand in the pillory, and to undergo imprisonment for two years. The cases were dealt with in a matter-of-fact way which seems to bear further witness to the frequency of the offense, and with no effort to expend any specially vindictive harshness on this cla.s.s of offenders. If there was the slightest doubt as to the facts, even though the balance of evidence was against the accused, he was usually acquitted, and the man who could bring witnesses to his general good character might often thereby escape. In 1721 a religious young man, married, was convicted of attempting sodomy with two young men he slept with; he was fined, placed in the pillory and imprisoned for two months. Next year a man was acquitted on a similar charge, and another man, of decent aspect, although the evidence indicated that he might have been guilty of sodomy, was only convicted of attempt, and sentenced to fine, pillory, and two years" imprisonment. In 1723, again, a schoolmaster was acquitted, on account of his good reputation, of the charge of attempt on a boy of 15, his pupil, though the evidence seemed decidedly against him. In 1730 a man was sentenced to death for sodomy effected on his young apprentice; this was a bad case and the surgeon"s evidence indicated laceration of the perineum. h.o.m.os.e.xuality of all kinds flourished, it will be seen, notwithstanding the fearless yet fair application of a very severe law.[89]
In more recent times Byron has frequently been referred to as experiencing h.o.m.os.e.xual affections, and I have been informed that some of his poems nominally addressed to women were really inspired by men. It is certain that he experienced very strong emotions toward his male friends. "My school-friendships," he wrote, "were with me pa.s.sions." When he afterward met one of these friends, Lord Clare, in Italy, he was painfully agitated; and could never hear the name without a beating of the heart. At the age of 22 he formed one of his strong attachments for a youth to whom he left 7000 in his will.[90] It is probable, however, that here, as well as in the case of Shakespeare, and in that of Tennyson"s love for his youthful friend, Arthur Hallam, as well as of Montaigne for Etienne de la Boetie, although such strong friendships may involve an element of s.e.xual emotion, we have no true and definite h.o.m.os.e.xual impulse; h.o.m.os.e.xuality is merely simulated by the ardent and hyperesthetic emotions of the poet.[91] The same quality of the poet"s emotional temperament may doubtless, also, be invoked in the case of Goethe, who is said to have written elegies which, on account of their h.o.m.os.e.xual character, still remain unpublished.
The most famous h.o.m.os.e.xual trial of recent times in England was that of Oscar Wilde, a writer whose literary reputation may be said to be still growing, not only in England but throughout the world. Wilde was the son of parents who were both of unusual ability and somewhat eccentric. Both these tendencies became in him more concentrated. He was born with, as it were, a congenital antipathy to the commonplace, a natural love of paradox, and he possessed the skill to embody the characteristic in finished literary form. At the same time, it must not be forgotten, beneath this natural att.i.tude of paradox, his essential judgments on life and literature were usually sound and reasonable. His essay on "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" witnessed to his large and enlightened conception of life, and his profound admiration for Flaubert to the sanity and solidity of his literary taste. In early life he revealed no h.o.m.os.e.xual tendencies; he married and had children. After he had begun to outgrow his youthful esthetic extravagances, however, and to acquire success and fame, he developed what was at first a simply inquisitive interest in inversion. Such inquisitive interest is sometimes the sign of an emerging h.o.m.os.e.xual impulse. It proved to be so in Wilde"s case and ultimately he was found to be cultivating the acquaintance of youths of low cla.s.s and doubtful character. Although this development occurred comparatively late in life, we must hesitate to describe Wilde"s h.o.m.os.e.xuality as acquired. If we consider his const.i.tution and his history, it is not difficult to suppose that h.o.m.os.e.xual germs were present in a latent form from the first, and it may quite well be that Wilde"s inversion was of that kind which is now described as r.e.t.a.r.ded, though still congenital.
As is usual in England, no active efforts were made to implicate Wilde in any criminal charge. It was his own action, as even he himself seems to have vaguely realized beforehand, which brought the storm about his head. He was arrested, tried, condemned, and at once there arose a general howl of execration, joined in even by the judge, whose att.i.tude compared unfavorably with the more impartial att.i.tude of the eighteenth century judges in similar cases. Wilde came out of prison ambitious to retrieve his reputation by the quality of his literary work. But he left Reading gaol merely to enter a larger and colder prison. He soon realized that his spirit was broken even more than his health. He drifted at last to Paris, where he shortly after died, shunned by all but a few of his friends.[92]
In a writer of the first order, Edward Fitzgerald, to whom we owe the immortal and highly individualized version of Omar Khayyam, it is easy to trace an element of h.o.m.os.e.xuality, though it appears never to have reached full and conscious development. Fitzgerald was an eccentric person who, though rich and on friendly terms with some of the most distinguished men of his time, was always out of harmony with his environment. He felt himself called on to marry, very unhappily, a woman whom he had never been in love with and with whom he had nothing in common. All his affections were for his male friends. In early life he was devoted to his friend W. K. Browne, whom he glorified in Euphranor. "To him Browne was at once Jonathan, Gamaliel, Apollo,-the friend, the master, the G.o.d,-there was scarcely a limit to his devotion and admiration."[93] On Browne"s premature death Fitzgerald"s heart was empty. In 1859 at Lowestoft, Fitzgerald, as he wrote to Mrs. Browne, "used to wander about the sh.o.r.e at night longing for some fellow to accost me who might give some promise of filling up a very vacant place in my heart." It was then that he met "Posh" (Joseph Fletcher), a fisherman, 6 feet tall, said to be of the best Suffolk type, both in body and character. Posh reminded Fitzgerald of his dead friend Browne; he made him captain of his lugger, and was thereafter devoted to him. Posh was, said Fitzgerald, "a man of the finest Saxon type, with a complexion vif, male et flamboyant, blue eyes, a nose less than Roman, more than Greek, and strictly auburn hair that any woman might envy. Further he was a man of simplicity; of soul, justice of thought, tenderness of nature, a gentleman of Nature"s grandest type," in fact the "greatest man" Fitzgerald had ever met. Posh was not, however, quite so absolutely perfect as this description suggests, and various misunderstandings arose in consequence between the two friends so unequal in culture and social traditions. These difficulties are reflected in some of the yet extant letters from the enormous ma.s.s which Fitzgerald addressed to "my dear Poshy."[94]
A great personality of recent times, widely regarded with reverence as the prophet-poet of Democracy[95]-Walt Whitman-has aroused discussion by his sympathetic att.i.tude toward pa.s.sionate friendship, or "manly love" as he calls it, in Leaves of Gra.s.s. In this book-in "Calamus," "Drumtaps," and elsewhere-Whitman celebrates a friendship in which physical contact and a kind of silent voluptuous emotion are essential elements. In order to settle the question as to the precise significance of "Calamus," J. A. Symonds wrote to Whitman, frankly posing the question. The answer (written from Camden, N. J., on August 19, 1890) is the only statement of Whitman"s att.i.tude toward h.o.m.os.e.xuality, and it is therefore desirable that it should be set on record:-
"About the questions on "Calamus," etc., they quite daze me. Leaves of Gra.s.s is only to be rightly construed by and within its own atmosphere and essential character-all its pages and pieces so coming strictly under. That the "Calamus" part has ever allowed the possibility of such construction as mentioned is terrible. I am fain to hope that the pages themselves are not to be even mentioned for such gratuitous and quite at the time undreamed and unwished possibility of morbid inferences-which are disavowed by me and seem d.a.m.nable."
It would seem from this letter[96] that Whitman had never realized that there is any relationship whatever between the pa.s.sionate emotion of physical contact from man to man, as he had experienced it and sung it, and the act which with other people he would regard as a crime against nature. This may be singular, for there are many inverted persons who have found satisfaction in friendships less physical and pa.s.sionate than those described in Leaves of Gra.s.s, but Whitman was a man of concrete, emotional, instinctive temperament, lacking in a.n.a.lytical power, receptive to all influences, and careless of harmonizing them. He would most certainly have refused to admit that he was the subject of inverted s.e.xuality. It remains true, however, that "manly love" occupies in his work a predominance which it would scarcely hold in the feelings of the "average man," whom Whitman wishes to honor. A normally const.i.tuted person, having a.s.sumed the very frank att.i.tude taken up by Whitman, would be impelled to devote far more s.p.a.ce and far more ardor to the subject of s.e.xual relationships with women and all that is involved in maternity than is accorded to them in Leaves of Gra.s.s. Some of Whitman"s extant letters to young men, though they do not throw definite light on this question, are of a very affectionate character,[97] and, although a man of remarkable physical vigor, he never felt inclined to marry.[98] It remains somewhat difficult to cla.s.sify him from the s.e.xual point of view, but we can scarcely fail to recognize the presence of a h.o.m.os.e.xual tendency.
I should add that some friends and admirers of Whitman are not prepared to accept the evidence of the letter to Symonds. I am indebted to "Q." for the following statement of the objections:-
"I think myself that it is a mistake to give much weight to this letter-perhaps a mistake to introduce it at all, since if introduced it will, of course, carry weight. And this for three or four reasons:-
"1. That it is difficult to reconcile the letter itself (with its strong tone of disapprobation) with the general "atmosphere" of Leaves of Gra.s.s, the tenor of which is to leave everything open and free.
"2. That the letter is in hopeless conflict with the "Calamus" section of poems. For, whatever moral lines Whitman may have drawn at the time of writing these poems, it seems to me quite incredible that the possibility of certain inferences, morbid or other, was undreamed of.
"3. That the letter was written only a few months before his last illness and death, and is the only expression of the kind that he appears to have given utterance to.
"4. That Symonds"s letter, to which this was a reply, is not forth coming; and we consequently do not know what rash expressions it may have contained-leading Whitman (with his extreme caution) to hedge his name from possible use to justify dubious practices."
I may add that I endeavored to obtain Symonds"s letter, but he was unable to produce it, nor has any copy of it been found among his papers.
It should be said that Whitman"s att.i.tude toward Symonds was marked by high regard and admiration. "A wonderful man is Addington Symonds," he remarked shortly before his own death; "some ways the most indicative and penetrating and significant man of our time. Symonds is a curious fellow; I love him dearly. He is of college breed and education, horribly literary and suspicious, and enjoys things. A great fellow for delving into persons and into the concrete, and even into the physiological and the gastric, and wonderfully cute." But on this occasion he delved in vain.
The foregoing remarks (substantially contained in the previous editions of this book) were based mainly on the information received from J. A. Symonds"s side. But of more recent years interesting light has been thrown on this remarkable letter from Walt Whitman"s side. The Boswellian patience, enthusiasm, and skill which Horace Traubel has brought to his full and elaborate work, now in course of publication, With Walt Whitman in Camden, clearly reveal, in the course of various conversations, Whitman"s att.i.tude to Symonds"s question and the state of mind which led up to this letter.
Whitman talked to Traubel much about Symonds from the twenty-seventh of April, 1888 (very soon after the date when Traubel"s work begins), onward. Symonds had written to him repeatedly, it seems, concerning the "pa.s.sional relations of men with men," as Whitman expressed it. "He is always driving at me about that: is that what Calamus means?-because of me or in spite of me, is that what it means? I have said no, but no does not satisfy him. [There is, however, no record from Symonds"s side of any letter by Whitman to Symonds in this sense up to this date.] But read this letter-read the whole of it: it is very shrewd, very cute, in deadliest earnest: it drives me hard, almost compels me-it is urgent, persistent: he sort of stands in the road and says "I won"t move till you answer my question." You see, this is an old letter-sixteen years old-and he is still asking the question: he refers to it in one of his latest notes. He is surely a wonderful man-a rare, cleaned-up man-a white-souled, heroic character.... You will be writing something about Calamus some day," said W. [to Traubel], "and this letter, and what I say, may help to clear your ideas. Calamus needs clear ideas; it may be easily, innocently distorted from its natural, its motive, body of doctrine."
The letter, dated Feb. 7, 1872, of some length, is then reproduced. It tells how much Leaves of Gra.s.s, and especially the Calamus section, had helped the writer. "What the love of man for man has been in the past," Symonds wrote, "I think I know. What it is here now, I know also-alas! What you say it can and should be I dimly discern in your Poems. But this hardly satisfies me-so desirous am I of learning what you teach. Some day, perhaps,-in some form, I know not what, but in your own chosen form,-you will tell me more about the Love of Friends. Till then I wait."
"Said W: "Well, what do you think of that? Do you think that could be answered?" "I don"t see why you call that letter driving you hard. It"s quiet enough-it only asks questions, and asks the questions mildly enough," "I suppose you are right-"drive" is not exactly the word: yet you know how I hate to be catechised. Symonds is right, no doubt, to ask the questions: I am just as much right if I do not answer them: just as much right if I do answer them. I often say to myself about Calamus-perhaps it means more or less than what I thought myself-means different: perhaps I don"t know what it all means-perhaps never did know. My first instinct about all that Symonds writes is violently reactionary-is strong and brutal for no, no, no. Then the thought intervenes that I maybe do not know all my own meanings: I say to myself: "You, too, go away, come back, study your own book-as alien or stranger, study your own book, see what it amounts to." Some time or other I will have to write to him definitely about Calamus-give him my word for it what I meant or mean it to mean.""
Again, a month later (May 24, 1888), Whitman speaks to Traubel of a "beautiful letter" from Symonds. "You will see that he harps on the Calamus poems again. I don"t see why it should, but his recurrence to that subject irritates me a little. I suppose you might say-why don"t you shut him up by answering him? There is no logical answer to that I suppose: but I may ask in my turn: "What right has he to ask questions anyway?"" W. laughed a bit. "Anyway the question comes back to me almost every time he writes. He is courteous enough about it-that is the reason I do not resent him. I suppose the whole thing will end in an answer some day."
The letter follows. The chief point in it is that the writer hopes he has not been importunate in the question he had asked about Calamus three years before.
"I [Traubel] said to W.: "That"s a humble letter enough: I don"t see anything in that to get excited about. He doesn"t ask you to answer the old question. In fact he rather apologizes for having asked it." W. fired up "Who is excited? As to that question, he does ask it again and again: asks it, asks it, asks it." I laughed at his vehemence. "Well, suppose he does? It does not harm. Besides, you"ve got nothing to hide. I think your silence might lead him to suppose there was a n.i.g.g.e.r in your wood pile." "Oh, nonsense! But for thirty years my enemies and friends have been asking me questions about the Leaves: I"m tired of not answering questions." It was very funny to see his face when he gave a humorous twist to the fling in his last phrase. Then he relaxed and added: "Anyway I love Symonds. Who could fail to love a man who could write such a letter? I suppose he will yet have to be answered, d.a.m.n "im!""
It is clear that these conversations considerably diminish the force of the declaration in Whitman"s letter. We see that the letter which, on the face of it, might have represented the swift and indignant reaction of a man who, suddenly faced by the possibility that his work may be interpreted in a perverse sense, emphatically repudiates that interpretation, was really nothing of the kind. Symonds for at least eighteen years had been gently, considerately, even humbly, yet persistently, asking the same perfectly legitimate question. If the answer was really an emphatic no, it would more naturally have been made in 1872 than 1890. Moreover, in the face of this ever-recurring question, Whitman constantly speaks to his friends of his great affection for Symonds and his admiration for his intellectual cuteness, feelings that would both be singularly out of place if applied to a man who was all the time suggesting the possibility that his writings contained inferences that were "terrible," "morbid," and "d.a.m.nable." Evidently, during all those years, Whitman could not decide what to reply. On the one hand he was moved by his horror of being questioned, by his caution, by his natural aversion to express approval of anything that could be called unnatural or abnormal. On the other hand, he was moved by the desire to let his work speak for itself, by his declared determination to leave everything open, and possibly by a more or less conscious sympathy with the inferences presented to him. It was not until the last years of his life, when his s.e.xual life belonged to the past, when weakness was gaining on him, when he wished to put aside every drain on his energies, that-being const.i.tutionally incapable of a balanced scientific statement-he chose the simplest and easiest solution of the difficulty.[99]
Concerning another great modern writer-Paul Verlaine, the first of modern French poets-it seems possible to speak with less hesitation. A man who possessed in fullest measure the irresponsible impressionability of genius, Verlaine-as his work shows and as he himself admitted-all his life oscillated between normal and h.o.m.os.e.xual love, at one period attracted to women, at another to men. He was without doubt, it seems to me, bis.e.xual. An early connection with another young poet, Arthur Rimbaud, terminated in a violent quarrel with his friend, and led to Verlaine"s imprisonment at Mons. In after-years he gave expression to the exalted pa.s.sion of this relationship-mon grand peche radieux-in Laeti et Errabundi, published in the volume ent.i.tled Parallelement; and in later poems he has told of less pa.s.sionate and less sensual relationships which yet were more than friendship, for instance, in the poem, "Mon ami, ma plus belle amitie, ma Meilleure" in Bonheur.[100]
In this brief glance at some of the ethnographical, historical, religious, and literary aspects of h.o.m.os.e.xual pa.s.sion there is one other phenomenon which may be mentioned. This is the alleged fact that, while the phenomena exist to some extent everywhere, we seem to find a special proclivity to h.o.m.os.e.xuality (whether or not involving a greater frequency of congenital inversion is not usually clear) among certain races and in certain regions.[101] In Europe this would be best ill.u.s.trated by the case of southern Italy, which in this respect is held to be distinct from northern Italy, although Italians generally are franker than men of northern race in admitting their s.e.xual practices.[102] How far the supposed greater h.o.m.os.e.xuality of southern Italy may be due to Greek influence and Greek blood it is not very easy to say.
It must be remembered that, in dealing with a northern country like England, h.o.m.os.e.xual phenomena do not present themselves in the same way as they do in southern Italy today, or in ancient Greece. In Greece the h.o.m.os.e.xual impulse was recognized and idealized; a man could be an open h.o.m.os.e.xual lover, and yet, like Epaminondas, be a great and honored citizen of his country. There was no reason whatever why a man, who in mental and physical const.i.tution was perfectly normal, should not adopt a custom that was regarded as respectable, and sometimes as even specially honorable. But it is quite otherwise today in a country like England or the United States.[103] In these countries all our traditions and all our moral ideals, as well as the law, are energetically opposed to every manifestation of h.o.m.os.e.xual pa.s.sion. It requires a very strong impetus to go against this compact social force which, on every side, constrains the individual into the paths of heteros.e.xual love. That impetus, in a well-bred individual who leads the normal life of his fellow-men and who feels the ordinary degree of respect for the social feeling surrounding him, can only be supplied by a fundamental-usually, it is probable, inborn-perversion of the s.e.xual instinct, rendering the individual organically abnormal. It is with this fundamental abnormality, usually called s.e.xual inversion, that we shall here be concerned. There is no evidence to show that h.o.m.os.e.xuality in Greece was a congenital perversion, although it appears that Clius Aurelia.n.u.s affirms that in the opinion of Parmenides it was hereditary. Aristotle also, in his fragment on physical love, though treating the whole matter with indulgence, seems to have distinguished abnormal congenital h.o.m.os.e.xuality from acquired h.o.m.os.e.xual vice. Doubtless in a certain proportion of cases the impulse was organic, and it may well be that there was an organic and racial predisposition to h.o.m.os.e.xuality among the Greeks, or, at all events, the Dorians. But the state of social feeling, however it originated, induced a large proportion of the ordinary population to adopt h.o.m.os.e.xuality as a fashion, or, it may be said, the environment was peculiarly favorable to the development of latent h.o.m.os.e.xual tendencies. So that any given number of h.o.m.os.e.xual persons among the Greeks would have presented a far smaller proportion of const.i.tutionally abnormal individuals than a like number in England. In a similar manner-though I do not regard the a.n.a.logy as complete-infanticide or the exposition of children was practised in some of the early Greek States by parents who were completely healthy and normal; in England a married woman who destroys her child is in nearly every case demonstrably diseased or abnormal. For this reason I am unable to see that h.o.m.os.e.xuality in ancient Greece-while of great interest as a social and psychological problem-throws light on s.e.xual inversion as we know it in England or the United States.
Concerning the wide prevalence of s.e.xual inversion and of h.o.m.os.e.xual phenomena generally, there can be no manner of doubt. This question has been most fully investigated in Germany. In Berlin, Moll states that he has himself seen between 600 and 700 h.o.m.os.e.xual persons and heard of some 250 to 350 others. Hirschfeld states that he has known over 10,000 h.o.m.os.e.xual persons.
There are, I am informed, several large cafes in Berlin which are almost exclusively patronized by inverts who come here to flirt and make acquaintances; as these cafes are frequented by male street prost.i.tutes (Pupenjunge) the invert risks being blackmailed or robbed if he goes home or to a hotel with a cafe acquaintance. There are also a considerable number of h.o.m.os.e.xual Kneipen, small and unpretentious bar-rooms, which are really male brothels, the inmates being s.e.xually normal working men and boys, out of employment or in quest of a few marks as pocket money; these places are regarded by inverts as very safe, as the proprietors insist on good order and allow no extortion, while the police, though of course aware of their existence, never interfere. h.o.m.os.e.xual cafes for women are also found in Berlin.
There is some reason for believing that h.o.m.os.e.xuality is especially prominent in Germany and among Germans. I have elsewhere referred to the highly emotional and sentimental traits which have frequently marked German friendships. Germany is the only country in which there is a definite and well-supported movement for the defense and social rehabilitation of inverts. The study of s.e.xual inversion began in Germany, and the scientific and literary publications dealing with h.o.m.os.e.xuality issued from the German press probably surpa.s.s in quant.i.ty and importance those issued from all other countries put together. The h.o.m.os.e.xual tendencies of Germans outside Germany have been noted in various countries. Among my English cases I have found that a strain of German blood occurs much more frequently than we are ent.i.tled to expect; Parisian prost.i.tutes are said to be aware of the h.o.m.os.e.xual tastes of Germans; it is significant that (as a German invert familiar with Turkey informed Nacke), at Constantinople, the procurers, who naturally supply girls as well as youths, regard Germans and Austrians as more tending to h.o.m.os.e.xuality than the foreigners from any other land. Germans usually deny, however, that there is any special German proclivity to inversion, and it would not appear that such statistics as are available (though all such statistics cannot be regarded as more than approximations) show any p.r.o.nounced predominance of inversion among Germans. It is to Hirschfeld that we owe the chief attempt to gain some notion of the percentage of h.o.m.os.e.xual persons among the general population.[104] It may be said to vary in different regions and more especially in different occupations, from 1 to 10 per cent. But the average when the individuals belonging to a large number of groups are combined is generally found to be rather over 2 per cent. So that there are about a million and a half inverted persons in Germany.[105] This would be a minimum which can scarcely fail to be below the actual proportion, as no one can be certain that he is acquainted with the real proclivities of all the persons comprising a larger group of acquaintances.[106] It is not found in the estimates which have reached Hirschfeld that the French groups show a smaller proportion of h.o.m.os.e.xual persons than the German groups, and a j.a.panese group comes out near to the general average for the whole. Various authorities, especially Germans, believe that h.o.m.os.e.xuality is just as common in France as in Germany.[107] Saint-Paul ("Dr. Laupts"), on the other hand, is unable to accept this view. As an army surgeon who has long served in Africa he can (as also Rebierre in his Joyeux et demifous) bear witness to the frequency of h.o.m.os.e.xuality among the African battalions of the French army, especially in the cavalry, less so in the infantry; in the French army generally he finds it rare, as also in the general population.[108] Nacke is also inclined to believe that h.o.m.os.e.xuality is rarer in Celtic lands, and in the Latin countries generally, than in Teutonic and Slavonic lands, and believes that it may be a question of race.[109] The question is still undecided. It is possible that the undoubted fact that h.o.m.os.e.xuality is less conspicuous in France and the other Latin countries than in Teutonic lands, may be due not to the occurrence of a smaller proportion of congenital inverts in the former lands, but mainly to general difference in temperament and in the social reaction.[110] The French idealize and emphasize the place of women to a much greater degree than the Germans, while at the same time inverts in France have much less occasion than in Germany to proclaim their legal grievances. Apart from such considerations as these it seems very doubtful whether inborn inversion is in any considerable degree rarer in France than in Germany.
As to the frequency of h.o.m.os.e.xuality in England[111] and the United States there is much evidence. In England its manifestations are well marked for those whose eyes have once been opened. The manifestations are of the same character as those in Germany, modified by social and national differences, and especially by the greater reserve, Puritanism, and prudery of England.[112] In the United States these same influences exert a still greater effect in restraining the outward manifestations of h.o.m.os.e.xuality. Hirschfeld, though so acute and experienced in the investigation of h.o.m.os.e.xuality, states that when visiting Philadelphia and Boston he could scarcely detect any evidence of h.o.m.os.e.xuality, though he was afterward a.s.sured by those acquainted with local conditions that its extension in both cities is "colossal." There have been numerous criminal cases and scandals in the United States in which h.o.m.os.e.xuality has come to the surface, and the very frequently occurring cases of transvestism or cross-dressing in the States seem to be in a large proportion a.s.sociated with h.o.m.os.e.xuality.
In the opinion of some, English h.o.m.os.e.xuality has become much more conspicuous during recent years, and this is sometimes attributed to the Oscar Wilde case. No doubt, the celebrity of Oscar Wilde and the universal publicity given to the facts of the case by the newspapers may have brought conviction of their perversion to many inverts who were before only vaguely conscious of their abnormality, and, paradoxical though it may seem, have imparted greater courage to others; but it can scarcely have sufficed to increase the number of inverts. Rather, one may say, the development of urban life renders easier the exhibition and satisfaction of this as of all other forms of perversion. Regarding the proportion of inverts among the general population, it is very difficult to speak positively. The invert himself is a misleading guide because he has formed round himself a special coterie of h.o.m.os.e.xual persons, and, moreover, he is sometimes apt to overestimate the number of inverts through the misinterpretation of small indications that are not always conclusive. The estimate of the ordinary normal person, feeling the ordinary disgust toward abnormal phenomena, is also misleading, because his h.o.m.os.e.xual acquaintances are careful not to inform him concerning their proclivities. A writer who has studied the phenomena of h.o.m.os.e.xuality is apt to be misguided in the same way as the invert himself, and to overestimate the prevalence of the perversion. Striving to put aside this source of fallacy, and only considering those individuals with whom I have been brought in contact by the ordinary circ.u.mstances of life, and with whose modes of feeling I am acquainted, I am still led to the conclusion that the proportion is considerable. Among the professional and most cultured element of the middle cla.s.s in England, there must be a distinct percentage of inverts which may sometimes be as much as 5 per cent., though such estimates must always be hazardous. Among women of the same cla.s.s the percentage seems to be at least double, though here the phenomena are less definite and deep-seated. This seems to be a moderate estimate for this cla.s.s, which includes, however, it must be remembered, a considerable proportion of individuals who are somewhat abnormal in other respects. As we descend the scale the phenomena are doubtless less common, though when we reach the working cla.s.s we come to that comparative indifference to which allusion has already been made. Taken altogether we may probably conclude that the proportion of inverts is the same as in other related and neighboring lands, that is to say, slightly over 2 per cent. That would give the h.o.m.os.e.xual population of Great Britain as somewhere about a million.
[1]
Taking all its forms en bloc, as they are known to the police, h.o.m.os.e.xuality is seen to possess formidable proportions. Thus in France, from official papers which pa.s.sed through M. Carlier"s bureau during ten years (1860-70), he compiled a list of 6342 pederasts who came within the cognizance of the police; 2049 Parisians, 3709 provincials, and 584 foreigners. Of these, 3432, or more than the half, could not be convicted of illegal acts.
[2]
The chief general collection of data (not here drawn upon) concerning h.o.m.os.e.xuality among animals is by the zoologist Prof. Karsch, "Paderastie und Tribadie bei den Tieren," Jahrbuch fur s.e.xuelle Zwischenstufen, vol. ii. Brehm"s Tierleben also contains many examples. See also a short chapter (ch. xxix) in Hirschfeld"s h.o.m.os.e.xualitat.
[3]
H. Sainte-Claire Deville, "De l"Internat et son influence sur l"education de la jeunesse," a paper read to the Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, July 27, 1871, and quoted by Chevalier, L"Inversion s.e.xuelle, pp. 204-5.
[4]