Dr. Ellis was married in 1891 to Edith M. O. Lees, a leading feminist. author and playwright. They had an unusual marital relationship maintaining- separate establishments and "visiting" each other. Mrs. Ellis contended this system had kept their love young and eager over more than a generation. She died in 1916 from a cold contracted while watching a Zeppelin raid.
Dr. Ellis inspired his admirers with unusual enthusiasm. H. L, Mencken called him "the most civilized living Englishman." Another writer termed him one of the most unusual men of modern times and to a third he was "the philosopher of love." In appearance he was impressive, his lean, long intellectual face, framed in an imposing white beard.
The older he became, the younger and more vigorous did he seem. An interviewer, when Dr. Ellis was 53, remarked that he appeared more than his age. But in 1994 few would believe that he was a man of 75. This excess over the biblical three score and ten was at one time a source of embarrassment to Dr. Ellis according to Dr. Houston Peterson, one of his biographers. The psychologist, Dr. Peterson wrote, had never considered that he would live beyond 50 but as the years rolled by he became reconciled to longevity.—United Press.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.