speaks of noticing in Caltagirone "a remarkably handsome young man." So the ruling emotion was at least alert, to the last; if in a mechanical, tranquil fashion.
Yes, to the last—as we have seen it from the first! For Platen remains forever the type of the born Uranian of literary genius, or at least of fine talent, who is drawn sexually only toward the male, but only toward the finer examples of the male, whether physically or intellectually; who idealizes in his loving, often to his own pain and disappointment; one who "loves where he must," a philarrene who is ever the victim of an inborn, sensual-sexual temperament. He is the type of the Intersexual that is of the intellectual class of our humanity. Such Uranians must be ever in peril of sad experiences, and of worse than sad. Such must thank "whatever gods there be" for any cups of refreshment that are vouchsafed their lips, often so parched; and must not expect to be too often so blessed. They must over and over yearn for unity, fated never to find their other half. In reading such a Diary, with the poetic and epistolary matters that supplement it, which Platen has left us, we realize that the lot of the son of Venus Urania is a hazard of sorrows, rather than joys; and in thinking of Platen asleep in his quiet grave in the Villa Landolini, at Siracusa, his bright career and his sad latter days alike abruptly ended, surely we may be glad that to all such weary homosexual hearts Death, sooner or later, gives an unbroken Repose.
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