Letters of thanks are sent to contributors, sending in $2 or more, and their addresses. Acknowledgement is here made for an anonymous gift of $20, from Fort Dodge, lowa, and $2, from Los Angeles.

Gentlemen:

Enclosed is a small gift for your organization. It is extremely difficult for me to say how I evaluate the contents of your publication. Some of it has been very good, some of it of a more mediocre nature. But, first of all, let me say that I think the editors and staff have thus far done a wonderful job in publishing this type of literature.

I know that there must be innumerable problems and harassments involved, and that the temptation to just give up or to strike out viciously at critics must be great at times. Of course we all know that there must be criticism, for without it there would be no progress. Rome wasn't built in a day, and so I for one will just be content that we do have a voice at all.

Living as I do in a rather small, tightlylaced community, it is a real pleasure to receive a publication that speaks out boldly for the homophile. And as time goes on ! find myself less and less concerned in the gayer side of this life and more and more concerned with the underlying causes and effects. Anyway, fellows, keep up the good work, and if any of this letter makes sense, or helps some of the bitter memories that must certainly be a part of your chore seem a little less bitter, than I am humbly thankful that I was able to write you.

Mr. M.

BELLINGHAM, WASHINGTON

Dear Alison Hunter:

It was a pleasant surprise to see my short story, and I want to thank you for printing it. I was particularly pleased because your editors accepted the ending that Sgt. Marsh enjoys the girl. Whether he really does or not was, I felt, an unnecessary question. The point I intended was, of course, each-to-hisown-for both Jasper and Sgt. Marsh. I believe the last paragraph in Alice Horvath's article (November, 1958) says as much more succinctly.

I think the drawing is nicely done, as well as the general format of the issue, which seems non-gimmicky and attractive from the cover on through.

Dear Editor:

Alden Kirby NEW YORK, N. Y.

In trying to bring a general understanding as to the derivation of Hallowe'en you seem to have put me into a state of utter confusion. Is not every festival celebrated today

derived from some fairy-tale, myth, legend, or historic fact? I have always been of the opinion that each festival has its counterpart in every religious and secular tradition through the ages. Most people today enter into the spirit of Hallowe'en with no idea they are celebrating the Mesopotamian Adonis Festival, the rites of Bacchanalia, or spreading witchcraft of mediaeval times. It's a good excuse to celebrate while Christians care celebrating the eve of All Saint's Day. This celebration has nothing to do with hobgoblins or ghosts or pumpkins or witches' brooms. I interpreted your editorial as trying. to explain that the festival of Hallowe'en goes back beyond the time of Christ, and I say that all derivations of any festival are separate and distinct.

Dear ONE:

Miss O.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

Mr. Vitale's review of Lolita (October, 1958) disappointed me I had expected a greater degree of objectivity. "Inhumanity" is a strong word. The severity of Mr. V's strictures sounds as though he "doth protest too much" -for reasons better left to a psychiatrist's imagination. He has evidently been. misled by the superb irony and tragic comedy of many passages-the book obviously has to be read on many levels at once. To expect that every novel of sexual deviation must show "the inner war waged by the voice of conscience"-Joyce's "agenbit of inwit"is to expect that every such novelist be an imitation of Dostoyevsky, and it is of a piece with the tradition that homophile novels must end tragically.

As for Mr. V's rhetorical question "what would the world have said had the girl been a boy?" I must reply that this is entirely irrelevant. Male counterparts of nymphets exist, as the Greeks well knew, but the whole question of man-boy relationships has been taboo even in homophile publications, because homophiles are scared to death of the charge of corrupting minors by converting them to their own pattern. (A strange left-handed compliment to homosexuality, if even a single such experience can undo many years of social pressures toward heterosexuality!)

The question ought to be dealt with honestly in a novel, but I dare say no publisher would have the temerity to handle such a manuscript unless the scene were ancient Greece and the sex angle played down to a barely audible pianissimo. Even Mr. Cory appears to have been afraid to touch the problem. Isn't it about time someone looked into the problem of ephebophilia honestly outside the covers of the Kinsey report?

Mr. B.

NEW YORK, N. Y.

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