aissance afford sufficient proof that prostitution may be admirable in its social, cultural, esthetic, and hygienic aspects. At no point in this book have we ever lost sight of the fact that the ideal is the free, loving, sexual relationship of healthy men and women; and that the struggle to achieve that ideal must never be abandoned.

One must also, however, attempt to deal with existing human realities, and with foreseeable future probabilitiesamong which is the need for prostitution now" and for the future. (472473)

This book is a highly competent and courageous discussion in its field and should be read by all legislators and moralists interested in the happiness and welfare of mankind on more rational plane than has thus far existed.

T.M.M.

THE JOURNALS OF JEAN COCTEAU, edited and translated with an introduction by Wallace Fowlie. Illustrated with 16 drawings by the author. 250 pp. Bloomington, Indiana Univ. Pr., Midland Book 59. $1.95.

This paperback edition of Cocteau's journals was first published as a hardbound book in 1956 by Criterion Book. It is well worth the redoing.

This poet steeped in the classical tradition, who makes every word count, constantly draws one upthere is a deceptive simplicity which contains unfathomable mysteries.

I am reminded of Montaigne, his deliberate exposure of himself, his soul and heart, without ever risking the obvious. It will be recalled, too, that Montaigne's most sustained essay deals with friendship, a subject equally dear to Cocteau.

Perhaps the fact that he, like Montaigne, is such a supreme moralist, puzzles many readers. The real Cocteau is not what his masks of playwright, film-maker, novelist, etc., may

have led them to expect.

"The gratuitous practice of sexuality is a torment, whether they know it or not, of all great men. Michelangelo exhibited it, Da Vinci whispered it. Their confessions intrigue me less than numerous indications of an order looked upon as disorder, which does not go so far as acts themselves. What do acts mean? They have to do with the police. They do not interest me.”

Elsewhere, the poet speaks of belonging "to the race of men who are accused and who are awkward in defending themselves." He declares: "My natural inclination to live in accord with the Gospels separates me from dogma." This "seriousness," he goes on, "is the seriousness of poets."

In America and Americanized Europe, these declarations alone are sufficient to render their author suspect. Where an anti-human scientific materialism has become official dogma, where "spirit" and "soul" have become tarnished symbols, the poet's commerce with the Muses and with Death, his search for the key to the enigma in which we are all involved -must be labelled "frivolous," "antisocial," "escapist."

Cocteau the man has passed beyond all that. It would be futile and against the spirit of his wisdom, to justify or defend him. In these pages. the discerning reader will discover for himself that the poet's words were indeed written in blood, and that they do live.

-Paul Cordell

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, by Phyllis Grosskurth, 370 pp., Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1964, $12.50.

Symonds (1840-93) is a major figure in the history of our modern homophile movement. The two prior biographies, by Brown and Brooks, are almost worthless, but this new one is excellent. The homosex-