Page:Autobiography of an Androgyne 1918 book scan.djvu/24

xii great deal of space, nor the manner in which vital questions were entirely overlooked.

I did not see any scientific value in the conversations related nor any poetical value in the verses recited. The subject matter was all well known to me and nauseating.

I was to edit this "Autobiography" and stood aghast at the task that I thought was before me.

I saw the author and told him what I have just stated and that in my opinion the book had neither literary nor scientific value in the way in which he thought it had. I found that the author was severely hurt. This Autobiography was his joy—a work which this epoch had been waiting for and which futurity will crown as a classic. He fought with all his might against any of his verses being omitted. Every single word that I wanted to change or expunge was of vital importance to him.

And then I saw a light.

The would serve its mission best unedited, and so it practically remains. The author, in writing this book, has written into it his own soul, for him to read who can see further than the printed word.

He has lighted a torch to show in his own way the baser sex feelings of a sexual invert.

He has shown some of the suffering which he has undergone at the beginning of his career.

He has shown the contempt in which the Androgyne is held by reason of a psychical aberration not of his own making.