h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Possible fun reading, as the US Supreme Court hears debates on gay marriage. (This should be a no-brainer, but hey, it's the US.)

Elektra and I got to discussing the idea of 'Boston marriage', and the fact that Abraham Lincoln was aware of the possibility. Then I got to reading various people arguing about just how many of our presidents were gay - they're only 100% sure about James Buchanan, I think, though there are lingering questions about Washington, Lincoln, and a few others. I'd say it's a safe bet that Jimmy Carter's not gay, but he supports gay rights, because he's got a brain.

Anyhow. While idly noodling around, I found a collection called 'My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries', which I thought you might find interesting.

You might not want to read the letters - depends on how much you like to read other people's love letters - but just look at the couples listed.

If you're like me, you'll open your eyes at a few of the names. Hans Christian Andersen and The Hereditary Grand-Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach? Who knew?

Yeah, yeah. Walt Whitman and this guy and that guy, old news.

Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne - well, duh. But Anselm of Canterbury and the Archibishop of Rochester? Cool.

By the way, Melville wrote Hawthorne,'I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb. . . .' He shouldn't have. That book has caused more than one innocent student nearly to die of boredom. Okay, it IS a pretty good joke that the US of A, which has banned just about everything from its school libraries at one time or another, hardly ever objected to 'Moby Dick'. Okay, some school board in Texas got around to banning it in 1996 on the grounds that it conflicted with 'community values'. Elektra says maybe they didn't approve of whaling. But that is the most boring book in the universe.

Thomas Gray and Charles-Victor de Bonstetten? Johannes von Mueller and Charles-Victor de Bonstetten? Charles-Victor was a heartbreaker, it seems. (I think they said something about Apollo...he could have made a fortune in the cinema...)

Johann Joachim Winckelmann and Reinhold von Berg? No kidding. This makes sense, really - Winckelmann was this great art historian. He said, 'those who are observant of beauty only in women, and are moved little or not at all by the beauty of men, seldom have an impartial, vital, inborn instinct for beauty in art.' To which Elektra replied, 'In other words, if you're not gay, you don't get it?'

Anyway, since I know that some of my friends who read this journal would enjoy this information as much as I do, here is the link:

http://rictornorton.co.uk/dearboy.htm

My only regret is that they're all in English translation. I'd like to read some of them in the original.

Now, what was that about the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and Marcus Cornelius Fronto? I don't remember that in the Russell Crowe movie...

I've browsed a couple of these just now. Looks like it could be some very interesting reading. Thanks!

TRiG.

From what I recall, those most wehemently opposed to homo/bi/transexual rights are those most insecure of their own sexuality. Always made sense to me.

The international jury of litterateurs is still debating whether Hans Christian Andersen was gay. If we came across a letter or the like from him where he openly declared his sexuality it would be easier to interprete his collected w*rks and reach consensus.

Reading his letters today certainly leave the impression that he was well gay, but I believe the way he expresses himself was quite common back in his day. Would you write a love letter to a person - and use all this person's official titles in doing so?

It appears to me that Andersen may very well have been bi-sexual, since he expresses himself in the exact same way in letters to women he adored (as far as I am informed, I don't recall reading any of them, but I might have, it's been many years). We were always told that "The Swedish Nightingale" (Jenny Lind, the singing mega star of his time) was the love of his life and broke his heart by refusing him.

It is interesting that he left all these more or less revealing letters to posterity - but not one single note about his sexuality (except notes in his diaries about how often he masturbated...)

Good point there, Titania.

I know some of these letters are open to interpretation. Would people back then write mash letters and use titles? Yeah, they were weird like that, in my experience. It might help to read letters between married people for comparison.

As to Jenny Lind breaking his heart - well, Jenny Lind, folks, was the Barbra Streisand of her day...

I'm not an Andersen scholar, and I don't know any, so I don't have an opinion about his sexual orientation. One reason people didn't leave declarations about such things in their letters was that the vocabulary hadn't been invented yet.

Just as a person living in the 16th Century couldn't very well have written, 'I think I have an Oedipus complex', it would be hard for, say, Ben Franklin to write, 'The LGBT community in Philly drives me nuts. That Gay Pride parade is interfering with the sedan chair traffic.' (Franklin rode a sedan chair around Philly when he was older and had gout. I tried to float this as a tourist attraction to save the horses, but nobody wanted to fund it.)

That doesn't mean Franklin didn't know any gay people. Or that he wasn't, probably, quite tolerant of them.

You could be right there. I am reminded that Charles de Gaulle was very formal with his wife to his dieing day (at least that's what we were told - always made us wonder with which words he would suggest intermarital sexual intercourse).

Andersen and his contemporaries may not have used words like gay, but given how he had his way with words (he is still famous for it worldwide) I still believe he would have found ways to 'confess' to being gay anyway had he so desired.

Oh well, we'll never know. Unless one or more of his lovers suddenly step forward in the form of notes grown yellow.

This is true. I've read that there were Prussian families who used formal pronouns with one another, at least between fathers and sons - which always seemed odd to me.

When I was a kid we instantly knew when to say "Sie" or "Du" in German / "de" or "du" in Danish, but habits changed from when I was about 20 to 30, I think. Now every Dane says "du" to every other Dane - only exception is Her Majesty and her family.

It has been pointed out to me that this has been normal in English for a very long time, but there is a tiny difference. The Danish "du" is the old English "thou", right?

But I'm not saying the English speaking are more formal than the Danish

You're quite right - only the Yorkshire people say, 'thou', I think, and the Quakers say 'thee', which drives everybody crazy. We just inflated it to 'you' for everybody.

My Icelandic teachers told me that theoretically, they were supposed to say 'you' to the President of Iceland. But they'd always forget and say 'thu', anyhow.

The Dutch puzzled me by saying 'U' to God, which I found odd.

Why do you find that odd, Dmitri? It's a sign of respect.

Not much has changed in Germany, though. When old sportsmen become commentators they now say "Du" to each other, because suddenly saying "Sie" seems too awkward - but they always explain and excuse to the audience for doing so

Ah, but Germans all over the web are typing 'du' in the chatlines to perfect strangers.

Willem, it puzzles me because in most of the other Germanic languages - if not all of them - a formal pronoun would be seen to destroy the intimacy with God.

In Russian, I believe they used the familiar pronoun for the Tsar and God, because they more or less worshipped both.

Now, Romanian is the only language I know that has a formal familiar pronoun, dumneata, meaning sort of 'honoured thou'. I think that's charming, myself.

Dmitri, I don't know about the Dutch but us Afrikaners being staunch protestants are pretty formal when it comes to our relationship with God. At least it was that way ... the new generation of Afrikaners are getting more casual ... and I'm not always sure I like it, some of them speaking as if God or Jesus are pals of theirs. But that is a different discussion!

You've got it, that's why it struck me as unusual. I'm not criticising - maybe that formality is a sign of deep respect.

I grew up with the idea that the individual's relationship with God is very personal and intimate - though I agree, that doesn't mean flippant.

I mean, are you flippant about someone you love dearly? Of course not. And are you hurt when people say rude things about your friends? Well, sure.

Of course, I'm perfectly well aware that if you admit you talk to God, people just think you're religious. If you admit God talks to you, they often think you're mentally ill. I suppose they think He's supposed to listen, but not talk back.

The question is, when God talks to us, does He use a familiar pronoun?

I think God has the right to use the familiar pronoun when speaking to someone! Though I must say I will take a lot of convincing when someone claims that that happens ...

Do you know what Dmitri, us Afrikaners were not even allowed to use the familiar pronoun when speaking to our parents, aunts and uncles, or any older person! This is changing and it still sounds weird to me as one of the folks raised the traditional way when kids 'you' their parents.

I see! Thanks for explaining that. Of course, THAT would be a good readon why people don't say 'thou' to God. It's a different way of looking at it.

Of course, we don't have the pronoun thing, but we do have ways of being respectful in terminology - such as the Southern custom of saying 'ma'am' and 'sir' to older people. Or using titles instead of names, that sort of thing.

Now, I would say 'ma'am' to my grandmothers, both of them. But one was called 'Grandmother' and one was called 'Babe'.

Everybody called her Babe, including her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It was her NAME, she said. She wouldn't have answered to anything else. For Babe, identity trumped etiquette.

I'll bet some people would have found it odd. The only kids who called her something else were some distant cousins, about seven of them, who met her once at a funeral.

They told their mom they just loved 'that cute little ol' white-haired lady'.

You remind me of Babba, a good friend's Grandmother who lived in Lake City, FL .
We went up to put on a re-enactment in the town of Olustee, about an hour's drive east of her house.
She insisted that we all stop by her place for a light snack before we made the 4 hour drive home.
The number of dishes available were far too many to put on the table, so she sat in her kitchen serving each of us whatever we wanted. Our 'Light Snack' probably took longer than the drive home. Babba's only regret was that we had been fighting for the enemy, had we only been wearing grey uniforms it would have made her evening perfect.

This is what they mean when they talk about 'Southern Hospitality'

F S

She sounds lovely.

When they talk about the great Matrons of South Babba always comes to mind
Unfortunately she passed many years ago

On the other hand her grandson put in for bereavement time off work for her passing at least 3 times over a period of only two years, at last he was written-up as you can only have your Grandmother die so many times without raising questions

F S

Yeah. Stick to Confederate Memorial Day.