A few lines from one of the many affectionate letters Whitman wrote to "Dear Pete, dear son, my darling boy".

"Pete there was something in that hour from 10 to 11 o'clock (parting though it was) that has left me pleasure and comfort for good I never dreamed that you made so much of having me with you, nor that you could feel so downcast at losing me. I foolishly thought it was all on the other side

Certainly the man who wrote that could not have meant quite what he said in his vehement denial to Symonds.

SOMETHING FURTIVE

The evidence still left considerable mystery. Was Whitman's disavowal a resort to the public mask almost all homo-sexuals must use? There is no direct evidence Whitman ever carried his warm friendships to the point of sexual union, or ever thought of his "special friendships" as homo-sexual.

Perhaps early biographers helped cover the traces. More likely that the old man, warm and affectionate, predominantly narcisistic, (and perhaps, as many think, sexually impotent) was so sublimated in his "masculine love" that he really did not think it quite like sexual love at all. That he was chiefly homo-erotic, there is no doubt. He tried to see this as a basic drive in all men, as, in fact, the drive that made democracy possible. There are many useful men socially who, however obvious their homo-eroticism, never permit themselves to realize the true nature of the urge.

Helen Price, daughter of a boardinghouse keeper with whom the poet often visited, wrote:

"He once said there was a wonderful depth of meaning in the old tales of mythology. In that of Cupid and Psyche, for instance; it meant to him that the ardent expression in words of affection often tended to destroy affection. It was like the golden fruit which turned to ashes upon being grasped, or even touched. As an illustration, he mentioned the case of a young man he was in the habit of meeting every morning where he went to work. He said there had grown up between them a delightful silent friendship and sympathy. But one morning when he went as usual to the office, the young man came forward, shook him violently by the hand, and expressed in heated language the affection he felt for him. Mr. Whitman said that all the subtle charm of their unspoken friendship was from that time gone...

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