frankly, but with all decorous propriety, a subject of increasing social gravity.  The story is that of a man whose bride will not allow his approach on account of her own liaison with a female friend continued after marriage.  This book appears to have given origin to a large number of novels, some of which touched the question with considerable less affectation of propriety.  Among other novelists who have dealt with the matter may be mentioned Guy de Maupassant (La Femme de Paul), Bourget (Crime d’Amour), Catulle Mendes (Mephistophela), and Willy in the Claudine series.

Among poets who have used the motive of homosexuality in women with more or less boldness may be found Lamartine (Regina), Swinburne (first series of Poems and Ballads), Verlaine (Parallelement), and Pierre Louys (Chansons de Bilitis).  The last-named book, a collection of homosexual prose-poems, attracted considerable attention on publication, as it was an attempt at mystification, being put forward as a translation of the poems of a newly discovered Oriental Greek poetess; Bilitis (more usually Beltis) is the Syrian name for Aphrodite. Les Chansons de Bilitis are not without charm, but have been severely dealt with by Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (Sappho und Simonides, 1913, p. 63 et seq.) as “a travesty of Hellenism,” betraying inadequate knowledge of Greek antiquity.

More interesting, as the work of a woman who was not only highly gifted, but herself of homosexual temperament, are the various volumes of poems published by “Renee Vivien.”  This lady, whose real name was Pauline Tarn, was born in 1877; her father was of Scotch descent, and her mother an American lady from Honolulu.  As a child she was taken to Paris, and was brought up as a French girl.  She travelled much and at one time took a house at Mitylene, the chief city of ancient Lesbos.  She had a love of solitude, hated publicity, and was devoted to her women friends, especially to one whose early death about 1900 was the great sorrow of Pauline Tarn’s life.  She is described as very beautiful, very simple and sweet-natured, and highly accomplished in many directions.  She suffered, however, from nervous overtension and incurable melancholy.  Toward the close of her life she was converted to Catholicism and died in 1909, at the age of 32.  She is buried in the cemetery at Passy.  Her best verse is by some considered among the finest in the French language.  (Charles Brun, “Pauline Tarn,” Notes and Queries, 22 Aug., 1914; the same writer, who knew her well, has also written a pamphlet, Renee Vivien, Sansot, Paris, 1911.) Her chief volumes of poems are Etudes et Preludes (1901), Cendres et Poussieres (1902), Evocations (1903).  A novel, Une Femme M’Apparut (1904), is said to be to some extent autobiographical.  “Renee Vivien” also wrote a volume on Sappho with translations, and a further volume