“Weary and worn, I have passed through every tempest of anguish and despair. Years of the most racking mental agony have gone over my head without killing me. Through the long night watches I have heard the unceasing hours toll. Sleep has never been thought of by me, but I have lain on my bed trying to read some book, or have knelt by my bedside and endeavoured to raise my heart and spirit in prayer for succour or forgiveness. At last, unable to hold out any longer, with mouth tight-closed and knitted brow the Charmer has deadened my senses for one or two brief hours; but only that I may wake to a stronger and clearer perception of my hopeless condition.
“How the days have got on I know not. How I can have lived so long through such misery I know not. But torture like this is cruelly slow, whilst it is sure. It is the nature of youth to be long-enduring where Love is put to the test and a kind of occasional flicker—a kind of mocking semblance of hope, as like to hope as the rushing meteor is to the enduring sun—helps to support the load of misery, and so to prolong it. I am hundreds of years old in this my wretchedness of every moment. I cannot battle against Love and crush it out—never! God has implanted the necessity of the sentiment in my heart; it is scarce possible not to ask oneself why has He implanted so divine an element in my nature, which is doomed to die unsatisfied, which is destined in the end to be my very death?”—From a manuscript left to the Author by an Urning.
H. Ellis, in Appendix D. of his book on “Sexual Inversion,” speaks at some length on the School-friendships of girls: what they call “Flames” and “Raves”; of love at first sight; romance; courtship; meetings despite all obstacles; long letters; jealousy; the writing the beloved’s name everywhere, etc. These alliances are sometimes sexual, but oftener not so—though full of “psychic erethism.”
In the same Appendix he quotes a woman of thirty-three, who writes, “At fourteen I had my first case of love, but it was with a girl. It was insane, intense love, but had the same quality and sensations as my first love with a man at eighteen. In neither case was the object idealized: I was perfectly aware of their faults; nevertheless, my whole being was lost, immersed, in their existence. The first lasted two years, the second seven years. No love has since been so intense, but now these two persons, though living, are no more to me than the veriest stranger.”
Another woman of thirty-five writes, “Girls between the ages of fourteen and eighteen at college or girls’ schools often fall in love with the same sex. This is not friendship. The loved one is older, more advanced, more charming or beautiful. When I was a freshman in college I knew at least thirty girls who were in love with a senior. Some sought her because it was the fashion, but I knew that my own homage and that of many others was sincere and passionate. I loved her because she was brilliant and utterly indifferent to the love shown her. She was not pretty, though at the time we thought her beautiful. One of her adorers, on being slighted, was ill for two weeks. On her return she was speaking to me when the object of our admiration came into the room. The shock was too great, and she fainted. When I reached the senior year I was the recipient of languishing glances, original verses, roses, and passionate letters written at midnight and three in the morning.”
“Passionate friendships among girls, from the most innocent to the most elaborate excursions in the direction of Lesbos, are extremely common in theatres, both among actresses, and even more among chorus and ballet-girls.”—Havelock Ellis, “Sexual Inversion,” p. 130.
“The love of homosexual women is often very passionate, as is that of Urnings. Just like these, the former often feel themselves blessed when they love happily. Nevertheless, to many of them, as to the Urning, is the circumstance very painful that in consequence of their antipathy to the touch of the male they are not in the position to found a family. Sometimes, when the love of a homosexual woman is not responded to, serious disturbances of the nerve-system may ensue, leading even to paroxysms of fury.”—A. Moll, op. cit., p. 338.
“It is noteworthy how many inverted women have, with more or less fraud, been married to the woman of their choice, the couple living happily together for long periods. I know of one case, probably unique, in which the ceremony was gone through without any deception on any side; a congenitally inverted English woman of distinguished intellectual ability, now dead, was attached to the wife of a clergyman, who, in full cognisance of all the facts of the case, privately married the two ladies in his own church.”—Havelock Ellis, op. cit., p. 146, footnote.
“Seven or eight girls, we are told (in Montaigne’s ‘Journal du Voyage en Italie,’ 1350), belonging to Chaumont, resolved to dress and to work as men; one of these came to Vitry to work as a weaver, and was looked upon as a well-conditioned young man, and liked by everyone. At Vitry she became betrothed to a woman, but, a quarrel arising, no marriage took place. Afterwards, ‘she fell in love with a woman whom she married, and with whom she lived for four or five months, to the wife’s great contentment, it is said; but having been recognised by some one from Chaumont, and brought to justice, she was condemned to be hanged. She said she would even prefer this to living again as a girl, and was hanged for using illicit inventions to supply the defects of her sex’.”—Ibid, p. 119.
“It is evident that there must be some radical causes for the frequency of homosexuality among prostitutes. One such cause doubtless lies in the character of the prostitute’s relations with men; these relations are of a professional character, and, as the business element becomes emphasized, the possibility of sexual satisfaction diminishes; at the best also there lacks the sense of social equality, the feeling of possession, and scope for the exercise of feminine affection and devotion.”—Ibid, p. 149.