Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/365

. Certain of its serials—by Georges Eekhoud and others—have been of such category. In this trait, though always subordinating it to literary aspects of a production, this important French review is unique.

The Anglo-Saxon uranian presents himself to us less frequently as a man of letters than does his Continental colleague. He dares not. Social ostracism and criminal prosecutions, can easily follow. He may write books having homosexuality as an ingredient, whether in them he expresses himself, or is only an observer: but he cannot readily find a publisher who will risk their printing, and risk the legal proceedings likely to ensue; no matter how truly the work be one of literature, or how discreet and decorous the management of its uranian elements. Not all authours can afford to print at their own expense. The most offensively erotic stories, poems and social studies, with heterosexual passion in them, can be sold freely in English bookshops, are circulated in the lending-libraries all over Great Britain, and are reviewed in the British press. In contrast, a homosexual tale of the most reservedly careful diction and sensitive good taste in treatment, informed with high idealism or spirituality, and which might be "read aloud in a lady's drawing-room by an archbishop" will not be permitted British publication.

Yet the Englishman, ever belonging to one of the most homosexual of races and societies, never has failed to contribute to the world's uranian literature; in large part the authours themselves being similisexual. The Renaissance unlocked the lips of the English Intersexual, in prose and in verse. Warmed by that Italian sunshine, he has sometimes written out his personal message, with a genius of universal recognition.