Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/533

 ; more suppressed passion, than before it. Again, the ecclesiastic who is casuistic, whose standards lower in cloister-life or as a parochial career goes on, may easily lapse deeper into the very "sin" that he quitted the outer world to avoid. An interesting suggestion of this is found in the novelist Husyman's story "En Route", with the episode of the hero's midnight observation of the monks assembled for spiritual exercises- against fleshly obsessions.

Many an Uranian, however, does bettor than to fly to any cell or altar. He throws himself into busy charities, earnest organizations, religious or secular duties where he must work hard—sometimes spend himself to death—for humanity; for the poor, the sick, the solitary, the friendless, the ignorant. If in even such noble activity he does not pass beyond temptation, he is likely to find moral and physical peace sooner than in any monastery. He sometimes resorts to certain "home" army-services; not to swell the ranks as debauché, ruffian or weakling, but as a clean-living soldier, with his secret shut within him.

Happiest of all, surely, are those Uranians, ever numerous, who have no wish nor need to fly society—or themselves. Knowing what they are, understanding the natural, the moral strength of their position as homosexuals; sure of right on their side, even if it be never accorded to them in the lands where they must live; fortunate in either due self-control or private freedom—day by day, they go on through their lives, self-respecting and respected, in relative peace.

Let us quit this part of a realm of melancholy; this demesne of human agony, of distraught souls, of infamy, of vice, of martyrdoms, of false social and legal positions—all so largely