Page:The Female-Impersonators 1922 book scan.djvu/58

38 wavelike emotional temperament, combined with hardihood of intellect and body.... may be said to give them. .. .through their double nature, command of life in all its phases, and a certain freemasonry of the secrets of the two sexes which may well favor their function as reconcilers [of the full-fledged males with the full-fledged females] and interpreters [of human nature, particularly from the standpoint of sex]. Certainly it is remarkable that some of the world's greatest leaders and artists have been dowered either wholly or in part with the Uranian temperament [that is, either ultra-androgynes or ultragynanders or else psychic hermaphrodites]—as in the cases of Michael Angelo, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Alexander the Great, Julius Cæsar, or, among women, Christine of Sweden, Sappho the poetess, and others."

It is noteworthy that tremendously virile males—who alone, as a rule, have been intimate with the extreme type of androgyne—have named him "fairie" in English-speaking countries and "petit-jesus" (Little Jesus) in France, largely because of his having, innate, the disposition of an angel; while the most common scientific term for androgynes in general has been "urning", from Greek ouranos, meaning "heavenly being." The originator of the term "urning", however, was himself a bisexual, K. H. Ulrichs, an Austrian, the originator, about 1880, of the scientific study of sexual intermediates, and author of several published papers on the theme.

A lesser historic character than those listed in my text, Lord Cornbury, cousin of Queen Anne and colonial governor of New York, had the fad of attiring himself in feminine finery for a stroll on the capital city's principal promenade. One of the most prominent judges (now deceased) of the Atlantic coast was declared to me, by a citizen of his own town, to be a psychic hermaphrodite. An official once high up in the government at Washington was declared to me, by a citizen of his native place, to be an androgyne. One of the greatest factors in world politics to-day is merely a grown-up infant and an androgyne, though at the same time a genius.