[99] While the homosexual strain in Walt Whitman has been more or less
definitely admitted by various writers, the most vigorous attempts to
present the homosexual character of his personality and work are due to
Eduard Bertz in Germany, and to Dr. W.C. Rivers in England. Bertz has
issued three publications on Whitman: see especially his _Der
Yankee-Heiland_, 1906, and _Whitman-Mysterien_, 1907. The arguments of
Rivers are concisely stated in a pamphlet entitled _Walt Whitman's
Anomaly_ (London: George Allen, 1913). Both Bertz and Rivers emphasize the
feminine traits in Whitman. An interesting independent picture of Whitman,
at about the date of the letter to Symonds, accompanied by the author's
excellent original photographs, is furnished by Dr. John Johnston, _A
Visit to Walt Whitman_, 1898. It may be added that, probably, both the
extent and the significance of the feminine traits in Whitman have been
overestimated by some writers. Most artists and men of genius have some
feminine traits; they do not prove the existence of inversion, nor does
their absence disprove it. Dr. Clark Bell writes to me in reference to the
little book by Dr.
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