The Scented Garden

32 Messiah (a reincarnation of Jesus) would be born of the love between two men. Sodomy was thus a religious duty with the Turk : at any moment his passion might be used to bring about the Mille- nium : so with the Christian it became heresy, and was punished as such. People who were beyond suspicion, such as Princes of the Church, could always obtain dispensations, and in fact habitually did so. The documents are extant. This was to the mediaeval mind a far more urgent matter than any mere persistence of Levitical tradition, founded as it was on a popular superstition scarcely less gross than their own. But to-day no man can bring forward either the population nonsense or the heresy nonsense, so he brings up his dinner instead, under the equally absurd delusion that the process is physically dir- ty. In the interests of Light and Truth, one cannot too widely disseminate the grossly phrased, but noble, American proverb that “ A turd jumps away from a live prick like a grasshopper from a snake.” Anyway, one can wash1 ! The sole effect of the law as it stands is to make life in England insupportable for the wretched Urn- ing, and to expose every man, whether he be a so- domite or not to the attacks of blackmailers of the vilest sort. Suppose I am threatened by these gen- try ; suppose I catch them and prosecute them ; suppose they get the maximum penalty, and I leave the court with applause and the strongly expressed thanks of the judge for the courage and skill with which I have discharged so unpleasant, albeit so useful, a public duty. Very well ; does that convince my jealous wife ? Does that prevent people in the street pointing me out as the man who was mixed up in that bug- gery business, don’t you remember ? Of course there was nothing against him : it’s difficult to 1. The pathics of Laknau, when offering themselves for hire to British officers, draw long strips of muslin from their recta, whose perfect cleanliness is thus beyond suspicion. O si sic omnes ! Ed.