e age of 34, with a reputation for sanctity. (E.C.
Clayton, _Queens of Song_, vol. i, pp, 52-61; F. Karsch,
"Mademoiselle Maupin," _Jahrbuch fuer sexuelle Zwischenstufen_,
vol. v, 1903, pp. 694-706.) A still greater writer, Flaubert, in
_Salammbo_ (1862) made his heroine homosexual. Zola has described
sexual inversion in _Nona_ and elsewhere. Some thirty years ago a
popular novelist, A. Belot, published a novel called
_Mademoiselle Giraud, ma Femme_, which was much read; the
novelist took the attitude of a moralist who is bound to treat
frankly, but with all decorous propriety, a subject of increasing
social gravity. The story is that of a man whose bride will not
allow his approach on account of her own _liaison_ with a female
friend continued after marriage. This book appears to have given
origin to a large number of novels, some of which touched the
question with considerable less affectation of propriety. Among
other novelists who have dealt with the matter may be mentioned
Guy de Maupassant (_La Femme de Paul_), Bourget (_Crime
d'Amour_), Catulle Mendes (_Mephistophela_), and Willy in the
_Claudine_ series.

Among poets who have used the motive of homosexuality in women
with more or less boldness may be found Lamartine (_Regina_),
Swinburne (first series of _Poems and Ballads_), Verlaine
(_Parallelement_), and Pierre Louys (_Chansons de Bilitis_). The
last-named book, a collection of homosexual prose-poems,
attracted considerable attention on publication, as it was an
attempt at mystification, being put forward as a translation of
the poems of a newly discovered Oriental Greek poetess; Bilitis
(more usually Beltis) is the Syrian name for Aphrodite. _Les
Chansons de Bilitis_ are not without charm, but have been
severely dealt with by Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (_Sappho und
Simonides_, 1913, p. 63 et seq.) as "a travesty of Hellenism,"
betraying inadequate knowledge of Greek antiquity.

More interesting, as the work of a woman who was not only highly
gifted, but herself of homosexual temperament, are the various
volumes of poems published by "Renee Vivien." This lady, whose
real name was Pauline Tarn, was born in 1877; her father was of
Scotch descent, and her mother an American lady from Honolulu. As
a child she was taken to Paris, and was brought up as a French
girl