He has never sought to
influence an innocent person toward his own tendencies.
HISTORY XI.--T.D., knows of nothing abnormal in his ancestry. His
brother has homosexual tendencies, but is also attracted to
women. A sister, who is very religious, states that she has
little or no sexual inclinations. They were all of a dreamy
disposition when young, to the disgust of their teachers. He sent
the following account of himself from the University at the age
of 20:--
"When I was a child (before I went to school at 9)," he writes,
"I was already of an affectionate disposition, an affection
turned readily to either sex. No boy was the cause of my
inclinations, which were quite spontaneous. (No doubt, part of
the cause may be found in our social system, by which ladies are
rather drawing-room creatures to be treated with distant
respect.) When I was 10, at a preparatory school, I first began
to form attachments with other boys of my own age, in which I
always had regard to physical beauty. It is this stage, in which
the sexual element is latent, that Shelley speaks of as preceding
love in ardent natures.
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