Read around in old college records and you will find any number of such stories in nineteenth century America. This is not a new phenomena, it is not a recent occurence. It goes back as far as there have been dormitories and boys living together.
You can read Bridehead Revisited for the happier, more luxurious version, or you can read the story of Washington Roebling, who helped build the Brooklyn Bridge. When as a young man at Rensselaer College, Roebling had a particularly passionate friend, whose affections he did not share. The friend took an overdose from a chemistry lab, and the nineteenth century quietly let the story disappear, except for Roebling who remembered him in his memoirs as a drinking old man. The young boy who died out of love was a regular tale in old college days. It shows up in novels and short stories, famous ones and those that have been forgotten, but for a few graduate students. The tragedy of confused and scared young students trying out their sexuality, an ancient experiment.
Now the sad young man who has jumped to his death appears on the cover of the New York Times--that is really the most significant change--that the tale is not hushed up by deans and councillors. Instead it becomes a cause in its own right.
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