Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/101

, that one may say that the world of poetry, the graphic and plastic arts, most especially music (that most neurotic of all arts) and belles-lettres of all sorts are richest by the distinctively similisexual genius. Here he is ever inventive, originative. History, biography, every psychiatric physician, can confirm this. Its chief contrast may be thought, by some, to occur with the fact that the soldier is so notably similisexual; that so many great military men have been Uranians. But the military profession is really one that is highly aesthetic and nervous, as well as one that throws the Uranian into intimate, exclusive, and admiring relations with men. It fosters philarrenism, frequently dignifying it. Aesthetics are to the Uranian the breath of life. No wonder that we find him as authour, painter, sculptor, composer, singer, actor; whatever demands nerves and concentrated idealism, pouring forth his genius from one epoch of the world to the next. Genius and madness are old allies. We need not be surprised to find that the Uranian often confirms that painful mystery.

In part associated with the nervous organization of the Uranian, in part more of his general temperament, are also these matters. The Uranian shows a marked tendency to support illnesses more readily than most other individuals, with a feminine ability to bear physical pain. Mental anguish works with severity on him. Outward surroundings are of importance to him; they affect his nervous status keenly. He is usually orderly, often has feminine tastes more or less developed, such as cookery, needlework, and the like. This fact is curiously combined in military individualities, an odd "inconsistency". The Uranian is likely to be passionately fond of children and animals; they are frequently surprisingly attracted to him, as if by some mystic understanding. But the Uranian is to be counted a creation not far aloof from the eternal