/lit/ - Literature

>Andersen experienced same-sex attraction;[30] he wrote to Edvard Collin:[31] "I languish for you as for a pretty Calabrian wench ... my sentiments for you are those of a woman. The femininity of my nature and our friendship must remain a mystery."[32] Collin, who preferred women, wrote in his own memoir: "I found myself unable to respond to this love, and this caused the author much suffering." Andersen's infatuation for Carl Alexander, the young hereditary duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach,[33] did result in a relationship:
>"The Hereditary Grand Duke walked arm in arm with me across the courtyard of the castle to my room, kissed me lovingly, asked me always to love him though he was just an ordinary person, asked me to stay with him this winter ... Fell asleep with the melancholy, happy feeling that I was the guest of this strange prince at his castle and loved by him ... It is like a fairy tale."