“While I have but little interest in politics, I am passionately fond of music and an inspired follower of Richard Wagner. I have noticed this preference in the majority of us; I find that this music is perfectly in accord with our nature.
“I play the violin quite well; I like reading, and read much, but I have little interest in anything else. Everything else in life is quite indifferent to me, owing to the deep resignation that more and more takes possession of me.
“Even though I should have reason to be satisfied with my fate, in that I have an assured position in a technical employment in a large city of Germany, still I take no pleasure in my calling. I should be best suited if, independent and free, I could travel about with a handsome lover, and live for music and literature, particularly for the theatre, which seems to me to be one of the greatest pleasures. A connection with a court theatre I think of as being very acceptable.
“The only position or calling that seems really desirable to me is that of a great artist,—singer, actor, painter, or sculptor; and it seems to me that it would be even finer to be born to the throne of a king,—a wish that is in harmony with my pronounced desire for power. (If there is really such a thing as transmigration of souls, a subject I have studied much, and which seems to me to clear up much, I must have lived at one time as an emperor, or ruler of some kind.) But a man must be born to all this; and since I am not, I am without ambition for so-called social honors and distinctions.
“As to my tastes, I must mention a painful dissension there is in them. Handsome, intellectual young men of at least twenty years, who must be of my own social station, seem to me to be suited rather for platonic love; but with them I satisfy myself completely with a straightforward, though ideal, friendship, which seldom goes beyond a few kisses. But I can be excited sensually only by coarse, powerful men that are at least of my own age, and mentally and socially beneath me. The reason for this strange phenomenon may be that my pronounced feeling of shame and my innate apprehensiveness, with my cautious disposition, have the effect of an inhibitory idea with men of my own social position; so that with them it is with difficulty and seldom that I can induce sexual excitement in myself. That this diversity is painful to me is owing to the fact that I am always afraid to discover myself to these simple men, below me in station, who may often be bought with money. But I cannot imagine anything worse than a scandal, which would at once drive me to suicide. For I can think of nothing more terrible than, through some slight act of carelessness or the enmity of any man, suddenly to be branded before the world, and to be powerless to avert it. But what is it that we do that is so different from what normally constituted men can do, at least, quite as frequently without embarrassment, and without shame? That we do not feel as the crowd feels is not our fault, but a cruel trick of Nature.
“Innumerable times I have puzzled my brain to know whether science, or any of her free and unprejudiced devotees, could think of any way in which to give us step-children of Nature a more endurable position before the law and mankind. But I have always reached the same sad conclusion, that when one enters the lists in behalf of anything, he must first know thoroughly, and be able to explain, that for which he contends. And who is to-day able to perfectly explain and define contrary sexual instinct? Yet there must be some correct explanation of it; there must be some way in which the mass of mankind can be brought to a milder and more reasonable judgment of it; and, first of all, there must be some way to show that contrary sexual instinct should not be regarded as meaning the same as pederasty, as the majority of men—I may say all—regard it. By such an act a man might erect for himself an immortal monument in the gratitude of thousands of men of present and future generations; for there have been, are, and will ever be, urnings, and in greater number than perhaps has been suspected.
“In Wilbrand’s work, ‘Fridolin’s Secret Marriage,’ I find a very plausible theory given in explanation of this matter; for I myself have repeatedly had opportunity to observe that all urnings do not love men with the same intensity, but that there are innumerable sub-varieties,—from the most feminine man to the man of contrary sexuality who is equally sensitive to female charms. This may also account for the so-called difference between congenital and acquired contrary sexual instinct, which, in my inadequate opinion, does not exist. Yet, in all the fifty-five individuals I have become acquainted with in the three years since I came to understand this matter, I have met the same peculiarities of temperament, disposition, and character. Almost all of them are more or less idealists: they smoke but little, or not at all; they are bigoted, vain, desirous of admiration, and superstitious; and, unfortunately, I must confess that they combine more the defects and the reverse sides of both sexes than their good qualities. For woman in a sexual rôle I experience a feeling of true horror, which I could never overcome, even with the help of my extremely lively imagination. I have never attempted it, because I am thoroughly convinced of the fruitlessness of such an attempt, that seems to me unnatural and sinful.
“In purely social and friendly relations, I like to associate with ladies and girls, and I am gladly welcomed in ladies’ society; for I am much interested in the fashions for ladies, and know how to talk of such things with great skill. When I wish to, I can be very gay and amiable; but my faculty for conversation is, for the most part, only assumed, and it always tires me. I have always had great skill in female work, and shown interest in it. As a child, and up to my thirteenth year, I was passionately fond of playing with dolls, whose clothes I made myself; and it still affords me much pleasure to work at beautiful embroidery, which, unfortunately, I can do only in secret. I have the same preference for knick-knacks, photographs, flowers, sweetmeats, toilet-articles, and such feminine things; and my room, which I arranged and decorated myself, is like the over-crowded boudoir of a lady.
“As particularly remarkable, I wish still to mention that I have never suffered with pollutions. I dream very much, and intensely, almost every night; occasionally I have lascivious dreams, which have only men as subjects, but I always wake out of them before it comes to ejaculation. In reality I am not very passionate sexually, and I have periods lasting from four to six weeks, in which I have almost no sexual desire. Unfortunately, these periods are infrequent, and they are usually followed by an awakening of my intense sexual desire that is only the more violent; which, when it is unsatisfied, causes intense physical and mental suffering. I then become moody, depressed, sensitive, irritable, and retiring; peculiarities, however, which, with the first opportunity I have for sexual gratification, again disappear. I must mention, also, that often, on the slightest occasion, my mood may change several times during the day; it is like April weather.
“I dance well, and like to; but I love dancing only for its rhythmical movement, and because of my partiality for music.