Studies in the psychology of sex. Vol. 1, Sexual inversion / by Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds / by Havelock Ellis.
- Havelock Ellis
- Date:
- 1897
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Studies in the psychology of sex. Vol. 1, Sexual inversion / by Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds / by Havelock Ellis. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![] from this that Whitman had never realised that there is any relationship whatever between the passionate emotion of physical contact from man to man, as he had experienced it and sung of it, and the act which with other people he would regard as a crime against nature. This may be singular, for there are many inverted persons who have found satisfaction in friendships less physical and passionate than those described in Leaves of Grass, but Whitman was a man of concrete, emotional, in- stinctive temperament, lacking in analytical power, re- ceptive to all influences, and careless of harmonising them.1 He would most certainly have refused to admit that he was the subject of inverted sexuality. It remains true, however, that manly love occupies in his work a predominance which it would scarcely hold in the feelings of the average man whom Whitman wishes to honour. A normally constituted person, having assumed the very frank attitude taken up by Whitman, would be impelled to devote far more space and far more ardour ' I should add that some friends and admirers of Whitman are not prepared to accept the evidence of this letter. I am indebted to Q. for the following statement of the objections : I think myself that it is a mistake to give much weight to this letter— perhaps a mistake to introduce it at all, since if introduced it will of course carry weight. And this for three or four reasons: (i) That it is difficult to reconcile the letter itself (with its strong tone of disapprobation) with the general ' atmosphere1 of Leaves of Grass, the tenor of which is to leave everything open and free. (2) That the letter is in hopeless conflict with the ' Calamus ' section of poems. For, whatever moral lines W. W. may have drawn at the time of writing these poems, it seems to me quite incredible that the possibility of certain inferences, morbid or other, was undreamed of. (j) That the letter was written only a few months before his last Ulne a an 1 death, and is the only expression of the kind that he appears to have given utterance to. (4) That Symonds' letter, to which this was a reply, is not farth- er ming and we consequently do not know what rash expressions it may hi. M ontained—leading W. (with his extreme caution) to hedge his name from possible use to justify dubious practices. I may add that I endeavoured to obtain Symonds's letter, but he was Doable to produce it, nor has any copy of it been found among his papers.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2041996x_0040.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
