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Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939

"Sexual Inversion"

The sight of a beautiful youth awakens
astonishment in the lover, and opens the door of his heart to the
delight which the contemplation of this loveliness affords. Love
takes possession of him so completely that all his thought and
feeling goes out in it. If he finds himself in the presence of
the beloved, he rests absorbed in gazing on him. Absent, he
thinks of nought but him. If the beloved unexpectedly appears, he
falls into confusion, changes color, turns alternately pale and
red. His heart beats faster and impedes his breathing. He has
ears and eyes only for the beloved. He shuns touching him with
the hand, kisses him only on the forehead, sings his praise in
verse, a woman's never." One of these love-poems of an Albanian
Gege runs as follows: "The sun, when it rises in the morning, is
like you, boy, when you are near me. When your dark eye turns
upon me, it drives my reason from my head."
It should be added that Prof. Weigand, who knew the Albanians
well, assured Bethe (_Rheinisches Museum fuer Philologie_, 1907,
p.


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