Of Literature in this connection, and of the great writers of the world whose work has been partly inspired by the Uranian love, I have myself already spoken.[60] It may further be said that those of the modern artist-writers and poets who have done the greatest service in the way of interpreting and reconstructing _Greek_ life and ideals--men like Winckelmann, Goethe, Addington Symonds, Walter Pater--have had a marked strain of this temperament in them. And this has been a service of great value, and one which the world could ill have afforded to lose.
The painters and sculptors, especially of the renaissance period in Italy, yield not a few examples of men whose work has been similarly inspired--as in the cases of Michel Angelo, Lionardo, Bazzi, Cellini, and others. As to music, this is certainly the art which in its subtlety and tenderness--and perhaps in a certain inclination to _indulge_ in emotion--lies nearest to the Urning nature. There are few in fact of this nature who have not some gift in the direction of music--though, unless we cite Tschaikowsky, it does not appear that any thorough-going Uranian has attained to the highest eminence in this art.
Another direction along which the temperament very naturally finds an outlet is the important social work of Education. The capacity that a man has, in cases, of devoting himself to the welfare of boys or youths, is clearly a thing which ought not to go wasted--and which may be most precious and valuable. It is incontestable that a great number of men (and women) are drawn into the teaching profession by this sentiment--and the work they do is, in many cases, beyond estimation. Fortunate the boy who meets with such a helper in early life! I know a man--a rising and vigorous thinker and writer--who tells me that he owes almost everything mentally to such a friend of his boyhood, who took the greatest interest in him, saw him almost every day for many years, and indeed cleared up for him not only things mental but things moral, giving him the affection and guidance his young heart needed. And I have myself known and watched not a few such teachers, in public schools and in private schools, and seen something of the work and of the real inspiration they have been to boys under them. Hampered as they have been by the readiness of the world to misinterpret, they still have been able to do most precious service. Of course here and there a case occurs in which privilege is abused; but even then the judgment of the world is often unreasonably severe. A poor boy once told me with tears in his eyes of the work a man had done for him. This man had saved the boy from drunken parents, taken him from the slums, and by means of a club helped him out into the world. Many other boys he had rescued, it appeared, in the same way--scores and scores of them. But on some occasion or other he got into trouble, and was accused of improper familiarities. No excuse, or record of a useful life, was of the least avail. Every trumpery slander was believed, every mean motive imputed, and he had to throw up his position and settle elsewhere, his life-work shattered, never to be resumed.