Happy birthday, Edward Carpenter

It is the birthday of English Socialist poet Edward Carpenter (1844), who is best remembered for his philosophical treatise Civilization, Its Cause and Cure (1891), in which he advances the idea that civilization is a disease that human societies go through before expiring. He proposed that humanity seek a closer association with the land and inner being to survive. He was instrumental in establishing the socialist Fabian Society in England. Carpenter also was an early gay activist. He wrote The Intermediate Sex (1908). He influenced D.H. Lawrence and inspired E.M. Forster's novel Maurice (1971).