Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/50

 frequently the woman-hater, outspoken or tacit, is neither an eccentric nor a misanthrope; but a gynophobe by his inborn, unchangeable nature. With such women-haters, when men of finer mould and character, we are likely to meet often an interesting special type, the man born for friendship, for "friendship" only; with his own sex only. We discern that his emotional nature is anchored to that, is satisfied with that. Such a man's innermost soul is created to thrill in that masculine atmosphere, as in no other. "Friendship" becomes the secret fire and spirit-throb of his social existence. In such a sentiment arise his profoundest, his most sacred joys and griefs, his most vivid enthusiasms and repulsions. There pivot themselves instinctively his sharpest differences, his passionate dependencies, his most humbling reconciliations, his noblest sacrificies, fullest altruisms, even to utter self-forgetfulness. By this spell the man's Ego also can commit itself to melancholy errors, to cruel disillusions of sentiments; can become subjected to an hundred influences for good or harm in his character and life, all exactly as in that other more widely understood relation—that to a woman—the alterosexual love. This deep "friendship" (again I am using a term subject frequently to question) often developes when both parties, or one of the two men, can be set down distinctively as woman-tolerator, or woman-hater. Less frequently it comes to our notice with the woman-worshipper, though we shall see presently how it can be consistent in a most significant degree, with the outward professions of some absolute Don Juan.

happy medium between the womanhater and the woman-tolerator, one frequent in smart social life, is admirably defined by the brilliant French dramatist, Donnay, in a dialogue between two men, in his penetrating psychologic comedy "Amants," where the cynical de Sambré ridicules the woman-adoring Vétheuil for his servitude to the sex. De Sambré says: