Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/297

 The most expressive outlet for the Uranian's temperament is that of belles-lettres. He cannot always be philosophic, nor an analyst in the colder forms of literature. Ho is likely to lack courage to preach to the uncomprehending public. But his capacity for feeling, his faculty for romance, find vivid expression in elegant literature. Often his pen and paper have been his only confidants; and sometimes in fiction or verse of genius he has taken the world into his secret.

The homosexual's literary communicativeness varies widely in dignity; varies as widely as the clearly personal homosexualism of writers. Beauty, refinement, power, idealism are shifting qualities. The uranian library ranges from the classic elegance of Greek and Latin idylls and elegies, from sonnets by Shakespeare, Buonarroti or August von Platen, from exquisitely oriental ghazels of Hafiz and other Persian and Arabic classics, from the novels of Alexander von Sternberg, Wilbrandt, "Rachilde", Essebac, Pernhaum, Loti or Georges EckhoudEekhoud [sic], to the pornographic prose and verse that flooded the East and the West of old, just as it does London or Berlin or Paris to-day. But a literature of high quality, in all languages, is of uranian authourship, and wide suggestiveness to its readers; a real literature, so diffused and accessible that we can forgive many pages of vulgarly homosexual eroticism. It is very largely a serious, deeply emotional literature. Humourous modern literature owes less to the Uranian than does any other class of writings. The Uranian's temperament, and his problematic social life have checked his mirth.' His gayety tends to irony, or is of that artificial good-humour often characteristic of him.

It is Imminently a sincere and personal literature, this homosexual library. "Look into thy heart and write!" is a