Note 111 — III. GENERAL PATHOLOGY.[28] (continued 6)

That inversion of the sexual instinct is not infrequent is proved, among other things, by the circumstance that it is frequently a subject in novels. Chevalier (op. cit.) points out in French literature, besides the novels of Balzac, like “La Passion au Desert” (treating of bestiality) and “Sarrazine” (treating of the love of a woman for a eunuch), Diderot’s “La Religieuse” (a story of one given to amor lesbicus); Balzac’s “La Fille aux Yeux d’Or” (amor lesbicus); Th. Gautier’s “Mademoiselle de Maupin”; Feydeau’s “La Comtesse de Chalis”; Flaubert’s “Salammbo,” etc. Belot’s “Mademoiselle Giraud, Ma Femme” may also be mentioned (now translated into English). It is interesting that the heroines of these (Lesbian) novels appear in the character and rôle of the husband of a lover of the same sex, and that their love is extremely passionate. Moreover, the neuropathic foundation of this sexual perversion does not escape the writers. This theme is treated, in German literature, in “Fridolin’s heimliche Ehe,” by Wilbrand; in “Brick and Brack Oder Licht in Schatten,” by Emerich Graf Stadion. The oldest urning’s romance is probably that published by Petronius at Rome, under the Empire, under the title Satyricon.