h a young girl
whom he wished to marry. This episode took place several years
ago, and though we are still friends my emotional feelings for
him have cooled considerably.

"I have always been very shy of showing any affectionate
tendencies. Most of my acquaintances (and close friends even)
think me curiously cold, and often wonder why I have never fallen
in love or married. For obvious reasons I have never been able to
tell them.

"Three or four years ago a little book by Coventry Patmore fell
into my hands, and from its perusal resulted a strange blending
of my religious and erotic notions. The desire to love and be
loved is hard to drown, and, when I realized that homosexually it
was neither lawful nor possible for me to love in this world, I
began to project my longings into the next. By birth I am a Roman
Catholic, and in spite of a somewhat skeptical temper, manage to
remain one by conviction.

"From the doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, and Eucharist, I
have drawn conclusions which would fill the minds of the average
pietist with holy horror; nevertheless I believe that (granting
the premises) these conclusions are both logically and
theologically defensible. The Divinity of my fancied paradise
resembles in no way the vapid conceptions of Fra Angelico, or the
Quartier St. Sulpice. His physical aspect, at least, would be
better represented by some Praxitilean demigod or Flandrin's
naked, brooding boy.

"While these imaginings have caused me considerable moral
disquietude, they do not seem wholly reprehensible, because I
feel that the chief happiness I would derive by their realization
would be mainly from the contemplation of the loved one, rather
than from closer joys.

"I possess only a slight knowledge of the history and particulars
of erotic mysticism, but it is likely that my notions are neither
new nor peculiar, and many utterances of the few mystical writers
with whose works I am acquainted seem substantially in accord
with my own longings and conclusions. In endeavoring to find for
them some sanction of valid authority, I have always sought
corroboration from members of my own sex; hence am less likely to
have fashioned my views after those of hypersensitive or
hysterical women.

"You will rightly infer that it is difficult for me to sa