A living Image which did far surpass
In beauty that bright shape of vital stone
Which drew the heart out of Pygmalion.
A sexless thing it was, and in its growth
It seemed to have developed no defect
Of either sex, yet all the grace of both.
* * * * *
And ever as she went the Image lay
With folded wings and unawakened eyes
And o’er its gentle countenance did play
The busy dreams, as thick as summer flies.
The word that will necessarily attract attention here is the word “sexless.” When one recalls what was said at the very outset of this paper, namely, that the love-element and love-interests saturate all Shelley’s poems, and recalls also the degree to which in modern life the word “love” is wedded and welded with the thought of sex, one cannot help wondering whether he intentionally inserted this word “sexless” in order to indicate a change which was taking place in his mind, or whether he felt such a change to be impending. One need not press the point, but the passage suggests that he was thinking of a new type of human being (at present folded in sleep, but whose coming he perhaps foresaw)—a being having the grace of both sexes, and full of such dreams as would one day become the inspiration of a new world-order, yet of such a nature that its love would not be dependent (as, indeed, most loves now are) on mere sexual urge and corporeal desire, but would be a vivid manifestation of the universal creative Life, in the body even as in the soul. This word “sexless” occurs again—so that it does not appear to be quite accidental—in stanza lxviii of the same poem, where the author in truly Shelleyan fashion describes the lady of the boat as “like a sexless bee tasting all blossoms and confined to none”—a wizard-maiden floating down the torrent of this life “with eye serene and heart unladen.”
Whether Shelley believed in this Vision of a new type—in the sense of thinking it would ever become an actual and realisable thing—may be left undecided, but as an indication of the kind of dream that was at that time occupying his mind, it seems to me of the greatest interest. I think somehow that his instinctive feelings were pointing out the actual direction of our future evolution. There is no doubt that in the present day Sex is ceasing to wield the glamour which once surrounded it. We know too much about it! Its queer vagaries and anomalies, its variations and fluctuations (dating from past ages of the world) have been almost too well and exhaustively studied. Sex in its ordinary procedure seems to belong to a somewhat ancient and pre-human order of things, clumsy and elephantine and, like many ancient institutions, oppressive in the last degree to women. And the question which now remains for us to ask will be as follows: Is it not very probable that those human types of the future which have both elements, the masculine and the feminine, present in their natures, will not be so sexually excitable as those other types (with whom we have been more familiar in the past) who being built, like Plato’s divided sections of humanity, on a lopsided plan, are always rushing about to find their lost counterparts, and rather madly and incontinently plunging into new relationships, which again they dissolve almost as soon as contracted? And may we not reasonably expect that those people whose natures contain both elements will be more stable and reliable than the others, while at the same time—since they share the great driving-force of the universe—they will by no means be wanting in life and energy?
On all sides to-day we hear of the existence of such double-natured folk, and though it may be that at certain periods they become more than usually numerous, yet the evidence shows that in all ages and places they have been frequent. Jacobus Le Moyne, who travelled as an artist with a French expedition to Florida in 1564, left some very interesting drawings representing the Indians of that region and their customs; and among them one representing the “Hermaphrodites,” as they were at that time called, apparently tall and powerful men, beardless, but with long and abundant hair, and naked except for a loin cloth, who were represented as engaged in carrying wounded or dying fellow-Indians on their backs or on litters to places of safety. He says of them that, “in Florida such folk of double nature are frequent ... and, indeed, those who are stricken with any infectious disease are borne by the Hermaphrodites to certain appointed places, and nursed and cared for by them, until they may be restored to full health.” Quite similar stories are told by Charleroix, de Pauw, and others; and one seems to get a glimpse in them of an intermediate class of human beings who made themselves useful to the community, not only by their muscular strength but by their ability and willingness to act as nurses and attendants on the sick and dying. Similar types exist in abundance to-day as we know; but it is needless to say that they are not Hermaphrodites in the strict sense of the term—i.e. human beings uniting in one person the complete functions both male and female—since there is no evidence that such beings do in actual fact exist! But it is evident that they were what we call intermediate types, in the sense of being men with much of the psychologic character of women, or in some cases women with the mentality of men; and the early travellers, who had less concrete and reliable information than we have, and who were already prepossessed by a belief in the possibility of complete Hermaphroditism, leapt easily to the conclusion that these strange beings were indeed of that double nature.[9]
It is quite possible, and, indeed, probable, that Shelley, who was an omnivorous reader, had already come across suggestions in this direction. Plato alone would have given him much food for thought. The god Dionysus, one of the very finest figures in the Greek mythology, and one whose features have often been compared with those of Christ, is frequently represented as Androgyne (double-sexed). Apollo is portrayed in the sculptures with a feminine—sometimes extremely feminine—figure. The great hero Achilles passed his youth among women, and in feminine disguise. And so on, and so on.
A big school such as Eton usually provides for a boy of genius like young Percy a really terrible experience, soul-destroying and calculated to crush out all originality; yet there are occasions when even such a place may become the nurse of heroic inspirations, and may kindle in a young soul the redeeming flame of splendid ambition. For such a school is a miniature of the great world, and may bring the boy into closest contact, friendly or hostile, with every variety of character and temperament, and so may rouse and develop faculties which under ordinary circumstances would have remained dormant. We see in Mr. Barnefield’s paper how a vivid and absorbing attachment sprang up between Percy and a young school-friend, which the elder folk, as we gather (and quite as usual), did not encourage. We now see—and late psychological studies have made this abundantly clear—that love, even a quite unregulated though ardent love, may become in boyhood one of the best guides and tutors of the growing soul. And we know, too, that such an attachment between persons of like sex (whether in school-life or apart from it) as between two youths or two young women, or between a grown man and a boy, or an elder woman and a girl—though deprived of some of love’s recognised and obvious satisfactions—may contain, and often does contain, the elements of a deep and lasting devotion.
In large schools all sorts of soul-shattering experiences occur and recur—violent enthusiasms, insane jealousness, bitter hatreds, rivalries, sexual outrages, and so forth. There are two very common results: one attraction, the other repulsion.
Imagine for a moment a boy of Shelley’s high idealism of mind suddenly transported into such a Babel! It is difficult for outsiders to quite realise or face the situation, at any rate as it was at that time—the filthy talk, the gross and insolent habits, the fagging and bullying, the hideous dullness of the lessons, the beguilement of the time by sex-indulgences, the rather brutal floggings (carried out by idiotic masters under the impressions that they were suppressing lust, when they were really rousing and redoubling the same), etc.
That the boy of whom we are speaking, finding himself in such a situation, should have suffered a kind of agony and that consequently his mental balance should at times have been upset, seems a very moderate assumption, and one which quite possibly would account for his “hallucinations”—as far as the existence of these may be satisfactorily established.
With reference to the duplication of the elements just mentioned in Shelley’s nature, it may be suggested that the blending of the masculine and feminine temperaments does undoubtedly in some cases produce persons whose perceptions are so subtle and complex and rapid as to come under the head of genius. “It may possibly point to a further grade of evolution than that usually attained, and a higher order of consciousness, imperfectly realised, of course, but indicated. This interaction, in fact, between the masculine and feminine, this mutual illumination of logic and intuition, this combination of action and meditation may not only raise and increase the power of each of these faculties, but it may give the mind a new quality and a new power of perception corresponding to the blending of subject and object in consciousness. It may possibly lead to the development of that third order of perception which has been called the Cosmic consciousness, and which may also be termed divination. (“He who knows the masculine,” says the great Lao-tsze, “and at the same time keeps to the feminine will be the whole world’s channel; Eternal virtue will not depart from him, and he will return again to the state of an infant.” To the state of an infant! That is, he will become undifferentiated from Nature, who is his Mother and who will lend him all her faculties.)[10] There is a certain danger—as doubtless many writers have discovered—in talking about visions, or about Second Sight, or, indeed, about any subject which lies near the margin of definite and measurable perception—the danger I mean for the inquirer of being set down or passed by as a mere romancer or as a foolish and credulous person whose opinion carries no weight. However, this danger occurs in many fields of human thought and inquiry, and naturally cannot be entirely guarded against. It is largely due to the paltry character of our ordinary life. A noble and active mind must surely carry with it ever-expanding powers and interests, and at each stage the new powers may well be perceived and classed as “visionary”; but that forms no reason why the vision should be immediately rejected! It only forms a reason for the more careful testing of new experiences.