spell of Ambrose Bierce, who began molding him into a poet. Writing verse within the narrow confines of what Bierce regarded as the "great tradition," Sterling was eventually rewarded by extravagant praise from his mentor. Sterling would become one day, Bierce predicted, "the poet of the skies, the prophet of the suns."
17
By 1905, however, Sterling had found a new idol in Jack London. Comfortable in the role of hero-worshiper, Sterling was taken off guard when Stoddard worshiped
his
heroic proportions in an obsequious poem in the
Sunset.
18
Although he assured Stoddard that "To George Sterling'' had been "a joy" to read, he had to wonder what Stoddard meant by "love." There was only one kind that Sterling thought proper between men, and that was the manly affection he felt for his "darling Wolf." He gradually concluded that Stoddard's love was not in this category. As he wrote to Bierce in 1908, Stoddard's was a "case of inversion of sex," and Sterling found that merely being in the old man's presence gave him the "jims." If he was not careful, the "old devil" might wind up "compromising" him.
19
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At the same time he was reporting his horror to Bierce, Sterling was continuing to visit Stoddard and to send him affectionate notes and letters. What was the truth about Sterling's feelings toward Stoddard? At this point, we can only guess. Whatever they were, Stoddard never seemed to perceive any chill upon his friendship with Sterling. Perhaps Sterling disguised his revulsion so well that Stoddard never detected it. Or perhaps Sterling was never, in fact, as scandalized by Stoddard's "affectionate manner toward others of his own sex" as he wanted Bierce to believe.
20
If so, then it may be that Sterling was deflecting upon Stoddard any suspicion about his own fondness for London, whose influence over him Bierce had bitterly resented for years.
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Compared with Sterling, Jack London was a model of suave imperturbability on the subject of sexual inversion. He was, in his own words, "no spring chicken in the ways of the world." As a "sailor and a tramp and a prisoner," a recent biographer asserts, London had come "to be tolerant" of men who loved other men.
21
He was, in fact, fascinated by the idea of homosexuality. "I have for years specialized on sex," London wrote to Edward Carpenter.
22
To another homosexual correspondent, Maurice Magnus, he boasted of reading "the whole literature and all the authorities of the 'curious ways.'" He knew about homosexuality "fairly thoroughly and scientifically," but, of course, he was "a lover of women."
23
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Everyone agrees that London was a narcissist; he loved his own body,
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