“It is a common belief that a male who experiences love for his own sex must be despicable, degraded, depraved, vicious, and incapable of humane or generous sentiments. If Greek history did not contradict this supposition, a little patient enquiry into contemporary manners would suffice to remove it.”—J. Addington Symonds, “A Problem in Modern Ethics,” p. 10.
“Mantegazza rightly insists that Urnings are found by no means only among the dregs of the people, but that they are rather to be noted in circles which in respect of culture, wealth, and social position rank among the first. Thus, among the aristocracy without doubt a great number of Urnings are to be found.”—A. Moll, op. cit. p. 76.
“In no rank are there so many Urnings as among servants. One may say that every third male domestic is an Urning.”—De Joux, “Die Enterbten des Liebesglückes,” p. 193. Leipzig, 1893.
“It is therefore certain, as we have seen, that many Urnings come from nervous or pathologically disposed families.… All the same, I must say that there is no proof to hand in all cases of sex-inversion among men, that the individuals concerned are thus hereditarily weighted. And besides, there is the consideration that the extension, according to some authors, of hereditary trouble is at present so great that one may prove a tendency to nervous or mental maladies in almost everybody.”—A. Moll, op. cit., p. 221.
“The truth is that we can no more explain the inverted sex-feeling than we can the normal impulse; all the attempts at explanation of these things, and of Love, are defective.”—Ibid, p. 253.
“Among the penchants of Urnings one finds not infrequently a great partiality for Art and Music—and indeed, for active interest in the same as well as passive enjoyment … the Actor’s talent is especially noticeable among some.… But it must not be thought that Urnings are only capable of a special activity of the imagination. On the contrary, there are undoubted cases in which they contribute something in the scientific direction.… Also in Poetry do Urnings occasionally show exceptional talent; especially in love-verses addressed to men.”—Ibid, p. 80.
“An examination of my cases [of Inverts] reveals the interesting fact that 68 per cent. possess artistic aptitude in varying degree. Galton found, from the investigation of nearly 1,000 persons that the average showing artistic tastes in England is only about 30 per cent.”—Havelock Ellis, “Sexual Inversion,” p. 173.
“In Antiquity, especially among the Greeks, there seem to have been numbers of men who in their emotional natures were hermaphrodites. I think that the study of psychical hermaphrodisy is most important, and will throw yet greater light on the psychology of Love itself. Observation so far already shows that the same individual at differing times can experience quite different sexual feelings.”—A. Moll, op. cit., p. 200.
“The Urning is capable, through the force of his love, of making the greatest sacrifices for his beloved, and on that account the love of the Urning has been often compared with Woman’s love. Just as the Woman’s love is stronger and more devoted than that of the normal man, just as it exceeds that of the Man in inwardness, so, according to Ulrichs should the Urning’s love in this respect stand higher than that of the woman-loving Man.”—Ibid, p. 118.