8th Idyll, Plutarch's Agesilaus, Virgil's 2nd Eclogue, Petronius' Satyricon. Should you desire a more philosophical plane there are salient parts of Plato's Phaedrus (used by Mann in Death in Venice) and Lysis, and Aristotle's more abstract speculations on friendship. Alain de Lille's De Planctu Naturae, a dialogue with Nature on sodomy; still later, Pierre Louys' Songs of Bilitis, fictional prose poems dealing with a decidedly wanton Greek peasant girl, and Baudelaire's Lesbian poems in Fleurs du Mal to mention of the less-often-cited. The familiar material is, of course, the best: the sonnets of Shakespeare and Michaelangelo, Montaigne's Friendship (it is amusing to see which French teachers translate his aimer as "to like," which ones translate it "to love"). Because it deals with the classical world, I should also mention what is perhaps the best work dealing with homosexuality since Death in Venice. Marguerite Yourcenar's Hadrian's Memoirs, a book even more remarkable considering that its author is a scholarly lady.

I sympathize with your desire to reach all levels of the homosexual audience, but I do not agree with it. For I see your audience as composed, not of homosexuals, but of "reformable" heterosexuals. And those "outsiders" most likely to admit enlightenment first are those whose thinking on a more abstract, less provincially egocentric plane has inclined them to a more cosmopolitan tolerance of different ways. The proper place for ONE, then, is not the gay bar or drag ball, but the college and public library, the offices of sociologists, psychiatrists, ministers, teachers, and those accustomed to dealing with new ideas.

We must look our Sunday best. It is for this reason, not intellectual snobbery, that I object to the low (Sat. Evening Post) level quality of the prose fiction and poetry you publish. It is a doctrinaire and anti-aesthetic position to suggest that homosexual stories should have "happy endings," They very seldom do in actual American life today, although this is beside the point. The point is that literature is art requiring technique, and not a prescribed subject matter. Thus I accept and admire Hemingway's very antihomosexual literature (perhaps a little too anti to be real?) even though my views are diametrically opposed. Similarly, I prefer a well-written story of "straight" love to a sloppy, sentimental handling of homosexual themes. There is much excellent literature being written, and in the past, for you to publish without having to resort to party-line hack work.

Gentlemen:

MR. E. LEXINGTON, VIRGINIA

I have just finished reading my third issue of ONE and could not put off writing to say thanks for a wonderful thing. ONE is not sold in our town but we are so very close to New York City that I as an entertainer pick up as many as twenty copies at one time for my friends in W--County.

Quite frequently we have some good discussions on articles and more often on your "Letters" column.

Keep up the good work and may success bless your cause.

MR. W. HARRISON, N.Y.

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