A Voice From Old New York: A Memoir of My Youth by Louis Auchincloss Page A

the
New York Herald Tribune,
where his pieces soon attracted the notice of its great owner, Mrs. Ogden Reid herself. She had decided to send him abroad as a war reporter when he suddenly ended it all by committing suicide.
    Why? He had been staying with me at my parents' apartment, and we had both been ushers at a classmate's wedding on the afternoon of the day he did it. We had separated after the reception, and he had gone to several parties, ending up in the apartment of Stewart Alsop, brother of Joe. Jack was sitting on a window seat by a wide-open window (it was a hot June night), rocking himself precariously back and forth until he fell suddenly out the window to his death.
    He had been drinking heavily and seemed in high, even wild, spirits. It could have been an accident, had it not been for the letter that he left for me at the family's apartment explaining that he fully intended to end his life that night because of the agony of finding himself simultaneously in love with a man and a woman.
    I knew both the persons involved; they were attractive and excellent individuals, good friends of Jack's, but quite unaware of the passion he concealed. He liked to have dates with society girls, but they were never serious, and he showed no sign of being gay. If his emotional situation was as he described it, it is probable that his feeling for the man was greater, for marriage to the girl (always a possibility) would have been regarded generally as an excellent thing for him, and in 1941 homosexuality was still in the closet. It had to be strong to grip the feelings of a man who desired public respect.
    Kill oneself over a sexual infatuation? With a future like Jack's? Well, people do. The great Ms. Reid summoned me to explain it to her, and I couldn't. Jack was forever an example of how well one can know a person without knowing him at all. The horror of World War II might have broken up his self-obsession and sharpened the genius of his powers of observation. But wars are better at killing people than changing them.

    In my early years I don't recall homosexuality, or any sexual irregularity for that matter, being discussed by the "grownups" in the family or their friends. No doubt it was to keep a distasteful subject from children's ears, but I imagine that there were a good many closets to which the subject had been relegated. People generally knew what was meant when a woman was described as "horsey" or a man as "effeminate." But it was certainly true that an enormous social stigma was attached to any open demonstration of "undue" affection for a member of one's own sex, and a reputation in that respect meant an automatic exclusion from any men's social group. Women were considerably more tolerant and more changeable: lesbians often ceased to be lesbians. On the other hand, if the "vice" were successfully closeted—and this was not difficult—society was not inclined to pry. As in so many things appearance was everything. Indeed, in the sweller circles prying was considered actually bad manners.
    At Yale, homosexuality was tolerated but discountenanced. It would almost surely have disqualified a man for a senior society or even a fraternity, but he was not condemned. I remember when I was befriended by the son of a world famous automaker, and my father simply mentioned to me that he had a police record for solicitation, that I dropped his acquaintance like the proverbial hotcake. There were enough hurdles in life without that one.
    During the war I had a sordid experience with the dreadful captain of the LST in the Atlantic of whom I shall have more to say. Everyone in the navy knows that when a vessel has been enough months at sea without access to women that some curious things go on in the crew. A sensible officer doesn't see anything. But my crazy captain was shocked, despite a life in the navy, and forced me to make a ridiculous investigation. More than half the crew had been engaged in what most people would