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 homosexual love, at one period attracted to women, at another to men. He was without doubt, it seems to me, bisexual. 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 passion of this relationship--_mon grand péché radieux_--in _Læti et Errabundi_, published in the volume entitled _Parallèlement_; and in later poems he has told of less passionate and less sensual relationships which yet were more than friendship, for instance, in the poem, "_Mon ami, ma plus belle amitié, ma Meilleure_" in _Bonheur_.[100] In this brief glance at some of the ethnographical, historical, religious, and literary aspects of homosexual passion 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 homosexuality (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 illustrated 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 sexual practices.[102] How far the supposed greater homosexuality 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, homosexual phenomena do not present themselves in the same way as they do in southern Italy today, or in ancient Greece. In Greece the homosexual impulse was recognized and idealized; a man could be an open homosexual 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 constitution 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 homosexual passion. It requires a very strong impetus to go against this compact social force which, on every side, constrains the individual into the paths of heterosexual 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 sexual instinct, rendering the individual organically abnormal. It is with this fundamental abnormality, usually called sexual inversion, that we shall here be concerned. There is no evidence to show that homosexuality in Greece was a congenital perversion, although it appears that Coelius Aurelianus 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 homosexuality from acquired homosexual 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 homosexuality 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 homosexuality as a fashion, or, it may be said, the environment was peculiarly favorable to the development of latent homosexual tendencies. So that any given number of homosexual persons among the Greeks would have presented a far smaller proportion of constitutionally abnormal individuals than a like number in England. In a similar manner--though I do not regard the analogy 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 homosexuality in ancient Greece--while of great interest as a social and psychological problem--throws light on sexual inversion as we know it in England or the United States.
Concerning the wide prevalence of sexual inversion and of homosexual 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 homosexual persons and heard of some 250 to 350 others. Hirschfeld states that he has known over 10,000 homosexual persons.
There are, I am informed, several large cafés in Berlin which are almost exclusively patronized by inverts who come here to flirt and make acquaintances; as these cafés are frequented by male street prostitutes (Pupenjunge) the invert risks being blackmailed or robbed if he goes home or to a hotel with a café acquaintance. There are also a considerable number of homosexual _Kneipen_, small and unpretentious bar-rooms, which are really male brothels, the inmates being sexually 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. Homosexual cafés for women are also found in Berlin.
There is some reason for believing that homosexuality 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 sexual inversion began in Germany, and the scientific and literary publications dealing with homosexuality issued from the German press probably surpass in quantity and importance those issued from all other countries put together. The homosexual 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 entitled to expect; Parisian prostitutes are said to be aware of the homosexual tastes of Germans; it is significant that (as a German invert familiar with Turkey informed Näcke), at Constantinople, the procurers, who naturally supply girls as well as youths, regard Germans and Austrians as more tending to homosexuality 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 pronounced predominance of inversion among Germans. It is to Hirschfeld that we owe the chief attempt to gain some notion of the percentage of homosexual 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 homosexual persons than the German groups, and a Japanese group comes out near to the general average for the whole. Various authorities, especially Germans, believe that homosexuality 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 homosexuality 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] Näcke is also inclined to believe that homosexuality 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 homosexuality 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 homosexuality 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 homosexuality. Hirschfeld, though so acute and experienced in the investigation of homosexuality, states that when visiting Philadelphia and Boston he could scarcely detect any evidence of homosexuality, though he was afterward assured 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 homosexuality 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 associated with homosexuality.
In the opinion of some, English homosexuality 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 homosexual 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 homosexual acquaintances are careful not to inform him concerning their proclivities. A writer who has studied the phenomena of homosexuality 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 circumstances 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 class 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 class 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 class, 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 class 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 homosexual population of Great Britain as somewhere about a million.
FOOTNOTES: [1] Taking all its forms _en bloc_, as they are known to the police, homosexuality is seen to possess formidable proportions. Thus in France, from official papers which passed 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 homosexuality among animals is by the zoölogist Prof. Karsch, "Päderastie und Tribadie bei den Tieren," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. ii. Brehm's _Tierleben_ also contains many examples. See also a short chapter (ch. xxix) in Hirschfeld's _Homosexualität_.
[3] H. Sainte-Claire Deville, "De l'Internat et son influence sur l'education de la jeunesse," a paper read to the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, July 27, 1871, and quoted by Chevalier, _L'Inversion Sexuelle_, pp. 204-5.
[5] Lacassagne, "De la Criminalité chez les Animaux," _Revue Scientifique_, 1882.
[6] Steinach, "Utersuchungen zu vergleichende Physiologie," _Archiv für die Gesammte Physiologie_, Bd. lvi, 1894, p. 320.
[7] Féré, _Comptes-rendus Société de Biologie_, July 30, 1898. We may perhaps connect this with an observation of E. Selous (_Zoölogist_, May and Sept., 1901) on a bird, the Great Crested Grebe; after pairing, the male would crouch to the female, who played his part to him; the same thing is found among pigeons. Selous suggests that this is a relic of primitive hermaphroditism. But it may be remembered that in the male generally sexual intercourse tends to be more exhausting than in the female; this fact would favor a reversion of their respective parts.
[8] E. Selous, "Sexual Selection in Birds," _Zoölogist_, Feb., 1907, p. 65; ib., May, p. 169. Sexual aberrations generally are not uncommon among birds; see, e.g., A. Heim, "Sexuelle Verirrungen bei Vögeln in den Tropen," _Sexual-Probleme_, April, 1913.
[9] See Moll, _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, 1898, Bd. i, pp. 369, 374-5. For a summary of facts concerning homosexuality in animals see F. Karsch, "Päderastie und Tribadie bei den Tieren auf Grund der Literatur," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. ii, 1899, pp. 126-154 [14] This has now been very thoroughly done by Prof. F. Karsch-Haack in a large book, _Das Gleichgeschlechtliche Leben der Naturvölker_, 1911. An earlier and shorter study by the same author was published in the _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. iii, 1901.
[15] See a brief and rather inconclusive treatment of the question by Bruns Meissner, "Assyriologische Studien," iv, _Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft_, 1907.
[18] Beardmore also notes that sodomy is "regularly indulged in" in New Guinea on this account. (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, May, 1890, p. 464.)
[19] I have been told by medical men in India that it is specially common among the Sikhs, the finest soldier-race in India.
[21] See, e.g., O. Kiefer, "Plato's Stellung zu Homosexualität," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. vii.
[22] Bethe, op. cit., p. 440. In old Japan (before the revolution of 1868) also, however, according to F.S. Krauss (_Das Geschlechtsleben der Japaner_, ch. xiii, 1911), the homosexual relations between knights and their pages resembled those of ancient Greece.
[25] Among the Sarts of Turkestan a class of well-trained and educated homosexual prostitutes, resembling those found in China and many regions of northern Asia, bearing also the same name of _batsha_, are said to be especially common because fostered by the scarcity of women through polygamy and by the women's ignorance and coarseness. The institution of the _batsha_ is supposed to have come to Turkestan from Persia. (Herman, "Die Päderastie bei den Sarten," _Sexual-Probleme_, June, 1911.) This would seem to suggest that Persia may have been a general center of diffusions of this kind of refined homosexuality in northern Asia.
[26] Morache, art. "Chine," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_; Matignon, "La Péderastie en Chine," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Jan., 1899; Von der Choven, summarized in _Archives de Neurologie_, March, 1907; Scié-Ton-Fa, "L'Homosexualité en Chine," _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, April, 1909.
[27] _Moeurs des Peuples de l'Inde_, 1825, vol. i, part ii, ch. xii. In Lahore and Lucknow, as quoted by Burton, Daville describes "men dressed as women, with flowing locks under crowns of flowers, imitating the feminine walk and gestures, voice and fashion of speech, ogling their admirer with all the coquetry of bayaderes."
[31] C.F.P. von Martius, _Zur Ethnographie Amerika's_, Leipzig, 1867, Bd. i, p. 74. In Ancient Mexico Bernal Diaz wrote: _Erant quasi omnes sodomia commaculati, et adolescentes multi, muliebriter vestiti, ibant publice, cibum quarentes ab isto diabolico et abominabili labore_.
[34] J. Turnbull, "_A Voyage Round the World in the Year 1800_," etc., 1813, p. 382.
[37] Rev. J.H. Weeks, _Journal Anthropological Institute_, 1909, p. 449. I am informed by a medical correspondent in the United States that inversion is extremely prevalent among American negroes. "I have good reason to believe," he writes, "that it is far more prevalent among them than among the white people of any nation. If inversion is to be regarded as a penalty of 'civilization' this is remarkable. Perhaps, however, the Negro, _relatively to his capacity_, is more highly civilized than we are; at any rate his civilization has been thrust upon him, and not acquired through the long throes of evolution. Colored inverts desire white men as a rule, but are not averse to men of their own race. I believe that 10 per cent, of Negroes in the United States are sexually inverted."
[38] Among the Papuans of German New Guinea, where the women have great power, marriage is late, and the young men are compelled to live separated from the women in communal houses. Here, says Moskowski (_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1911, Heft 2, p. 339), homosexual orgies are openly carried on.
[39] C.G. Seligmann, "Sexual Inversion Among Primitive Races," _Alienist and Neurologist_, Jan., 1902. In a tale of the Western Solomon Islands, reported by J.C. Wheeler (_Anthropophyteia_, vol. ix, p. 376) we find a story of a man who would be a woman, and married another man and did woman's work.
[40] Hardman, "Habits and Customs of Natives of Kimberley, Western Australia," _Proceedings Royal Irish Academy_, 3d series, vol. i, 1889, p. 73.
[41] Klaatsch, "Some Notes on Scientific Travel Amongst the Black Populations of Tropic Australia," Adelaide meeting of _Australian Association for the Advancement of Science_, January, 1907, p. 5.
[42] In further illustration of this I have been told that among the common people there is often no feeling against connection with a woman _per anum_.
[43] Chevalier (_L'Inversion Sexuelle_, pp. 85-106) brings forward a considerable amount of evidence regarding homosexuality at Rome under the emperors. See also Moll, _Konträre Sexualempfindung_, 1899, pp. 56-66, and Hirschfeld, _Homosexualität_, 1913, pp. 789-806. On the literary side, Petronius best reveals the homosexual aspect of Roman life about the time of Tiberius.
[44] J.A. Symonds wrote an interesting essay on this subject; see also Kiefer, _Jahrbuch f. sex. Zwischenstufen_, vol. viii, 1906.
[45] See L. von Scheffler, "Elagabal," _Jahrbuch f. sex. Zwischenstufen_, vol. iii, 1901; also Duviquet, _Héliogabale (Mercure de France_).
[46] The following note has been furnished to me: "Balzac, in _Une Dernière Incarnation de Vautrin_, describes the morals of the French _bagnes_. Dostoieffsky, in _Prison-Life in Siberia_, touches on the same subject. See his portrait of Sirotkin, p. 52 et seq., p. 120 (edition J. and R. Maxwell, London). We may compare Carlier, _Les Deux Prostitutions_, pp. 300-1, for an account of the violence of homosexual passions in French prisons. The initiated are familiar with the fact in English prisons. Bouchard, in his _Confessions_, Paris, Liseux, 1881, describes the convict station at Marseilles in 1630." Homosexuality among French recidivists at Saint-Jean-du-Maroni in French Guiana has been described by Dr. Cazanova, _Arch. d'Anth. Crim._, January, 1906, p. 44. See also Davitt's _Leaves from a Prison Diary_, and Berkman's _Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist_; also Rebierre, _Joyeux et Demifous_, 1909.
[48] See Appendix A: "Homosexuality among Tramps," by "Josiah Flynt."
[49] _Inferno_, xv. The place of homosexuality in the _Divine Comedy_ itself has been briefly studied by Undine Freün von Verschuer, _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. viii, 1906.
[50] Hirschfeld and others have pointed out, very truly, that inverts are less prone than normal persons to regard caste and social position. This innately democratic attitude renders it easier for them than for ordinary people to rise to what Cyples has called the "ecstasy of humanity," the emotional attitude, that is to say, of those rare souls of whom it may be said, in the same writer's words, that "beggars' rags to their unhesitating lips grew fit for kissing because humanity had touched the garb." Edward Carpenter (_Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk_, p. 83) remarks that great ethical leaders have often exhibited feminine traits, and adds: "It becomes easy to suppose of those early figures--who once probably were men--those Apollos, Buddhas, Dionysus, Osiris, and so forth--to suppose that they too were somewhat bisexual in temperament, and that it was really largely owing to that fact that they were endowed with far-reaching powers and became leaders of mankind."
[51] English translation, _Primitive Folk_, in Contemporary Science series.
[52] R. Horneffer, _Der Priester_, 2 vols., 1912. J.G. Frazer, in the volume entitled "Adonis, Attis, Osiris" (pp. 428-435) of the third edition of his _Golden Bough_, discusses priests dressed as women, and finds various reasons for the custom.
[53] Edward Carpenter, _Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk_, 1914.
[54] Westermarck, _Origin and Development of Moral Ideas_, vol. ii, ch. xliii.
[55] "Italian literature," remarks Symonds, "can show the _Rime Burlesche_, Becadelli's _Hermaphroditus_, the _Canti Carnascialeschi_, the Macaronic poems of Fidentius, and the remarkably outspoken romance entitled _Alcibiade Fanciullo a Scola_."
[56] The life of Muret has been well written by C. Dejob, _Marc-Antoine Muret_, 1881.
[58] Burckhardt, _Die Kultur der Renaissance_, vol. ii, _Excursus_ ci.
[59] F. de Gaudenzi in ch. v of his _Studio Psico-patologico sopra T. Tasso_ (1899) deals fully with the poet's homosexual tendencies.
[61] S. Freud, _Eine Kindheitserinnerung des Leonardo da Vinci_, 1910.
[62] See Parlagreco, _Michelangelo Buonarotti_, Naples, 1888; Ludwig von Scheffler, _Michelangelo: Ein Renaissance Studie_, 1892; _Archivo di Psichiatria_, vol. xv, fasc. i, ii, p. 129; J.A. Symonds, _Life of Michelangelo_, 1893; Dr. Jur. Numa Praetorius, "Michel Angelo's Urningtum," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. ii, 1899, pp, 254-267.
[64] Sodoma's life and temperament have been studied and his pictures copiously reproduced by Elisár von Kupffer, _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. ix, 1908, p. 71 et seq., and by R.H. Hobart Cust, _Giovanni Antonio Bazzi_.
[65] Cellini, _Life_, translated by J.A. Symonds, introduction, p. xxxv, and p. 448. Queringhi (_La Psiche di B. Cellini_, 1913) argues that Cellini was not homosexual.
[66] See the interesting account of Duquesnoy by Eekhoud (_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. ii, 1899), an eminent Belgian novelist who has himself been subjected to prosecution on account of the pictures of homosexuality in his novels and stories, _Escal-Vigor_ and _Le Cycle Patibulaire_ (see _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. iii, 1901).
[67] See Justi's _Life of Winkelmann_, and also Moll's _Die Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, 1899, pp. 122-126. In this work, as well as in Raffalovich's _Uranisme et Unisexualité_, as also in Moll's _Berühmte Homosexuelle_ (1910) and Hirschfeld's _Die Homosexualität_, p. 650 et seq., there will be found some account of many eminent men who are, on more or less reliable grounds, suspected of homosexuality. Other German writers brought forward as inverted are Platen, K.P. Moritz, and Iffland. Platen was clearly a congenital invert, who sought, however, the satisfaction of his impulses in Platonic friendship; his homosexual poems and the recently published unabridged edition of his diary render him an interesting object of study; see for a sympathetic account of him, Ludwig Frey, "Aus dem Seelenleben des Grafen Platen," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vols. i and vi. Various kings and potentates have been mentioned in this connection, including the Sultan Baber; Henri III of France; Edward II, William II, James I, and William III of England, and perhaps Queen Anne and George III, Frederick the Great and his brother, Heinrich, Popes Paul II, Sixtus IV, and Julius II, Ludwig II of Bavaria, and others. Kings, indeed, seem peculiarly inclined to homosexuality.
[68] Schultz, _Das Höfische Leben_, Bd. i, ch. xiii.
[69] _De Planctu Naturæ_ has been translated by Douglas Moffat, _Yale Studies in English_, No. xxxvi, 1908.
[72] Thus she writes in 1701 (_Correspondence_, edited by Brunet, vol. i, p. 58): "Our heroes take as their models Hercules, Theseus, Alexander, and Cæsar, who all had their male favorites. Those who give themselves up to this vice, while believing in Holy Scripture, imagine that it was only a sin when there were few people in the world, and that now the earth is populated it may be regarded as a _divertissement_. Among the common people, indeed, accusations of this kind are, so far as possible, avoided; but among persons of quality it is publicly spoken of; it is considered a fine saying that since Sodom and Gomorrah, the Lord has punished no one for such offences."
[73] Sérieux and Libert, "La Bastille et ses Prisonniers," _L'Encéphale_, September, 1911.
[74] Witry, "Notes Historiques sur l'Homosexualité en France," _Revue de l'Hypnotisme_, January, 1909.
[75] In early Teutonic days there was little or no trace of any punishment for homosexual practices in Germany. This, according to Hermann Michaëlis, only appeared after the Church had gained power among the West Goths; in the Breviarium of Alaric II (506), the sodomist was condemned to the stake, and later, in the seventh century, by an edict of King Chindasvinds, to castration. The Frankish capitularies of Charlemange's time adopted ecclesiastical penances. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries death by fire was ordained, and the punishments enacted by the German codes tended to become much more ferocious than that edicted by the Justinian code on which they were modelled.
[76] Raffalovich discusses German friendship, _Uranisme et Unisexualité_, pp. 157-9. See also Birnbaum, _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. viii, p. 611; he especially illustrates this kind of friendship by the correspondence of the poets Gleim and Jacobi, who used to each other the language of lovers, which, indeed, they constantly called themselves.
[77] This letter may be found in Ernst Schur's _Heinrich von Kleist in seinen Briefen_, p. 295. Dr. J. Sadger has written a pathographic and psychological study of Kleist, emphasizing the homosexual strain, in the _Grenzfragen des Nerven- und Seelenlebens_ series.
[78] Alexander's not less distinguished brother, Wilhelm von Humboldt, though not homosexual, possessed, a woman wrote to him, "the soul of a woman and the most tender feeling for womanliness I have ever found in your sex;" he himself admitted the feminine traits in his nature. Spranger (_Wilhelm von Humboldt_, p. 288) says of him that "he had that dual sexuality without which the moral summits of humanity cannot be reached."
[79] Krupp caused much scandal by his life at Capri, where he was constantly surrounded by the handsome youths of the place, mandolinists and street arabs, with whom he was on familiar terms, and on whom he lavished money. H.D. Davray, a reliable eyewitness, has written "Souvenirs sur M. Krupp à Capri," _L'Européen_, 29 November, 1902. It is not, however, definitely agreed that Krupp was of fully developed homosexual temperament (see, e.g., _Jahrbuch f. sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. v, p. 1303 et seq.) An account of his life at Capri was published in the _Vorwärts_, against which Krupp finally brought a libel action; but he died immediately afterward, it is widely believed, by his own hand, and the libel action was withdrawn.
[80] Madame, the mother of the Regent, in her letters of 12th October, 4th November, and 13th December, 1701, repeatedly makes this assertion, and implies that it was supported by the English who at that time came over to Paris with the English Ambassador, Lord Portland. The King was very indifferent to women.
[81] Anselm, Epistola lxii, in Migne's _Patrologia_, vol. clix, col. 95. John of Salisbury, in his _Polycrates_, describes the homosexual and effeminate habits of his time.
[82] Pollock and Maitland, _History of English Law_, vol. ii, p. 556.
[83] Coleridge in his _Table Talk_ (14 May, 1833) remarked: "A man may, under certain states of the moral feeling, entertain something deserving the name of love towards a male object--an affection beyond friendship, and wholly aloof from appetite. In Elizabeth's and James's time it seems to have been almost fashionable to cherish such a feeling. Certainly the language of the two friends Musidorus and Pyrocles in the _Arcadia_ is such as we could not use except to women." This passage of Coleridge's is interesting as an early English recognition by a distinguished man of genius of what may be termed ideal homosexuality.
[84] See account of Udall in the _National Dictionary of Biography_.
[85] _Complete Poems of Richard Barnfield_, edited with an introduction by A.B. Grosart, 1876. The poems of Barnfield were also edited by Arber, in the English Scholar's Library, 1883. Arber, who always felt much horror for the abnormal, argues that Barnfield's occupation with homosexual topics was merely due to a search for novelty, that it was "for the most part but an amusement and had little serious or personal in it." Those readers of Barnfield, however, who are acquainted with homosexual literature will scarcely fail to recognize a personal preoccupation in his poems. This is also the opinion of Moll in his _Berühmte Homosexuelle_.
[86] See appendix to my edition of Marlowe in the _Mermaid Series_, first edition. For a study of Marlowe's "Gaveston," regarded as "the hermaphrodite in soul," see J.A. Nicklin, _Free Review_, December, 1895.
[87] As Raffalovich acutely points out, the twentieth sonnet, with its reference to the "one thing to my purpose nothing," is alone enough to show that Shakespeare was not a genuine invert, as then he would have found the virility of the loved object beautiful. His sonnets may fairly be compared to the _In Memoriam_ of Tennyson, whom it is impossible to describe as inverted, though in his youth he cherished an ardent friendship for another youth, such as was also felt in youth by Montaigne.