Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 588 pages of information about Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2.

Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 588 pages of information about Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2.

[78] Alexander’s not less distinguished brother, Wilhelm von Humboldt, though not homosexual, possessed, a woman wrote to him, “the soul of a woman and the most tender feeling for womanliness I have ever found in your sex;” he himself admitted the feminine traits in his nature.  Spranger (Wilhelm von Humboldt, p. 288) says of him that “he had that dual sexuality without which the moral summits of humanity cannot be reached.”

[79] Krupp caused much scandal by his life at Capri, where he was constantly surrounded by the handsome youths of the place, mandolinists and street arabs, with whom he was on familiar terms, and on whom he lavished money.  H.D.  Davray, a reliable eyewitness, has written “Souvenirs sur M. Krupp a Capri,” L’Europeen, 29 November, 1902.  It is not, however, definitely agreed that Krupp was of fully developed homosexual temperament (see, e.g., Jahrbuch f. sexuelle Zwischenstufen, Bd. v, p. 1303 et seq.) An account of his life at Capri was published in the Vorwaerts, against which Krupp finally brought a libel action; but he died immediately afterward, it is widely believed, by his own hand, and the libel action was withdrawn.

[80] Madame, the mother of the Regent, in her letters of 12th October, 4th November, and 13th December, 1701, repeatedly makes this assertion, and implies that it was supported by the English who at that time came over to Paris with the English Ambassador, Lord Portland.  The King was very indifferent to women.

[81] Anselm, Epistola lxii, in Migne’s Patrologia, vol. clix, col. 95.  John of Salisbury, in his Polycrates, describes the homosexual and effeminate habits of his time.

[82] Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, vol. ii, p. 556.

[83] Coleridge in his Table Talk (14 May, 1833) remarked:  “A man may, under certain states of the moral feeling, entertain something deserving the name of love towards a male object—­an affection beyond friendship, and wholly aloof from appetite.  In Elizabeth’s and James’s time it seems to have been almost fashionable to cherish such a feeling.  Certainly the language of the two friends Musidorus and Pyrocles in the Arcadia is such as we could not use except to women.”  This passage of Coleridge’s is interesting as an early English recognition by a distinguished man of genius of what may be termed ideal homosexuality.

[84] See account of Udall in the National Dictionary of Biography.

[85] Complete Poems of Richard Barnfield, edited with an introduction by A.B.  Grosart, 1876.  The poems of Barnfield were also edited by Arber, in the English Scholar’s Library, 1883.  Arber, who always felt much horror for the abnormal, argues that Barnfield’s occupation with homosexual topics was merely due to a search for novelty, that it was “for the most part but an amusement and had little serious or personal in it.”  Those readers of Barnfield, however, who are acquainted with homosexual literature will scarcely fail to recognize a personal preoccupation in his poems.  This is also the opinion of Moll in his Beruehmte Homosexuelle.

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Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.