On this basis a really inverted tendency, when it existed, could easily come to the surface and find expression.

We find this well illustrated in the poet Heinrich von Kleist who seems to have been of bisexual temperament, and his feelings for the girl he wished to marry were, indeed, much cooler than those for his friend.

To this friend, Ernst von Pfuel (afterward Prussian war minister), Kleist wrote in 1805 at the age of 28: "You bring the days of the Greeks back to me; I could sleep with you, dear youth, my whole soul so embraces you.

When you used to bathe in the Lake of Thun I would gaze with the real feelings of a girl at your beautiful body.

It would serve an artist to study from." There follows an enthusiastic account of his friend's beauty and of the Greek "idea of the love of youths," and Kleist concludes: "Go with me to Anspach, and let us enjoy the sweets of friendship....