Pythias, to one another, no matter what upper currents of their emotional life help them or oblige them to keep their secret. In the majority of such really similisexual bonds, the attitude toward women ranges from the generally cordial and admiring, but never self-committing, to the cold and aloof one. The man never wholly surrenders himself; even when he appears to do so. His real self, his full, absolute Ego, surrenders only with his male Mend. We shall understand shortly why this is inevitably of such intense personal significance to him, for his joy or grief, for his good or ill; why so often he feels, with a sentiment far deeper and more sexual than is guessed, the message in Emerson's vibrant lines on male friendships, and the "hidden life" in them:
"A ruddy drop of manly blood
The surging sea outweighs.
The world uncertain comes and goes,
The lover, rooted, stays.
| · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · |
"O, friend," my bosom said,
Through thee alone the sky is arched,
Through thee, the rose is red!
All things through thee take nobler form,
And look beyond the earth;
And is the mill-round of our fate,
A sun-path in thy worth!
Me, too, thy nobleness has taught
To master my despair;
The fountains of my hidden life
Are through thy friendship fair."
— 38 —
