I have never had
sexual interest in women. Once I had a great friendship with a
beautiful and noble woman, without any mixture of sexual feeling
on my part. I was ignorant of my condition, and I have the bitter
regret of having caused in her a hopeless love--proudly and
tragically concealed to her death. My friendships with men,
younger men, have been colored by passion, against which I have
fought continually. The shame of this has made life a hell, and
the horror of this abnormality, since I came to know it as such,
has been an enemy to my religious faith. Here there could be no
case of a divinely given instinct which I was to learn to use in
a rational and chaste fashion, under the control of spiritual
loyalty. The power which gave me life seemed to insist on my
doing that for which the same power would sting me with remorse.
If there is no remedy I must either cry out against the injustice
of this life of torment between nature and conscience, or submit
to the blind trust of baffled ignorance. If there is a remedy
life will not seem to be such an intolerable ordeal.
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