I am especially pleased with their freundin (the German word meaning a female friend), which unlike the amica of the Romans, is seldom used but in its best and purest sense. Now I know it will be said that a friend is already something more than a friend, when a man feels an anxiety to express to himself that this friend is a female; but this I deny—in that sense at least in which the objection will be made. I would hazard the impeachment of heresy, rather than abandon my belief that there is a sex in our souls as well as in their perishable garments; and he who does not feel it, never truly loved a sister—nay, is not capable even of loving a wife as she deserves to be loved, if she indeed be worthy of that holy name.
S. T. Coleridge (Biographia Literaria, Letter to a Lady).
Coleridge also says: “The qualities of the sexes correspond. The man’s courage is loved by the woman, whose fortitude again is coveted by the man. His vigorous intellect is answered by her infallible tact. Can it be true what is so constantly affirmed, that there is no sex in souls?—I doubt it, I doubt it exceedingly.”—Table Talk.
But surely Coleridge might have found the best proof of his contention in the nature of children, the small boy who fights with his fists, plays with tin soldiers and despises “girls,” and the girl-child who loves her doll and her pretty clothes. See next quotation.
O thou most dear!
Who art thy sex’s complex harmony
God-set more facilely;
To thee may love draw near
Without one blame or fear.