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1/27

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'A New City of Friends': London and Homosexuality in the 1890s

Author(s): Matt CookSource: History Workshop Journal, No. 56 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 33-58Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4289858Accessed: 22-09-2015 17:13 UTC

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2/27

PA1,I

1

s

:

\

L

uRNIN

A

-\

NIS.

Earlymorning

bathersat the

Serpentine,Hyde Park.

From

Living London,

ed.

G.

R.Suims,

London,1901-3,vol.

1,

p

39-

'A

New

City

of Friends':

London and

Homosexuality

in

the 1890s

by

Matt

Cook

In the 'Calamus'

equence

of Leaves

of Grass(1855)

the American

poet

Walt Whitman

embraced the

city

in an

examination of the

relationship

between

homosocial

bonds,

selfhood

and

democracy.

He

deftly

closed

in

on

the American

metropolis

and used it

simultaneouslyas

a

materialsetting

for the 'swiftflash of

eyes offering

me love'

and as

a

broader

metaphor

or

fraternityandconnection.Whitman'snarratorpartookin the city'ssexual

pulse:

he

'penetrate[d]

ts

light

and

warmth'and felt the

scope

for an exhil-

aratingcomradeship

and strident

self-expression.'

Fortyyears ater

across

the Atlantica numberof homophilewriterswere

grappling

with similar ssues in relation

to

London,

a

city rarely

described

in terms

of

'light'

and

'warmth',

but which was nevertheless

difficult

to

avoid

for those

exploring

ideas of

homosexual selfhood and

community,

and

the

place

of both within

society.

Homosexuality

had

long

been associ-

ated

with the

city,

and the link

was

reaffirmed

n

the 1880s and

1890s,

a

periodwhen sex andrelationshipsbetween men were the focus of particu-

lar debate

and concern.2

Homosexuality

was

repeatedlyalignedduring his

time

with a series of urban

'types'

and

spaces,

and also with a

range

of

anxieties

about the modern

metropolis

-

about

degeneration,decadence,

excessive

consumption

and sexual

excess,

for

example.3

The modern

'homosexual'

was

being delineated

as a determinedly urban figure,

associated,

t

seemed,

with the

very worst features of

urban life.

Those

History WorkshopJournal Issue 56 ? History Workshop Journal 2003; all rights reserved


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3/27

34

HistoryWorkshop ournal

attempting o legitimizehomosexuality ould not easily escape this

insistent

connection even as they attempted to imagine ways of being in

the city

which somehow reconnected with the freedoms glimpsed by Whitman.

Oscar Wilde, the classicist John Addington Symonds, romanticsocialist

EdwardCarpenter,and the lesser-knownGeorge Ives, founder

of

the

first

support and pressuregroup for 'homosexual'men in England,were

each

inspiredby Whitmanand were also acutely awarethat wider depictions

of

homosexuality n the metropolis did little to further their 'cause'.

Each

wrote

of

a pastoralescape and idyll

-

in

his prison etter

De

Proftundis,

or

example,Wilde called on natureto 'cleanse [him]

n

great waters,

and with

bitter

herbs

[to]

wash

[him]whole'4

but

they

each also

reimagined

he

city

in their writing, binding it into their ideas of homosexualsubjectivity,

communityand politics.

The

pages

that

follow explore

this

process,

and

examine

he

interplaybetween

the sense these men

had

of London'shomo-

sexual opportunities, heir need

and

desire

for

secrecy

in the

city,

and

attempts o constitute

a

publicand legitimizing

discourse

of

homosexuality.

The

four men had much

in

common. Symonds,Wilde,

and

Carpenter

had each

passed through

Oxfordor

Cambridge

n the 1860sand

1870s,

and

Ives, the youngest

of the

four,

went to

Cambridge

n

the late 1880s.As

a

resultthey had all experienced he intensehomosocialityof universityife

and were

also familiar

with the classics and

with

the Hellenic

justification

of

homosexualrelations.5

ves noted the

importance

of

the

ancientGreeks

in

the fightfor legitimacy

and referredto Whitmanand

the

others

as the

'four leaders of

Hellas', pioneers

for the

'cause'.6

Living

in London on a

private ncome,

he

dedicated

his

life

to homosexualand

prison

reformand

published

hree

volumes

of 'Uranian'

poetry

as well as workson Hellenism

and

on crime and

punishment.7

n the

early

1890she formed

close friend-

shipswithWilde,whowasat the peakof his career(if not of hisnotoriety)

when

they met, and Carpenter,

who

was

fast

gaining

a

reputation

as

a writer

on

socialism,democracy

and the

importance

of

personal

relations in the

drive for

both. Symonds,

who

was by

this time renowned

as one

of the

country's oremost

'men of

letters',

was also friends

with

Carpenter,

and

was

known to Wilde and Ives for his

advocacy

of

the

legitimization

of

homosexualrelations

n

two

privately-circulatedamphlets,

A

problem

n

Greek ethics'

(1873)

and

'A

problem

n modernethics'

(1891).

The former

ultimatelygaineda wideraudience hrough ts inclusion n SexualInversion

(1897),

on

which

Symonds

worked

with

Henry

Havelock

Ellis

in

the

early

1890s;

he was named as co-author

n

the firstedition.

Symondsdied

in

1893

and

his

Memoirs,

which are considered

here,

were

written

n

the last

years

of

his

life,

around the time

of

the

appearance

of Wilde's The

Picture

of

Dorian

Gray (1891)

and the third section

of

Carpenter's pic prosepoem

Towards Democracy (1892)

-

and also

just

as

Ives was

establishing

his

Order of the

Chaerona

and

earnestly documenting

the

progress

of

the

'cause'

in his

diary.

This

paper

looks at these

writings

n turn.

They

were

written with different audiences in mind and with different

intent;




4/27

'A New

Cityof

Friends'

35

Symonds'sMemoirs

were not even

published

until 1984

(and

then

only

in

edited

form),

and

Ives's

diary

remains

n

manuscript.They

all

nonetheless

reflecton

the

relationship

between London and

homosexuality,

and

each

describeshomoeroticroutes around he city- routes which ntersectedand

diverged, and

which

mapped

a new

politics

of

homosexuality

on to

the

urbanterrain.

SECRETSAND

SOLACEIN

THE

CITY

Wilde'sappeal o nature o 'wash

[him]

whole'

implicitly

ignals

he

concep-

tion of the

city

in

other

sections

of

De

Profundis,

and also more

generally,

as a place where identities becamefragmentedand confused ratherthan

affirmedand defined.It was

precisely

his

aspect

of

metropolitan

ife which

underpinnedWilde's

earlier

and most famous

fictional

engagement

with

London. ThePicture

of

Dorian

Gray

irst

appeared

n 1890 n the

American

Lippincott's

Monthly

Magazine

and then as a

single

volume

in

1891,

to

a

generally

hostile

press.

It

evoked

a secretive

city

of sensual

possibility

n the

wake of

a

series of notorious

cases.

In

1885 W. T.

Stead's Maiden

Tribute

of Modern

Babylon'

articles in

the Pall Mall

Gazette

had

sensationally

exposed the putative trade in young virgins n 'the urbanlabyrinth',and

three

years

ater the

Jack he

Rippermurders

heightened ears of

the urban

sexual

predator.

London's

sexual

underworldwas

exposed

once

againjust

prior

to the

appearance

of the novel:

telegraphboys

from

the Post

Office

Headquarters

n

St

Martin's-le-Grand

n

the

City

of

London were found

workingat a male brothel in

Cleveland

Street, in the

West End

just

north

of

Oxford

Street. The

brothel was

apparently

requented

by

a

number

of

prominentaristocrats

and the case

continuedfor

almost a

year,

involving

prosecutions,

a libel

action,and a

debate in

parliament.8

W. E.

Henley, a

formerfriendof

Wilde,famously

connected

the Cleveland

Streetscandal

directly

to

The

Picture of

Dorian

Gray.

'Thestory', he

noted in

the Scot's

Observer,

'deals with

matters

only

fitted

for the

Criminal

Investigation

Department

..

if

[Wilde]can

write for none but

outlawed

noblemenand

perverted

telegraphboys, the sooner he

takes up

tailoring(or some

other

decent

trade)

the

better for his

own

reputationand the

public'smorals.'9

The novel

also featured

prominently n

the prosecution

of Wilde

fiveyears

later.

Despite

this

its

homoeroticism is

veiled and

there is

no explicit

disclosureof London'shomoeroticpossibilities.Thenovelinsteadturnson

the

possibility

of

constitutinga

secret,

individualized

map of the

metropo-

lis

which

reflects,

endorses,but also

problematizes,

dissident

sexualbehav-

iour.

The

early

part of The

Picture

of Dorian Gray

focuses on Lord

Henry

Wootton,

on his

aesthetic

tastes

and on

his West

End circuit.

Details of

the

latter

-

communicated

hrough

a

descriptionof an

afternoon

stroll

through

the West

End

-

would

almost

seem

superfluous

except that

the

places

mentioned were not merely fashionable but also had homoerotic




5/27

36

HistoryWorkshop

ournal

resonances or

those in the know. He begins in

St James',which had long-

standing

associationswith homosexualactivity

and was known n the 1880s

and 1890sfor its homosocial

club-life,

bachelor

chambers,

and

the

London

and ProvincialTurkishBaths in JermynStreet.The bar at the St James'

Theatre had a

reputationas a meeting place for 'homosexual'men

-

and

Lord Henry

would

have

passed another, the CriterionBar, as he walked

acrossPiccadillyCircus.

The

Circus

tself

was well-known or rent

boys,

and

it was

here,according

o

his

evidence,

that the self-described

professional

sodomite'Jack

Saulhad touted

for

custom or the

Cleveland

Streetbrothel.

Lord Henry continues along Piccadilly

to visit a bachelor uncle

in

the

Albany, home, according

the

contemporary ournal

Leisure

Hour,

of 'a

recognisedvarietyof the man about town'.10He then walksthroughthe

Burlington

Arcade,

which

had featured

prominently

in

the notorious

Boulton and Park

cross-dressing

candal of 187011and from where

dyed-

green carnations, upposed symbol

of

transgressivedesire

in

Paris,

could

apparently

be

purchased.12

From there to

Hyde Park,

notorious

for its

guardsmanrent',

and then

on to

Soho

and a

draper's

n

Wardour

Street,

where

he went 'to look after a

piece

of old brocadeand had to

bargain

or

hours for it'.13It was

from

a

draper's

n

Soho

that

a fictionalJackSaul was

first solicited in Sins of the Cities of the Plain (1881), a pornographic novel

Wilde

reputedly

purchased

n 1890 from Charles

Hirsch's

bookshop

on

Coventry Street,

between Leicester

Square

and

Piccadilly

Circus.14 It

is

tempting

to

put

a similar

gloss

on Lord

Henry's

hours

of

bargaining

or

fabric.WhetherW.

E.

Henley

was

also aware

of

these

associations

when he

suggested

Wilde should enter

tailoring

is not

clear, though

the fashion

historian

Christopher

Breward has noted a

contemporarysuspicion

of

drapers

and

clothing

retailers.15

n

outlining

his

walk,

in

conjunction

with

the suggestionsof Lord Henry'sdecadence and obsession with Dorian,

Wilde

registered

an alternative

way

of

reading

and

knowing

this familiar

terrain.

Yet the

precise

associationswould

have eluded

many

of his

readers

and

spoken directly only

to a

few, perhaps

affirming

or them a

shared

circuitand

a

subcultural

knowledge.'6

Dorian

absorbs

Lord

Henry'smapping

of

the WestEnd

quickly

and soon

moves

beyond

it.

Watching

he

'fascinating'

nd

'terrifying' eople

in

Hyde

Park and

Piccadilly

ills him

with

a

'mad

curiosity'and awakens a passion

for sensation'.

He

strikesout and 'wanders

eastward' nto

'the

labyrinth

of

grimystreets',not as

part

of the

philanthropic rojecthe is engaged n with

Lady Agatha,

but

in

search

of

beauty,

'the real secret of

life'.'7The visit is

described

n

direct

speech, largelywithout

narratorialntervention,and the

East End becomes

Dorian'screation.Echoing

contemporarydepictionsof

the area

by

some

of the so-called

'urban

explorers',18t is an abject and

mapless place

which both

repels

and

seduces.

Here

Dorian

enters the

theatre,

a

place

which

allows him to

create a

fantasy around the actress

Sybil

Vane. She

transformsherself before

Dorian's

eyes

from

Juliet to a

'pretty boy in hose and doublet and a dainty cap' and back again,'9 a




6/27

A New

Cityof

Friends'

37

performance

which echoes that of Boulton and Park and the more

circum-

scribedtransformations

amiliar

rom the music-hall

tage.

Dorian is fasci-

nated by Sybil

and

by

his own

spectatorial

role and he returns

repeatedly

asif to confirmhis new-founddesires.LordHenryaptlydiagnoseswhat has

happenedto

him in terms

of

space

and movement:

out of its secret

hiding

placehadcrept

his

Soul,

and Desire had come to meet it on the

way'.20

It is whenthe spaceceases

to be

secret,

described

by

the narrator ather

than Dorian,

and

when

Lord

Henry

and

Basil visit the theatre as

well,

that

the fantasyand the desires evaporate.Sybil

no

longer

interests

Dorian and

he

retreats

to

his

luxuriousbedchamber

n

Mayfair.

The theatre loses its

mystery

and is soon

specifically

ocated:

the St

James'

Gazette reports

that

the Royal Theatre,Holborn was the site of Sybil's'deathby misadven-

ture'.21The

theatre is no

longer

the locus

of desire in the midst

of

the

labyrinth,

but is instead

more

mundanely

mapped

n

Holborn,

near

Covent

Garden

- and much furtherwest than we

might expect.

The theatre

and the whole

romantic

episode

are erased

by being

rendered

unspeakable.

Dorian

tells

Basil

'if one doesn't talk

about

a

thing,

it has never

happened.

It is

simply expression,

as

Harry says,

that

gives

realityto things'.22 imilarly

he homoerotic

mplications

of Lord

Henry's

walk and

his

'bargaining

or fabric' remain

unspoken

and maintaintheir

potency precisely

because

they

are

oblique

and

only suggestive.Following

Lord Henry'sexample and his

own

trystwithSybil,Dorian does not detail

his

exploits and they become mysterious

and insubstantial s a result.The

reader cannot piece together the full extent of

his

personal map of the

capital,

a

map

which

would perhapsreveal

the

natureof

his

desires.We can

only guess

the

implications

f the

places

that are

mentionedand what t was

about him that 'was so fatal to the lives of

young

men'.23

Dorian'suse of

the

city

reveals

ts

expansiveness:

achplaceleads some-

where else andhas somewherebeyondit where it mightbe possible to find

new

pleasures.

We

do

not

experience

Dorian's townhouse as entirely

separate

but are made aware

of

the

garden,

the square outside, and the

balcony

on

to which Dorian

steps

after

murdering

Basil. The

schoolroom

whichhouses the

painting

s

significantly rivate

and not open to the public

gaze,

but it

is

also

bathed

n

light during

he day, not shut away n the dark.

Beyond

the house and the

square

s

Piccadillyand 'the little Italianrestau-

rant

in

Rupert Street',24whichthe same nightgives way to the 'dingybox'

in the theatre.From here Dorian moves into the fantasyspaces evoked by

Sybil

-

'the forest of

Arden' and 'an orchard n

Verona'

-

and backstage,

the scene of his

equally

antastic

relationship

with her.25Then there are the

'distant

parts

of

Whitechapel' and

'the

dreadful

places near Bluegate

Fields',

where the

Telegraph

journalist James

Greenwood had earlier

described

finding

mannish

female

prostitutes

who

had 'the air of

Whitechapel fighting

men in

disguise'.26

At

home Dorian evokes other

sensual and exotic locales

by burning

odorousgumsfrom the East' and

giving'curiousconcerts' n which'yellow-shawledTunisianspluckedat the




7/27

38

History

Workshop ournal

strained strings of monstrous

lutes

[and] slim, turbaned Indians blew

through long pipes'.27

There is a

fluid movement between

public

and

private,and real

and

fantasyspaces;between

self-created

nteriorsand the

labyrinthine, ecret and hidden

aspects

of the

metropolis.

t is

the

interplay

of these

spaces

which

signals

and makes

possible

Dorian's ntricate

explo-

ration of desire and

identity.

This

decadent

engagement

with the

city

is facilitated

by

Dorian's

ability

to

keep places separate

from each other whilst

maintaining

his

mobility

between

them. His

independent

movement

through

London,

on foot

and

by

cab,

maintains

his

secret

and

disguises

his locale and

destination.

This

rendition of

London is of course

based on

assumptions

of

possibility

consistentwith Dorian'smasculinity ndclass,and the depictionof the city

in the

novel

also

replays

familiar urban

dynamics.

Most

obviously

his

journeys

east

replicated

those of

philanthropists,

urban

explorers

and

'slummers'.The allusionsto his

exploits

there

reproduced

conceptions

of

the East End

poor

as

sexuallypliant

and

ideas

of the

'sensual',

bestial'and

'revolting'

Limehouse

Chinese,

who

provided

a

passport

o fantastical ther

worlds

through opium.28

Dorian's sensual

acquisitivenessapped

into

the

expanding

consumerist

possibilities

of the West

End,

and

the

transform-

ation and transgressiveuse of the city by nightwere familiar rom rendi-

tions of both heterosexual and

homosexual

sexual

activity. Wilde,

Neil

Bartlett

notes,

was

in

some

ways merelyrepeating

the

cliches

of a

descent

into London's underworld'.29 he novel

nevertheless ndicates the

possi-

bilities

of

the

city

and there

is

a markedcontrastbetween

Dorian and other

figures

who do not or

cannot act

upon

its

potential.

Dorian's mitatorsare

'frozen

in

Mayfairballs' and 'sit like

shop

dummies in

Pall

Mall

club

windows'.30

hose ruined

by

him find

themselves shut

out: Lord

Henry's

sister, Lady Gwendolen,is excluded fromsociety,and whenDorian asks

Adrian

Singletonwhy

he

is

in

the

opium

den he

replies

'where else would

I

be?'31Of the

working-class

characters,

he

carters only know Covent

Gardenand London at

dawn,

and

Sybil

and JamesVane

feel and

look out

of

place

in

the

park.

They

return

rom their walk

there

on

the set

route of

a

public

bus,

which 'left them

close

to

their

shabby

home

in

the Euston

Road'. Their

excursion s

predictable, raceableand

public,

and

confirms

their

economic and

social

standing.

Dorian,

meanwhile, sustains his

fantasiesand evades detectionpartly because of his perpetualyouth, but

partly

because

he is

mobile and

the

precise

co-ordinates

f

his personalmap

of

the

city

remain

unclear,

even if

its general patterns are

'cliched'.

This

opacity

was the

means

throughwhichWilde suggested a

departure rom

convention and what

geographerSteve Pile calls

'administrative ation-

ality'.32

Whilstthe

bedroom and

the

family home might

define and specify

marital

sexual

relations,

here

it

is the

multiplicity

of

spaces

and untracked

movements

between them

which indicate Dorian's

transgressive exual

appetite.

In this sense the novel resonateswiththe ethos of individualismWilde




8/27

A

New

Cityof

Friends'

39

outlined

in

his

Utopian polemic

'The

soul of a man under

socialism',

also

published in 1891. In the

novel,

however,

Wilde

explores

the

complexities

of

such

a vision in an unreformed

and class-bound

culture,

and,

in

conse-

quence,

the

possibilities

of the

city

are also tainted

by

a fear of

scandal.

Dorian

is

ultimately

afraid to leave

London

in case the

mutating portrait

is

discovered,

and

the

city

which enables

his

exploration

of

his

'myriad

lives'

and

'myriad

sensations' also

traps

him. London is

conceived

as

a

place

where individualism

both flourishes and

founders,

and when

Dorian

plunges

the knife

into the

painting

in the final

passage

of the novel

a

personal

transgressive odyssey

is

brought

abruptly

to an end: the

formal

divisions between inside and

out,

the

public

and the

private

are

re-

established, and the policeman makes his entrance. Given this orderly

ending

it is

telling

that The

Picture

of

Dorian

Gray

was still

perceived

by

Lord

Queensberry's

defence to be 'calculated to

subvert

morality

and

encourage

unnatural vice'.33Wilde

explored

and

represented

the

complex-

ity of the

city

in

the

novel and it came to

implicate

unruly

and ineffable

identities and desires. London

destroyed

and debilitated

perhaps,

but

it also

permitted

an

elaborate

and

secretive

negotiation

of

subjectivity.

This

constituted

part

of the

novel's threat

and,

for

some,

its

promise.

Symonds

Symonds

wrote

in a

different

vein

in

his

Memoirs, though

they

also

moved

against the

grain

of

nineteenth-century

autobiography.

They were,

as Trev

Lynn

Broughton points

out,

sharply different from

the Life

writing

with

which the Victorian

literary

world

was familiar: not

only as a

moving and

detailed study of

homo-

sexual

subjectivity

... but,

with [their] emphasis

on

dreams, fantasies and

formative

sexual

experiences, as a

moving and

detailed

study of

consciousness at a

time when

histories of

conscience were

the bio-

graphical

order of the day.34

From

his deathbed in

Rome in

1893, Symonds

wrote to his

wife Catherine

of

his hope that the

Memoirs

would be 'useful to

society',

but also advised

her that

he had

given

his

literary executor

Horatio Brown

control of them

after his death because 'I have written things you could not like to read'.35

Although Catherine

Symonds knew

about

-

and (Symonds

claimed)

accepted

-

her

husband's desires it is

likely that

Brown vetoed

publication

out of

sensitivity for her

feelings and

those of the couple's

daughters.

Phyllis

Grosskurth

also

suggests that

Symonds

may have indicated

to

Brown that

the time

was

not 'propitious'

for

publication.36 Brown had

the

manuscript

placed with the

London

Library on his

death in 1926 and

barred

publication

for a

further

fifty

years. Despite the

long road

to publication

Symonds

clearly had an eye on a future reader and on the solace the Memoirs might




9/27

40 HistoryWorkshop ournal

bring

to 'othersas unfortunate

as himself',37 atheras Ives did as he wrote

his diary, which

is considered in the next section. He attempted to be

candid, but his

political agenda is also clear:

he was keen to show the

natural,rather

than pathological,genesis of his desires,and theircapacity

to

be

a force

for good

rather han

corruption.38

s such the

city

becomes

a

problematiccomponent

in his

narrativeand he

appears

to find the

impli-

cations

of

the kind of

meeting

between the self and the

city

described n

The Pictureof

Dorian Gray deeply troubling.The labyrinthineaspects

of

London which

drew

Dorian east were

too

unpredictable

nd

overpowering

to accommodate

his more ascetic vision

of

desire.

This

hinged

on ideas

of

Hellenic self-control

and social

responsibility,

and also on an

idealized

conception of the relationshipbetween citizens and the ancient Greek

polis.39

n his Memoirs

Symonds

nevertheless

returned

repeatedly

to the

modernmetropolis

o trackthe

genesis

of

his desires and the sexual crises

he

experienced

from his

boyhood

fantasies of

'sailors,

such

as

[he]

had

seen about

the

streets of Bristol'

to his

fleeting

encounter

n 1865 with a

'younggrenadier'

n what

journalistGeorge

Sala describedas a 'choked

up

labyrinthof noisome courts and

alleys'

between

Trafalgar

and Leicester

Squares.40 ymonds

refused the

grenadier'sproposition

and 'broke

away

from him with a passionatemixture of fascinationand revulsion'.41He

experienced

a

similar sensation later

when he saw a

'rude

graffito'

'an

emblematic

diagram

of

phallic meeting, glued together gushing',

accom-

panied by

the words

'prick

to

prick

so sweet'

-

scrawledon a wall

'in

the

sordid streets' ust

to the west

of

Regent's

Park.He wrote:

Wandering

one] day

for

exercise

through

he

sordidstreetsbetween

my

home [near

PaddingtonStation]

and

Regents

Park

I

felt the burdenof a

ponderous malaise .

.

. While returning from this fateful constitutional,

at a

certain

corner,

which

I

well

remember,my eyes

were

caught by

a

rude

graffito

crawledwith

pencil upon

slate. It was

so

concentrated,

o

stimulative,

o

penetrative

a character so

thoroughly he voice of vice

and

passion

in

the

proletariat

that it

pierced

the

very

marrowof

my

soul ...

now

the

wolf

leapt

out:

my

malaiseof the

momentwas

converted

into

a

clairvoyant

and

tyrannicalappetite

for the

thing

which I

had

rejected

five

months earlier n

the

alley by

the

barracks.

The

vague and

morbidcravingof the previousyearsdefineditself as a precise hunger

after

sensual

pleasure,whereof

I

had not

dreamedbefore save in repul-

sive visions of the

night.42

Symonds

found himself

profoundly

affected

by

the urban

fabric.Not only

did

the 'sordid

streets' seem

responsible or his

'malaise',but the graffito

incitedand

focused

his

desires.Thelabyrinthine

spectof Londonproduced

appetites

which

were,

for

him,

vicious and

predatory.What disturbedhim

particularly

was the

precision he urbancontextgave them: vaguecravings'

become 'concentrated'and 'precise', apparentlyprecludinghuman and




10/27

'A New

Cityof

Friends'

41

admittingonly genital

contact.

In

these

'sordidstreets'

Symonds

was

trans-

ported into

his tortured dream

world and the

city

became

nightmarish.

Morris

Kaplanconvincingly

rgues

hat this

encounter, ogether

with

others

describedby Symondsin the

Memoirs,

indicatecontradictory mpulses:

'animal

desire',

a

quest

for

comradeship,

and an

attempt

to

'domesticate'

same-sex

desire in line with

prevailing

notions of middle-class

espectabil-

ity.43

Symonds'sstatus

as a 'man

of letters' and as husband and father

impingedon the way

he

experienced

and

wrote

about

homosexuality.

Symonds's

response

to

'the voice

of vice and

passion

in

the

proletariat'

shifted

n his

move

to

the Graubunden

n the Swiss

Alps.

Therehe enthused

about the

purity

and

simplicity

of the

people

and their

unity

with

their

surroundings.WhenI came to live among peasantsand republicans n

Switzerland',

e

wrote,

'I am

certain hat

I took

up

passionate

relationswith

men

in a more

naturaland

intelligible

manner more

rightly

and democ-

ratically

than I

should

otherwisehave done.'44

ymondsreported

hat he

'kept

aloof' in the

Graubunden fromthose

who had

been

sophisticated

by

residence n foreigncities'.45He

shielded

himself

from what he saw as his

own

potentiallydepraved

ongingsby shunning

he

city

and

those

who

lived

there.The

metropolis

ntroduced

omething

more

disturbing

han

Symonds

could countenanceand insteadhe soughtto frame his desireswith a phil-

osophy

of

rural

comradeship.

Switzerlandsoftened the

implications

of

abuse that often

accompanied

eports

of cross-class elations n the

city

and

which were

powerfullysuggested

in the

Cleveland

Street scandal

which

broke

as

Symonds

was

writing

his Memoirs.

London

nevertheless

provided

solace

for

Symonds

and he was also

able

to locate his

Hellenic and pastoral deal of

homosexualrelationswithinthis

urban

context.In the

Memoirshe recounted

a visit

to London romSwitzer-

land in

1877 duringwhich he

visited a male

brothelnear the Regent'sPark

Barrackson

Albany Street,just to the north of

Cleveland Street.

With a

'strapping young soldier'

Symonds 'enjoyed

the close vicinity of that

splendidnaked

piece of manhood'.

After sex he 'made him clothe

himself,

sat and smoked

and

talked

with

him,

and

felt, at the end

of the whole

trans-

action,

that some

at least of the

deepest moral

problemsmightbe

solved by

fraternity'.

He

added:

'I

met him several

times

again,

in

public places,

without

any thoughtof vice'.46The brothel

provideda specifically rban

but

also

insulatedspacewhere

Symondscould

conjurecomradeshipout of sex

in ways that the chanceencounterwith the grenadierand the graffito n the

sordid'

streets seemed to

preclude.47The

possibility of ambush was

removed

and

Symondsmaintained ontrol:he

visited the brothel

voluntar-

ily, not

through mportuning, nd directed he

relationshipwith the

soldier

-

'making'

him

dress and talk

after

sex,

for

example.

It

was this

that

renderedthe

whole event

acceptable or

Symonds,and ironicallyallowed

him

to derive a

sense of

reciprocity

-

'we

parted the best of friends,

exchangingaddresses' fromthe indulgenceof

what he called his

'sophisti-

catedpassion'.48 hispassion,he seemed to assume,was not- or couldnot




11/27

42

History

Workshop ournal

be

-

shared n the same

way by his

working-class ompanion.The sex and

post-coital conversation

in

the brothel

nevertheless did

their work for

Symonds

and

the

relationship

did not

represent

to him urban

vice,

but

a

more laudable and

'respectable'

raternity.

With this man

by his side, the

public

spaces they

meet

in

subsequently

were less

threatening,

ess

likely

to

evoke his 'wolf of desire'. We do not know what

the

soldier

made

of

the

meeting,

or of the construction

Symonds

put

on

it,

but

for

Symonds

himself

it

was part of

what was

most

promising

about 'masculine ove'. 'Where t

appears',

he wrote to Edward

Carpenter

n

1893,

'it abolishes class dis-

tinctions,

and

opensby

a

single operation

he cataract-blinded

ye

to their

futilities.'49He did

not

seem to

conceive

that

it

might

have been

precisely

the cross-classnature of their liaison which so excited him.50

Symonds

hankeredafter rural

simplicity

but

paradoxically

ften found

it

in

the

city.

At the

Embankment

ponds

Symonds ndulged

n fantasies

of

cross-class onnection ive minutes'walk from the

place

where he

encoun-

tered the

young grenadier.

n his

poem

'The

song

of the swimmer'

1867),

a

poem

pasted

into the

manuscript

f his

Memoirsbut not included

n

the

edited

published

version,

he described he scene at the Embankment

n

epic

terms:

a

young rough'

is

transformed nto

'a

Greek hero' as

he

strips

and

enters the lake. 'His firmand vital flesh, white, rounded, radiant,shone

upon

the sward .

. . I

followed him with swift

eyes,

as a

slave

his master'.

The narrator's oul

-

personified

as feminine n line with the

conceptualiz-

ation of the 'Uranian'as a man's

body

with a woman's

soul

-

pursues

her

hero

for

an erotic embrace:

My

soul was not less ardentthan his

joy.

She

thrusther armsabouthis

breast;

he felt his arms

hrob,

he dew

drops

dried

beneath

her

clasp'.

Finally,

the

rough'

kneels

upon

the

grass

and

'quickly

resumed his clothes'. 'The

beautiful

bright god

was

hidden;

the hero

disappeared',51

and the fantasy s neatlyclosed before Symondswalks on.

Elsewhere n

the Memoirs

Symondsdescribes he

solace offered

by

bathers

at the

Serpentine:Early

n

the

morning',

he

wrote,

'I

used

to

rise

from a

sleepless bed,

walk across

the

park,

and feed

my eyes

on

the naked men

and

boys bathing

in

the

Serpentine.

The

homeliest of them

would have

satisfied me.'52 ves

also

enjoyed swimming here

-

as at other

baths

he

knew to

be popularwith

working-classmen

-

and in the

summerof 1894

he met 'a

jolly youth

.

.

.

evidently a worker . . . and

so frank and un-

sophisticatedas to be quite a study'.53 ymonds'sand Ives's descriptions

echo

those of

the

so-called

Uranian

poets of the period who repeatedly

represent eenagersand

young

men in

a

waterysetting,buttheirwordsalso

resonate with a

description

in

the

famous Baedeker guide. Successive

editions of the

1880s

and 1890s stronglyrecommenda

visit to the Serpen-

tine

to

the (implicitly

male) tourist.The

guide described he 'scene of un-

sophisticated

haracter'with

evident

relish: when a flag is hoisted, a crowd

of

men and

boys,most of

them in very

homely attire,are to be seen undress-

ing

and

plunging into the waters,

where their lusty

shouts and hearty

laughter estify their

enjoyment'.An image and

descriptionof the bathers




12/27

'A New

Cityof

Friends'

43

also

appeared

n

George

Sims's

popular

eries

Living

London

(1901).54

The

scene

appealed

to

a

fantasy

of rural

England

as well

as

touching

a

homo-

erotic chord

with men like

Symonds

and Ives.

Similarly

he British

Museum

- a site closely associated with Britain's imperialprofile and cultural

prowess

-

drew

Symonds,

Walter

Pater,

E.

M.

Forster,

and the

poet

A.

E.

Housman

(doubtless

amongstmany

others)

to look at the

ancient

statues

of naked men.55The

studied

gaze

and

yearnings

of

these men were

readily

accommodated

within the

philhellene,upper-middle-class

ulture of

the

second half of

the

nineteenth

century:

despite

the taint

of unnatural

vice,

Hellenic ideals

spoke

of national

renewal,

of self-realization nd of

control.

These

statues,

ike

the

'homely'

and

'lusty'Serpentine

bathers,symbolized

an alternativeconfiguration f desirewhichcountered magesof 'modern'

urban

disarray,

debauchery,

and

effeminacy.

The

BritishMuseumand the

Serpentine

in

Hyde

Park were

overtly

public

and

respectablespaces:

strange

but

welcome

displacements

of ancient

Greece and ruralarcadia n

central London.

They

seemed to reflect the

relationship

between citizen

andspacein

the idealized Greek

polis

where

meanings

and

functions

were

supposedly

obvious

and

simple.

Paradoxically,

of

course, the secretive

desiresof

some of the

assembledmen

complicated he

supposed

clarity

of

this relationby introducingdifferent levels of use and knowledge,some-

thing

which

Wilde also

enjoyed

playing

with

as we have

seen.

Symonds

was

searching

for stable

sexual

identifications

framed

by

Hellenic

self-control,

Whitmanesque

omradery, nd

rural

muscularity.

Yet

in his

Memoirsand

poetry particularparts of

London were used to

mark

out

his

desires and the

developmentof

his sexual and

political

philosophy.

He defined

his brandof

inversion n

specificopposition

o the

random vice'

of the

labyrinthine ity

streets and the

lack

of

self-control

hey apparently

invitedand

represented,but he

also foundcomfort

and the

scope to indulge

in

some

neo-Hellenic hero

worship at the

Serpentine and

Embankment

ponds,

and in

the

brothel,

where he

broughtto his

relationshipwith the

guardsmen

the

sense of

camaraderiehe

had found in

Switzerland.

The

meanings Symonds

found in these

spaces were

partly

determined by

broader

discourses

outing

urban

depravity

on the

one hand

and

pastoral

simplicity

and

Hellenic

self-possession on

the other. As

with

Wilde, a

radical

disassociation rom

domineering

anguagesof the

city and

society

was

impossible,

and

they

ran

through

his work

and

erotic

imaginings.

However,the veryideas of variety,dislocationandchaoswhichcharacter-

ized the

city duringthis

period and

before,and the

confusion of histories

and

possibilities

London

presented,also

allowedforwhat

was

particularn

these

explorationsand

experiences of

desire. The

conjunctionof

diverse

spaces

and

meanings

meantthere were

places even

in the

metropoliswhich

could

endorse rather

han

disrupt

Symonds's

antasiesand

sexual

ethos. In

the

Memoirs

he recalls

them

carefully,

giving a

homoeroticgloss to a

series

of

metropolitan

sites and

connecting them

wistfully to

other places and

othertimes.




13/27

44


REFORMAND THE URBAN SCENE

Symonds

and Wilde

perceived

n

London the potential for self-realization

on the one hand and for the

disruption

or at

least

evasion

of class ortho-

doxies on the other. They also profferedpotent arguments or reform in

their

writing

and - in Wilde's

case

- from the

dock.

Carpenter

and Ives

elaborated these

arguments

n their

work

-

and

the

city

was once

again

central. Like

Symonds,

Edward

Carpenter

voices

a

reticence about the

urbanscene.

In

'the

great

cities'

he wrote in

Homogenic

Love

(1894),

'there

are to be found associatedwith

this form

of

attachment

prostitution

and

other

evils

comparable

with the evils associated with the

ordinary

sex

attachment'.56He was disdainfulof the constraintsof the built environ-

ment, and, again

ike

Symonds,

celebrateda

robust,

masculinebond which

he associated

with manual labour. This was assumed to

'belong'

to the

countryside

and to

relationships

with

working-classmen, who,

as Matt

Houlbrook

suggests, 'represent

some

kind of

"reality"'

from which

'modern middle-class

culture had been distanced'.57

Carpenter

himself

lived

for much

of his life on a

smallholding

t

Millthorpe

near

Sheffield

with

his lover

George

Merrill.

In Towards

Democracy, however,

he turned

repeatedly o the metropolisandfound it to be a potent metaphor or the

fraternity

which he saw

driving

social

and

political change.

The

four

parts

of Towards

Democracy

were

publishedseparately

between 1883 and 1902.

Initiallythey

sold

slowly

and received little critical

attention,

but after

the

publication

of the first

collected

edition

by Swann Sonnenschein

n

1905,

Carpenter

became

something

of

a

celebrity

and

he

received

'pilgrims'

rom

all over the

country,

and

beyond. By

1916

16,000 copies

of the

book

had

been

sold.

The text itself is

composed

of

a

single lengthyprose poem (part

one) and three additionalsections which contained shorterpieces. The

work outlined

Carpenter'spolitical

and social vision and demonstrateda

clear

philosophical

and

stylistic

debt to

Whitman.58

The

figure

of

'democracy'

s

the

lynchpin

of the

series and is

repeatedly

imagined

in

iconic,

homoerotic

terms.

He is a

mutable,

omniscient and

invariably

male

deity,

who moves

between

the

diverse

spaces

around the

globe

which

are evoked

in the

text, drawing

hem

together

and

emphasiz-

ing

their

simultaneity.

The

focus

is not on one

characterand his sensual

adventuring,as in The Pictureof Dorian Gray,but rather on a series of

parallel spaces,

stories and

figures. The literary critic Scott McCracken

describes he

poem

as

having

an

atemporality hroughwhicha new subjec-

tivity might

be

imagined.59

This

use of

spacerelates

in

partto a radical raditionwhich saw change

in

environmentas crucialto wider

shifts in social and

political conscious-

ness. This

included the

projects

of

CharlesFourier n

France and Robert

Owen in

Scotland

in

the

early

nineteenth

century,

as well as later move-

ments

such as

the

Guild of Handicrafts

and the

Utopian Fellowship

of

the

New Life. William Morris and the sexologist Henry Havelock Ellis's




14/27

'A New

Cityof

Friends' 45

Utopian writings

also

foregrounded

environmental ransformation.60

he

reinventionof space, and,

most

notably

n

Morris,

he

integration

of nature

into the city, were seen

as central

-

practically

and

symbolically

to the

liberationof thesubjectand the reformation f society.In TowardsDemoc-

racy Carpenter imilarly

drew

heavily

on

pastoral magery

and focused

on

space

and its

effects. He did

not

outline

a reformed

pace, however,

nstead

encouraging

a different

perspective

on

existing spaces

and

their

potential

to yield a sense of comradeship.

His vision combined

the

idealized

rural

muscularityof 'democracy'with

the seductive fabric and

figures

of the

metropolis

which thread

through

Wilde's and

Symonds'swriting.

He used

the eroticsof urban ife to shape

and

articulate

a

social and

political

vision.

Democracyin Carpenter'spoem is drawnespeciallyto outdoor spaces

and

to

places

of confluenceratherthan

separation.

n

St James'

Park,

for

example,

desire

and

democracy

ntertwine: he

mysteriousstranger easy

with

open

shirtand brown

neck and face' attracts

veryone

aroundhim

and

embodies 'one

of the

slowly unfolding

meanings

of

democracy'.

More

intriguing

han this recourse to urban

parks

in

the

poem, though,

is the

deliberate

engagement

with

aspects

of

city

life which

Symonds

found

troubling

and which were the

subject

of

broader

comment

and concern.

In

the city crowd and also in images of urbancriminalityand degeneracy

Carpenter

ound a democratic

promise.

At

night

I

creep

down and lie close in the

greatcity

-

there

I

am at home

-

hours

and hours

I

lie stretched

here;

he

feet go to andfro,to andfro,

beside and over

me .

.

.

You, soaring

yearning

face

of

youth threading

the

noisy crowd, though you soar

to the

stars

you

cannot

escape

me. I

remainwhere I am. I make

no effort. Wherever

you go

it is

the same to

me:

I am

there

already.6'

The passage echoes the imagery

associated with the urban predator:

Democracycreeps through

he

streets, lies

in

wait,

is

inescapable.He also

picks

out

-

it is

tempting

to

say cruises

-

the

'soaring ace of youth' in the

urban crowd.

However,

this

'predator'

s

transformed

nto

a

redemptive

force

and

is

envisagedrepresenting positiverather han degenerateset of

desires.The destructiveand

perverted orces

of the city are transfigured y

the

incorruptible

orce of

democracy;

he

dangerous

treets harbour

not a

sexual monster but an omnipresentguardianangel. The 'noisy crowd',

meanwhile,potentiallyyields connection,and

sustainsrather han dissolves

identity.

It

is a vision that

recurs orcibly

elsewhere

n the

poem:

Through

he

city

crowd

pushing

wrestlingshouldering,against

the

tide,

face after

face,

breathof

liquor,

money-grubbingye,

infidel

skin,shouts,

threats,greetings, miles,eyes

and breasts

of

love, breathless,

lutchesof

lust, limbs, bodies, torrents,bursts,

savage onslaughts, ears, entreaties,

tremblings, tranglings, uicidal, he sky,the houses, surgesandcrest of




15/27

46

HistoryWorkshop

ournal

waves, white faces from afar bearing

down nearer

nearer, almost

touching,and

glances unforgotten

and

meant to be

unforgotten.62

A collection of diverse

mpressions,

rom the ecstatic to the

desperate,

are

equalized

here

in

an

outpouring

of

jumbled

adjectives

and nouns. The

passage represents

he

multiplicity

of the urbancrowd but there is also

a

rhythmicmovement

which unifies the elements into

an

eroticized

totality:

from

an

alienating

entry

to 'breathof

liquor, money grubbingeye,

infidel

skin',

to an

orgasmic

urge

in the middle of the

passage ('eyes

and

breasts

of

love, breathless,

clutches

of

lust, limbs,

bodies, torrents,bursts'),

a

post-

orgasmic

despair (of 'tears, entreaties,

tremblings'),

and

finally,

from the

passionateembraceof thecrowd,enduringmemories,reiteratedn the first

line of the stanzathat follows:

I

do not

forget you:

I see

you quite

plainly'.

The crowd

s

imagined

as a sexual

experience

and

whilst

chaotic t does not

assail

'conscious

personality'

as

Carpenter's

ontemporary

Gustav

Le

Bon

suggested

it

might.

Whilst Le Bon and other commentators

variously

imagined

crowds

breaking

down

identity,

propriety,class,

and ideas

of

Englishness,63 arpenter

ast them as

settings

for intimateencounters

and

for desires

which

could

drive

social,

culturaland

politicalchange.

The power of comradeshipto pull people together into a new life

suggested

a

politicalproductiveness

n a set of

desireselsewhereconceived

as

sterile, degenerate,

or

nostalgic.

The Hellenic

ideal of masculine

ove,

which

was

seen to

embody

and

produce

social

stability

and

progress,

was

conjured

anew within he

contemporary

rban cene.

Moreover,

a

temporal

generative

dimension o homosexualdesirewas

recovered.

n

a

papergiven

to the British

Society

for the

Study

of Sex

Psychology

he noted that

'the

loves

of

men for each other and

similarly

he loves

of women for each

other

maybecome factorsof futurehumanevolutionjust as necessaryand well-

recognised

as

the

ordinary

oves which ead to the births

of childrenand the

propagation

of the race'.64

Carpenter

nvisaged

a

productive ocial, peda-

gogical, philanthropic

nd

artisticrole for the

invert, extendinghis

sphere

of influence

beyond

the immediate

physicalenvironmentwhich was

more

commonly

een

to enclose and define

him.65Within

his schema

he city was

used

to stress the

place of

the

invert within

-

and as a

productivemember

of

-

the

social

body.Carpenter

hus

evades the

idea of an

elusive, secretive

urbancircuit and subculture,and clearlyidentifies n a publishedwork a

series

of

urban

homosexual

'types' and the

scope for

homosexual and

homosocialconnection

n

the

city. He picks

out, for example, the carefully

brushedand

buttoned

young

man

walk[ing]

down

Piccadilly',

eminiscent

of the men

described

attending

he

Wilde

trials;66

he

'young

prostitute' n

'his

chamber'

arranging hotographsof fashionablebeauties';

he 'young

man

who

organiseshis

boys from the slums';67

nd the 'poor adborn n the

slums' who

finds his

long-lost friend, 'a man

twice his own age

. . . a large

free

man,well

acquaintedwith the world,

capable and kindly','in a little

street

off

the Mile

End Rd'.68




16/27


17/27

48 HistoryWorkshop ournal

privileges associated with his

family's

wealth

-

the London home near

Regent'sPark, he countryhouse in

Bentworth,Hampshire, he

villa n

Nice

-

but also felt stigmatized.

He

took an interest

n

the work of the

Legitima-

tionLeague n the 1890s,and, n termsof hissexuality,hadgreat hopesthat

sexology

would

bring

about

a

change

n

both

in

social attitude

and the

law.

He learnt German

to

keep

abreast of the more

wide-ranging

ontinental

sexologicaldebate and was,

along

with

Carpenter,

n active member

of the

BritishSociety

for the

Study

of

Sex

Psychology,

ounded

n

1913.

Ives had a more

singular

focus on homosexual

'emancipation'

han

Carpenter,who turned

down an invitation o

join

the exclusive and issue-

specificOrder

of

the Chaerona

hortly

after it was formed around1892.

It

is tempting o conjecture hatthis arose out of Ives'sproximity o an urban

subculture,

o the

blackmailers,

olice,

and the

courtswhichmade the need

for

self-protection

seem acute and

the battle for

legitimacy especially

urgent.

He was

keenly

aware of the

pressures

on men who had sex and

relationships

with

other

men in

London,

and the

ways

in which

they

were

depicted

in the

press.

Ives's

Order,

his

writing,

and his sense of self were

shaped

n

specific

relation

to

a felt

marginalization

withinthe

city. Carpen-

ter felt

this

marginalizationoo,

and

apart

romthe ideals he communicated

throughhiswriting,he took an activepart n protestsagainstspecific njus-

tices, especially

when

they

involved

censorship.72 arpenterwas, however,

one

step

removed from the

city

in

Millthorpe,

and this distance

s

perhaps

reflected

n the

way

homosexuality

s

figured

as

part

of a broader

andscape

in his

writing

and

politics.

Ives meanwhile

magined

a strident

political ight

for

legitimacy,

and he

connected this

explicitly

with London.

It was

there

that he felt

the

greatest

sense

of common cause and the closest comrade-

ship,

as well

as

the

greatest

threat to

his

friends and

relationships.

The

Service of Initiation for the Order appropriately ncluded Whitman's

eulogy

to

democracy

and

fraternity

n

'a

city invincible',

'a

new

city

of

friends'.73

The

Orderwas named after the final battle of the

ThebanBands.These

bandswere

composed

of men

fightingalongside

heir

male

lovers and

they

were revered for theirbravery,

tandingundefeateduntil the battle of the

Chaerona of 338

BC. Ives's obsessive

secrecy

means

that

the

precise

membership

of

the Orderremainsobscure

but his

accounts

of

chance and

planned meetings suggest it

involved

a

fairly large number of men. Indi-

viduals

were

considered for

membership

on

account of their position or

expertise.

Ives commented

on

one

unnamedman:

'Being a

learned

figure

we had

thoughthe mighthave been of

use to the order, but so far as I

know,

he was

never

in it'.74

Ives would

not

necessarily

have

known since

it

only took

two

existing members

to induct a third.) In 1893 he wrote: 'I

am

hopeful [of

the

characterof several

London workers]but they are so

far

as

I

know

untried and

some are too

apatheticfor Us at present'.75He

observed on

another

occasion the

necessity of teaching 'workers' 'the

faith'.76The context of both commentssuggests the potential recruitment




18/27

A

New Cityof Friends'

49

of

working-class

men

and

indicates

a

desire to attenuate the

Order's

elitism.He

noted,

however,

that the rich and

powerful

had

more

scope

to

act without the threat of

legal

action: 'The

helpless

and the

wage

earners

darenot, mustnot, move or speakunlessthey wishfor martyrdoms'.77

Ives

saw the Order

practically

as a

campaigning

nd

pedagogical

body,

a means

through

which

prejudice

might

be

challenged,

networks

of

contacts

established,

and

pressure

brought

o bear

on

figures

of

influence.

He

treated

the reformist task with

the utmost seriousness and

imagined

a

kind

of

Athenian social contract in the face of

apparently

more

self-indulgent

explorations

of the

city.

He was

damning

of

those who

he

felt

used

the

Order

frivolously.

He

wrote,

for

example,

of

a chance

meeting

in

London

with a member of the Order and wrote: 'he ought never to have been

elected. He does

nothing

save

amuse

himself .

.

.

I

do

regret

he ever heard

our first service. X is

another

feeble

creature who is not

worthy

of

our

movement'.78

ohn Stokes is

right

to observe that Ives 'found

t a

challenge

to

reconcile the

variety

of

homosexual

personalities

with

his

own sombre

ideals and

retiring

nature'.79This

intolerance,

I

would

suggest,

becomes

more noticeable as his

relationship

with London

changed

n the

1890s.

In the

late

1880s Ives

self-consciouslyassumedthe

mantle

of

indepen-

dent WestEnd bachelor.He kitted himself out with a malaccacane from

the

Burlington

Arcade,

a new

pin,

studded with

opal, garnet

rubies and

diamonds,

and

a

dressingcase,

'fitted with

ebony

and

silver',

which

was

'quite

enough

for a

bachelor'.80

e

visited friends n

Half Moon

Street, ust

off

Piccadilly,ate with others

at the Savoyandwent

to performances t the

Empire

n

Leicester

Square.

In

July 1891 he took

chambersat

56 St James'

Street

where, he noted,

'I

can be left

entirely to myself'.81 He

'admit[s]

never

to

have been to

the East

End', an area he

associated

with a political

agenda

he did

not

yet

share:

I

am no

socialist',he

insisted.82

Ives's social circuit

expanded

when he met Wilde.

London,

he

announced n

October

1891,was a 'grand

place'.83He

enjoyedthe

company

of

Wilde

and his

circle

in

some of the

new

continentalcafes and at

the

Authors'

Club,the

Lyric

Club,

and

the New

Travellers'Club,

whereWilde

once

kissed him

'passionately'goodbye.84

He yearned for

more indepen-

dence so that he

could,

in

aesthetic

manner, get a

glimpsenowand then of

the

beautystill in life'

-

'so

long',

he

added

cautiously, as it

does not hurt

the

cause'.85He

looked for a

permanent

West End apartment

and in 1894

moved into E4 the Albany- the exact addressWilde wrylygave to Jack

Worthing

in

the

original four-act version

of The

Importanceof

Being

Earnest.86On

Wilde's advice

he also shaved off his

moustache,notingthat

it

was

'anti-Hellenic'

and 'bad

art', an

offence both to his

ascetic sense

of

the

Hellenic

masculine deal

and to his

aestheticism.87n

removing t

he

keyedinto an

urbantrend

and West

End fashion

whichwas at least

mildly

suggestive

of

sexual

dissidence.88ves

sharedhis

new home,and

sometimes

his

bed,

with

James

Goddard, he son of

one of hisfather's

employees,

and

HaroldHolt, his grandmother's ormersecretary. t was also here thathe




19/27

50


spent the nightwith Lord Alfred

Douglas, though

he refused

to allow

a

thirdpartyto join them because

he

'thought t wouldn'tdo in the Albany'89

-

an episode which reveals Ives's

enduring ense

of

propriety

and reserva-

tion for all his avowed radicalism.He could not embraceDouglas'smore

abandoned

lifestyle

and worried about the

consequences

of the

young

lord's ndiscretions. I warnedLord

A

more than once that he was indulging

in

homosexuality

o

a

reckless

and

highlydangerousdegree.

For tho'

I

had

no

objection

to the

thing

tself we were all afraidhe would

get

arrested

any

day'.90

This concern

evaporated

when

Douglas

turned

on

Wilde:

Ives

added

the words 'traitor' o

any

mention

of him in the

diary.

During

this

period

Ives read

Carpenter's

Civilisation:

its Cause and

Cure

and made extensive notes on the sectiondiscussing he Theban Bands of

male

lovers.

Ives

also

now visited

poorerparts

of

the

city,making acquaint-

ance

among he youthfuldenizens

of the

Borough'.91

is

daily

ife now took

him

frequentlybetween

the west and east

ends, incorporating,

or

example,

the

swimming

baths n

Whitechapel

and a visit to Wilde in St James'

on one

day

in the summer

of

1892.92 ike

Carpenter

and

Symonds

he

developed

a

keen interest

in

the potential

of homoerotic bonds to foster

a new social

and

moralorder,and when

he overheard wo

working-class

men

having

sex

in a changingcubicle at the Polytechnicbathsin Regent'sStreet in 1893he

concluded

that,

removed

from 'mercantile

urroundings',

new

potential

had been unleashed

by

these

men,

who were

apparently

able to flout

conventionand

the

common conflation

of

monetaryexchange

with homo-

sexual

sex. 'How

much',

he

wrote, 'might

this

be but

a

type

of the

rising

generation,may

these two but be

specimens

and

samples

of the

millions

and we shall do well'.93

nfluenced

by Carpenter's nsights

and his

own

experiences

n

the East End Ives

put

a

Utopian

and

reformistgloss

on

the

swimming-pool ncounter.

His

interest

in

the West End waned

aroundthe mid 1890s.He chose

to

visit

the

romanticsocialist and

architectCharlesAshbee at the Guild of

Handicrafts n Mile

End Road rather han

attend

a dinner

with Wilde after

the

premiere of The Importance of

Being Earnest, for example,94 and

claimed

o

like the mainstreetsof

the East End betterthan 'the horridWest

Central district'.After a

trip

to a

pantomime

and dinner at the

Savoy

in

1906

Ives

proclaimed rritably,

I

can't

stand society and its amusements'.95

Rather than seeing the West End as a permissivespace for homosexual

experimentation and expression he felt it

detracted from the serious

business of

reform.96For him it

representeda version of homosexuality

which

was alliedtoo

closely

to the

prevailing

ocial and culturalorder.From

the mid

1890s he became more actively

nvolved in the Rugby House and

Magdaleneuniversity ettlements,

n

Notting Hill and Camberwell espec-

tively,

and this

expanded topographical

rame of referenceboth indicated

and

fostered a

strong

commitment

o

ideas of homosocial and cross-class

comradeship, greatersympathy or

socialism,and an interest n anarchy.

His

attachment to the

city was increasinglyrelated to the streets, the




20/27

A New

City

of

Friends'

51

settlements,

his associates

in the

Order of the

Chaerona,

and

various

meetings

and

conferences,

including

from 1913 events

organized

by

the

BritishSociety

for

the

Study

of

Sex

Psychology.

This shift

in his

engage-

mentwith London wasshapedby the

interplay

of

Hellenism,sexology

and

socialism

n his

thinking,

whilstthe

presence

of these

institutions,

networks

and

organizations

n the

city

sustained his vision of reform

and made

it

sometimesfeel almost

achievable.

At the close of the 1890s Ives

moved

from

Piccadilly;

irst to

his

grand-

mother'shome in Park Road

and

then,

in

1905,

to

Adelaide Road

in

PrimroseHill. Adelaide Road

was,

according

o historian

Donald

Olsen,

'the

essence of

suburbia',97

nd

in

the

diary

for the

post-1905

period

there

is a sense of Ives settlingdown- not to a 'conventional'amily,but witha

series of

working

and lower-middleclass

men whom he

paternalistically

referred o as his 'children'.

JamesGoddard

brought

his wife

and

children

to live

there

for

a

while,

and in

1909,

Harold

Bloodworth,

a

teenage

foot-

baller,

moved in

and

stayed

untilIves'sdeath n

1950.Ives's

aim

at

Adelaide

Road was

seclusion for

himself

and

his housemates. I

am

laying

plans

to

keeppeople

out',

he wrote

in

1905,though

n

a

verso note

of

1927

he

noted

that his

'precautions

and

locks

[had]

never been

necessary'.98

espite

the

communalsurveillanceand gossipassociatedwith suburbia, he architec-

ture also

fostered

separation

and

privacy,

adequately

fulfilling

Ives's

requirements or his

unconventional

household.

Like some

of the writers

considered

earlier,

Ives

drew on

the

pastoral

traditionto

cleanse and

redeem

homosexuality

n

the

city.

He

advocated

ruralization nd

the

fostering

of

spaces

where

people could

retreat rom the

streets and find

privacy

at

night,

areas he

called

'spoonitoria'. 'In

the

future',

he

wrote, 'such

places will be

provided

and there

will be

no

spies

or

restrictions'.99 e

wrote a

piece

for

the

Saturday Review

insistingthat

London's

parks

shouldnot

be lit after

darkand

wasoutraged

by a

proposal

to

close

Hyde

Park at

night.100

He

consequently

compared

London

unfavourably

o

Berlin, where he

admired

he

Thiergarten,with

its

'mean-

dering

paths,

thick

trees

and

waterways

right n the

middle

of the

capital '

It

was,

he

wrote:

'unfenced

and open

as a

spoonitoriumat

all times;

...

much more

free than

London'.10'

He saw

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