Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/128

 to ill-placed levity contains useful matters tor lay-reading, the authour gives the following sketch of an Uranian's "love at sight". The narrator is spoken of as a young scion of a noble family of the Continent; and the object of his passion a is German or Austrian army-officer.

"I have absolutely nothing feminine in me as to my looks; my bearing indeed is noted for its genuine masculinity. But, for all that, I have a soul like a woman's. I am a man: but I love another man, burningly, passionately, to death itself. I know too it is a mad hopeless struggle that I have kept up against my all too-tender nature, since my boyhood's years. So I have given up struggling against my fate.

"I was young, free, rich but not happy … I fell in love with a man whose name I did not know. It came over me like a flash of lightning when I saw him for the first time. It was in a café; my eye caught sight of a dignified officer. He had an illustrated paper before him, but his glance was far from it; visibly he was sunk in deep thought. My first idea was of what preoccupied him … the noble profile with lines so strong and definite; everything about him suggested intellect and will-power … Finally he got up and went away; and I followed him, compelled by an irresistible force. How is it possible that one human creature can exert such a violent influence over another of like sex? I had never had any experience like this. The fresh air brought me to my senses: "You are a fool!" I said to myself, and went home. But from that evening he and I met often, in the street, in social life; though the stars went against me, for I could never find any suitable opportunity to get into a nearer relation with the man—even if I did get his photograph … I believed that he was an Uranian-sufferer, as was I. We greeted one another at times. By my way of looking at him, he must soon have known that he was unspeakably