than passion. There is a high degree of sexual erethism when
kissing, but orgasm is rare and is produced by lying on the
friend or by the friend lying on her, without any special
contact. She likes being herself kissed, but not so much as
taking the active part.

She believes that homosexual love is morally right when it is
really part of a person's nature, and provided that the nature of
homosexual love is always made plain to the object of such
affection. She does not approve of it as a mere makeshift, or
expression of sensuality, in normal women. She has sometimes
resisted the sexual expression of her feelings, once for years at
a time, but always in vain. The effect on her of loving women is
distinctly good, she asserts, both spiritually and physically,
while repression leads to morbidity and hysteria. She has
suffered much from neurasthenia at various periods, but under
appropriate treatment it has slowly diminished. The inverted
instinct is too deeply rooted to eradicate, but it is well under
control.


HISTORY XXXVII.--Miss M., the daughter of English parents (both
musicians), who were both of what is described as "intense"
temperament, and there is a neurotic element in the family,
though no history of insanity or alcoholism, and she is herself
free from nervous disease. At birth she was very small. In a
portrait taken at the age of 4 the nose, mouth, and ears are
abnormally large, and she wears a little boy's hat. As a child
she did not care for dolls or for pretty clothes, and often
wondered why other children found so much pleasure in them. "As
far back as my memory goes," she writes, "I cannot recall a time
when I was not different from other children. I felt bored when
other little girls came to play with me, though I was never rough
or boisterous in my sports." Sewing was distasteful to her. Still
she cared little more for the pastimes of boys, and found her
favorite amusement in reading, especially adventures and
fairy-tales. She was always quiet, timid, and self-conscious. The
instinct first made its appearance in the latter part of her
eighth or the first part of her ninth year. She was strongly
attracted by the face of a teacher who used to appear at a
side-window on the second floor of the school-building and ring a
bell to summon the children to their classes. The teacher's face
seemed very beautiful, but sad, and she thought about her
continually, though not coming in personal contact with, her. A
year later this teacher was married and left the school, and the
impression gradually faded away. "There was no consciousness of
sex at this time," she wrote; "no knowledge of sexual matters or
practices, and the feelings evoked were feelings of pity and
compassion and tenderness for a person who seemed to be very sad
and very much depressed. It is this quality or combination of
qualities which has always made the appeal in my own case. I may
go on for years in comparative peace, when something may happen,
in spite of my busy practical life, to call it all out." The next
feelings were experienced when, she was about 11 years of age. A
young lady came to visit a next-door neighbor, and made so
profound an impression on the child that she was ridiculed by her
playmates for preferring to sit in a dark corner on the
lawn--where she might watch this young lady--rather than to play
games. Being a sensitive child, after this experience she was
careful not to reveal her feelings to anyone. She felt
instinctively that in this she was different from others. Her
sense of beauty developed early, but there was always an
indefinable feeling of melancholy associated with it. The
twilight, a dark night when the stars shone brightly; these had a
very depressing effect upon her, but possessed a strong
attraction nevertheless, and pictures appealed to her. At the age
of 12 she fell in love with a schoolmate, two years older than
herself, who was absorbed in the boys and never suspected this
affection; she wept bitterly because they could not be confirmed
at the same time, but feared to appear undignified and
sentimental by revealing her feelings. The face of this friend
reminded her of one of Dolce's Madonnas which she loved. Later
on, at the age of 16, she loved another friend very dearly and
devoted herself to her care. There was a tinge of masculinity
among the women of this friend's family, but it is not clear if
she can be termed inverted. This was the happiest period of Miss
M.'s life. Upon the death of this friend, who had long been in
ill health, eight years afterward, she resolved never to let her
heart go out to anyone again.

Specific physical gratification plays no part in these
relationships. The physical sexual feelings began to assert
themselves at puberty, but not in association with her ideal
emotions. "In that connection," she writes, "I would have
considered such things a sacrilege. I fought them and in a
measure successfully. The practice of self-indulgence which might
have become a daily habit was only occasional. Her image evoked
at such times drove away such feelings, for which I felt a
repugnance, much preferring the romantic ideal feelings. In this
way, quite unconscious of the fact that I was at all different
from, any other person, I contrived to train myself to suppress
or at least to dominate my physical sensations when they arose.
That is the reason why friendship and love have always seemed
such holy and beautiful things to me. I have never connected the
two sets of feelings. I think I am as strongly sexed as anyone,
but I am able to hold a friend in my arms and experience deep
comfort and peace without having even a hint of physical sexual
feeling. Sexual expression may be quite necessary at certain
times and right under certain conditions, but I am convinced that
free expression of affection along sentimental channels will do
much to minimize the necessity for it along specifically sexual
channels. I have gone three months without the physical outlet.
The only time I was ever on the verge of nervous prostration was
after having suppressed the instinct for ten months. The other
feelings, which I do not consider as sexual feelings at all, so
fill my life in every department--love, literature, poetry,
music, professional and philanthropic activities--that I am able
to let the physical take care of itself. When the physical
sensations come, it is usually when I am not thinking of a loved
one at all. I could dissipate them by raising my thought to that
spiritual friendship. I do not know if this was right and wise. I
know it is what occurred. It seems a good thing to practise some
sort of inhibition of the centers and acquire this kind of
domination. One bad result, however, was that I suffered much at
times from the physical sensations, and felt horribly depressed
and wretched whenever they seemed to get the better of me."

"I have been able," she writes, "successfully to master the
desire for a more perfect and complete expression of my feelings,
and I have done so without serious detriment to my health." "I
love few people," she writes again, "but in these instances when
I have permitted my heart to go out to a friend I have always
experienced most exalted feelings, and have been made better by
them morally, mentally, and spiritually. Love is with me a
religion."

With regard to her attitude toward the other sex, she writes: "I
have never felt a dislike for men, but have good comrades among
them. During my childhood I associated with both girls and boys,
enjoying them all, but wondering why the girls cared to flirt
with boys. Later in life I have had other friendships with men,
some of whom cared for me, much to my regret, for, naturally, I
do not care to marry."

She is a musician, and herself attributes her nature in part to
artistic temperament. She is of good intelligence, and shows
remarkable talent for various branches of physical science. She
is about 5 feet 4 inches in height, and her features are rather
large. The pelvic measurements are normal, and the external
sexual organs are fairly normal in most respects, though somewhat
small. At a period ten years subsequent to the date of this
history, further examination, under anesthetics, by a
gynecologist, showed no traces of ovary on one side. The general
conformation of the body is feminine. But with arms, palms up,
extended in front of her with inner sides of hands touching, she
cannot bring the inner sides of forearms together, as nearly
every woman can, showing that the feminine angle of arm is lost.

She is left-handed and shows a better development throughout on
the left side. She is quiet and dignified, but has many boyish
tricks of manner and speech which seem to be instinctive; she
tries to watch herself continually, however, in order to avoid
them, affecting feminine ways and feminine interests, but always
being conscious of an effort in so doing.

Miss M. can see nothing wrong in her feelings; and, until, at the
age of 28, she came across the translation of Krafft-Ebing's
book, she had no idea "that feelings like mine were 'under the
ban of society' as he puts it, or were considered unnatural and
depraved." She would like to help to bring light on the subject
and to lift the shadow from other lives. "I emphatically
protest," she says, "against the uselessness and the inhumanity
of attempts to 'cure' inverts. I am quite sure they have perfect
right to live in freedom and happiness as long as they live
unselfish lives. One must bear in mind that it is the soul that
needs to be satisfied, and not merely the senses."


HISTORY XXXVIII.--Miss V., aged 35. Throughout early life up to
adult age she was a mystery to herself, and morbidly conscious of
some fundamental difference between herself and other people.
There was no one she could speak to about this peculiarity. In
the effort to conquer it, or to ignore it, she became a hard
student and has attained success in the profession she adopted. A
few years ago she came across a book on sexual inversion which
proved to be a complete revelation to her of her own nature, and,
by showing her that she was not an anomaly to be regarded with
repulsion, brought her comfort and peace. She is willing that her
experiences should be published for the sake of other women who
may be suffering as in the past she has suffered.

"I am a teacher in a college for women. I am 34 years old and of
medium size. Up to the age of 30 I looked much younger, and since
older, than my age. Until 21 I had a strikingly child-like
appearance. My physique has nothing masculine in it that I am
aware of; but I am conscious that my walk is mannish, and I have
very frequently been told that I do things--such as
sewing,--'just like a man.' My voice is quite low but not coarse.
I dislike household work, but am fond of sports, gardening, etc.
When so young that I cannot remember it, I learned to whistle, a
practice at which I am still expert. When a young girl, I learned
to smoke, and should still enjoy it.

"Several men have been good friends of mine, but very few
suitors. I scarcely ever feel at ease with a man; but women I
understand and can nearly always make my friends.

"I am of Scotch-Irish descent. My father's family were
respectable, prosperous, religious people; my mother's family
only semi-respectable, hard livers, shrewd, but not intelligent,
industrious and money-getting, but fond of drinking and
carousing. There were many illegitimates among them. Both
grandmothers, though of little education, were unusual women. Of
my four maternal uncles, three drank heavily.

"When 43, my mother gave birth to me, the youngest of 8 children.
Of those who grew to adult years, 2 seem quite normal sexually; 1
is exceedingly erratic, entirely unprincipled, has been a thief
and a forger, is a probable bigamist, and has betrayed several
respectable women. Aside from his having inordinate desire, I
know of no sexual abnormality. Another brother, married and a
father, as a boy was much given to infatuations for men. I fancy
this never went beyond infatuation and of late years has not been
noticeable. A third brother, single, though much courted by women
on account of his good looks and personal charm, is wholly
unresponsive, has no gallantry, nor was ever, to my knowledge, a
suitor. He is, however, fond of the society of women, especially
those older than he. He has a somewhat effeminate voice and walk.
Though he has begun of late years to smoke and drink a little,
these habits sit rather oddly upon him. When a child, one of his
favorite make-believe games was to pretend that he was a famous
woman singer. At school he was always found hanging around the
older girls.

"As a child I loved to stay in the fields, refused to wear a
sunbonnet, used to pretend I was a boy, climbed trees, and played
ball. I liked to play with dolls, but I did not fondle them, or
even make them dresses. When my hair was clipped, I was delighted
and made everyone call me 'John.' I used to like to wear a man's
broad-brimmed hat and make corn-cob pipes. I was very fond of my
father and tried to imitate him as much as possible. Where
animals were concerned, I was entirely fearless.

"I think I was not a sexually precocious child, though I seem to
have always known in a dim way that there were two sexes. Very
early I had a sense of shame at having my body exposed; I
remember on one occasion I could not be persuaded to undress
before a young girl visitor. At that time I must have been about
3. When I was 4 a neighbor who had often petted me took me on his
lap and clasped my hand around his penis. Though he was
interrupted in a moment, this made a lasting impression on me. I
had no physical sensation nor did I have any conception of the
significance of the act. Yet I had a slight feeling of repulsion,
and I must have dimly felt that it was wrong, for I did not tell
my mother. I was not accustomed to confide in her, for, though
truthful, I was secretive.

"At the age of 5 I commenced to attend a district school. I
remember that on my first day I was Greatly attracted by a little
girl who wore a bright-red dress.

"My first definite knowledge of sex came in this way: I was
attending Sabbath school and had become ambitious to read the
Bible through. I had gotten as far as the account of the birth of
Esau and Jacob, which aroused my curiosity. So I asked my mother
the meaning of some word in the passage. She seemed embarrassed
and evaded my question. This attitude stimulated my curiosity
further, and I re-read the chapter until I understood it pretty
well. Later I was further enlightened by girl playmates. I fancy
I enjoyed listening to their talk and repeating what I knew on
account of the mystery and secrecy with which sex subjects are
surrounded rather than any sensual delight.

"I cannot recall any act of mine growing directly from sexual
feeling until I was 10 years old. Several other little girls and
myself two or three times exposed private parts of our bodies to
each other. In one instance, at least, I was the instigator. This
act gave me some pleasure, though no distinct physical sensation.
One incident I recall that happened when I was about 10. A girl
cousin and myself had been playing 'house' together. I do not
recall what immediately led to it, but we began to address each
other as boys and tried to urinate through long tubes of some
sort. I also recall feeling a vague interest in this process in
animals, and observing them closely in the act.

"From this time until I was about 14 I grew ruder, more
boisterous and uncontrollable. Prior to this I had been a quite
tractable child. When 12 I became interested in a boy in my grade
at school, and tried to attract him, but failed. Once at a
children's party where we were playing kissing games I tried to
get him to kiss me, but he was unresponsive. I do not recall
bothering myself about him after that. A year later I had a boy
chum about whom my schoolmaster teased me. I thought this
ridiculous. At the age of 13 I menstruated, a fact that caused me
shame and anger. Gradually I grew to feel myself peculiar, why, I
cannot explain. I did not seem to myself to be like other girls
of my acquaintance. I adopted, as a defense, a brusque and
defiant air. I spent a good deal of time playing alone in our
backyard, where I made a pair of stilts, practised rope-walking,
and such things. At school I felt I was not liked by the nicer
girls and began to associate with girls whom I now believe were
immoral, but whom I then supposed did nothing worse than talk in
an obscene manner. I copied their conversation and grew more
reckless and uncontrollable. The principal of the high school I
was attending, I learned afterward, said I was the hardest pupil
to control she had ever had. About this time I read a book where
a girl was represented as saying she had a 'boy's soul in a
girl's body.' The applicability of this to myself struck me at
once, and I read the sentence to my mother who disgusted me by
appearing shocked.

"During this period I began to fall in love,--a practice which
clung to me until I was nearly 30 years old. I recall various
older women with whom I became much enamored, and one man. Of
these there was only one with whom I became acquainted well
enough to show any affection; another was a teacher, and another
was a young married woman at whom I used to gaze ardently during
an entire church service. Toward all my women teachers I had a
somewhat sentimental attitude. They stimulated me, while the men
gave me a wholly impersonal feeling. This abnormal sentimentality
may have been caused, or at least was increased, by the reading
of novels, some of a highly voluptuous nature. I began to read
novels at 7, and from 11 to 14 I absorbed a great many
undesirable ones. This lead to my picturing my future with a
lover, fancying myself in romantic scenes and being caressed and
embraced. I had always supposed I should marry. When about 5 I
decided that when I grew up I would marry a certain young man who
used to come to our house. Several years later he married, to my
real disappointment. I had no affection for him, but merely
thought he would make a desirable husband.

"During my unhappy adolescence I heard that a former playmate was
going to visit at my home. I began to look forward to the visit
with much eagerness and at her arrival was much excited. I wished
to stay alone with her and to caress her, and when we slept
together I pressed my body against her in a sensual manner, which
act she permitted, but without passion. I was greatly excited and
could scarcely sleep. This was the first time I had acted in such
a way, and after she left I felt shame and dislike for her. At
future meetings there was never the least sensuality; we never
referred to the first visit and are still friends, though not
intimate.

"A diary which I kept during my fourteenth and fifteenth years is
filled with romantic sentiments and endearing terms applied
successively to three girls of my own age. I had but a speaking
acquaintance with them, but I was strongly infatuated with all.
One boy was also the object of adoration.

"During my thirteenth year I became for a time very religious and
devoted to religious exercises. This passed and by my fourteenth
year I had become heretical, but was still keenly sensitive to
religious influences.

"When barely 16 I slept one night with a woman of low morals. She
acted toward me in a sensual manner and aroused my sexual
feelings. I felt at the time that this was a sin, but I was
carried away by passion. Afterward I hated this woman and
despised myself.

"I then went away to a co-educational boarding school. Here for
the first time I became happy. A girl of my own age, of fine
character and noticeable refinement, fell in love with me and
caused me to reciprocate. On retrospection I believe this to have
been a genuine and beautiful love on both sides. After a few
months, however, our relation, at my initiative and against my
friend's will, became a physical one. We expressed our affection
by mutual caresses, close embraces and lying on each other's
bodies. I sometimes touched her sexual organs sensually. All this
contact gave me exquisite thrills. After three years we had a
misunderstanding and separated. I was greatly grieved and
troubled for many years, and came to regret greatly the physical
relationship that had existed between us. My friend at length
fell in love and married. I had several other slighter
infatuations for women, was courted by several men to whom I
remained cold and bored except in one instance, where I was
somewhat touched, and finally found a lasting friendship with a
woman who had fallen deeply in love with me in her school days
and had never been able to care for any one else. She is a woman
of considerable literary talent and of good general ability and
high ideals. She is usually much liked by men. Her love for me is
the most real thing in the world for me, and seems the most
permanent. At first my feeling for her was almost purely
physical, although there were no sexual relations. I hated this
feeling and have succeeded in overcoming it pretty largely. At
times after long separations we have embraced with great passion,
at least on my part. This has always had a bad physical effect on
me. At present, however, it very rarely occurs. We both consider
sexual feelings degrading and deleterious to real love. Whether
at any time we have had complete physical satisfaction or
gratification, I hardly know. I have experienced very keen
physical pleasure, mingled with what I took to be great mental
exaltation and quickening of the emotions. This condition was
brought about by close contact with the body of my friend,
usually by lying upon it. But if by 'gratification' it is meant
that desire, having been completely satisfied, ceases
temporarily, I think I have never had that experience. If I did,
it was when I was about 18 when I lived with a girl friend in
intimate relations. Of late years, at any rate, it has never
happened to me, and an embrace, however close, always leaves me
with a desire for a closer union, both physical and spiritual. So
a few years since, I came to the conclusion that it was
impossible to obtain physical satisfaction through the woman I
loved. I came to this conclusion because of the bad physical
effects of contact. My sexual organs became highly sensitive and
inflamed and I suffered pain from the inflammation and resulting
leucorrhea. Should I allow myself to indulge in caresses this
condition would return. My friend, fortunately, though very
affectionate and demonstrative toward me, has very little sexual
passion. The idea that our relationship is based upon it is very
repugnant to her. I was at one time, a few years since, much
discouraged and almost hopeless of being able to overcome my
appetite, and I decided that we could not associate unless I
succeeded. At present, with help, I have very largely succeeded
in living with my friend on a basis of normal, though
affectionate and tender, companionship. I have been helped more,
and have learned more, through this companionship, than through
anything else. The keen pleasure that I have felt when in
responsive contact I never experienced in masturbation. So far as
I remember it never took place till I was well along in my 'teens
and was never an habitual practice, except the first summer I was
separated from a school friend whom I loved. Thoughts of her
aroused feelings which I attempted to satisfy in this way, but
the entire sensuality of the act soon led me to refrain and to
see that that was not what I wanted.

"A peculiar incident that might have some significance occurred
to me about five years ago. I was sitting in a small room where a
seminar was being conducted. The leader of the discussion was a
man about 50, whom I looked up to on account of his attainments
and respected as a man, though I knew him socially very slightly.
I had lost a night's sleep from toothache and was feeling
nervous. I was giving my entire attention to the subject in hand,
when suddenly I felt a very strong physical compulsion toward
that man. I did not know what I was going to do, but I felt on
the point of losing all control of myself. I was afraid to leave,
for fear the slightest movement would throw me into a panic. The
attraction was entirely physical and like nothing I had felt
before. And I had a strange feeling that its cause was in the man
himself; that he was willing it; I was like a spectator. It was
some moments before the assemblage broke up, when my 'possession'
completely disappeared and never recurred.

"Regarding dreams, I will say that not until the past year or two
have I been conscious of having clear-cut dreams with definite
happenings. They seemed usually to leave only vague impressions,
such as a feeling that I had been riding horseback, or trying to
perform some hard task. Sexual dreams I do not recall having had
for several years, except that occasionally I am awakened by a
feeling of uncomfortable sexual desire, which seems usually
caused by a need to urinate. Between the ages of 17 and 22,
approximately, I frequently, perhaps several times a month, would
have vague sexual dreams. These always, I think, occurred when I
happened to be sleeping with someone whom, in my dream, I would
mistake for my intimate friend, and would awaken myself by
embracing my bedfellow with sometimes a slight, sometimes
considerable degree of passion. I have finally arrived at some
understanding of my own temperament, and am no longer miserable
and melancholy. I regret that I am not a man, because I could
then have a home and children."


HISTORY XXXIX.--Miss D., actively engaged in the practice of her
profession, aged 40. Heredity good, nervous system sound, general
health on the whole satisfactory. Development feminine but manner
and movements somewhat boyish. Menstruation scanty and painless.
Hips normal, nates small, sexual organs showing some
approximation toward infantile type with large labia minora and
probably small vagina. Tendency to development of hair on body
and especially lower limbs. The narrative is given in her own
words:--

"Ever since I can remember anything at all I could never think of
myself as a girl and I was in perpetual trouble, with this as the
real reason. When I was 5 or 6 years old I began to say to myself
that, whatever anyone said, if I was not a boy at any rate I was
not a girl. This has been my unchanged conviction all through my
life.

"When I was little, nothing ever made me doubt it, in spite of
external appearance. I regarded the conformation of my body as a
mysterious accident. I could not see why it should have anything
to do with the matter. The things that really affected the
question were my own likes and dislikes, and the fact that I was
not allowed to follow them. I was to like the things which
belonged to me as a girl,--frocks and toys and games which I did
not like at all. I fancy I was more strongly 'boyish' than the
ordinary little boy. When I could only crawl my absorbing
interest was hammers and carpet-nails. Before I could walk I
begged to be put on horses' backs, so that I seem to have been
born with the love of tools and animals which has never left me.

"I did not play with dolls, though my little sister did. I was
often reproached for not playing her games. I always chose boys'
toys,--tops and guns and horses; I hated being kept indoors and
was always longing to go out. By the time I was 7 it seemed to me
that everything I liked was called wrong for a girl. I left off
telling my elders what I did like. They confused and wearied me
by their talk of boys and girls. I did not believe them and could
hardly imagine that they believed themselves. By the time I was 8
or 9 I used to wonder whether they were dupes, or liars, or
hypocrites, or all three. I never believed or trusted a grown
person in consequence. I led my younger brothers in everything. I
was not at all a happy little child and often cried and was made
irritable; I was so confused by the talk, about boys and girls. I
was held up as an evil example to other little girls who
virtuously despised me.

"When I was about 9 years old I went to a day school and began to
have a better time. From 9 to 13 I practically shaped my own
life. I learned very little at school, and openly hated it, but I
read a great deal at home and got plenty of ideas. I lived,
however, mainly out of doors whenever I could get out. I spent
all my pocket money on tools, rabbits, pigeons and many other
animals. I became an ardent pigeon-catcher, not to say thief,
though I did not knowingly steal.

"My brothers were as devoted to the animals as I was. The men
were supposed to look after them, but we alone did so. We
observed, mated, separated, and bred them with considerable
skill. We had no language to express ourselves, but one of our
own. We were absolutely innocent, and sweetly sympathetic with
every beast. I don't think we ever connected their affairs with
those of human beings, but as I do not remember the time when I
did not know all about the actual facts of sex and reproduction,
I presume I learned it all in that way, and life never had any
surprises for me in that direction. Though I saw many sights that
a child should not have seen, while running about wild, I never
gave them a thought; all animals great and small from rabbits to
men had the same customs, all natural and right. My initiation
here was, in my eyes, as nearly perfect as a child's should be. I
never asked grown people questions. I thought all those in charge
of me coarse and untruthful and I disliked all ugly things and
suggestions.

"Every half-holiday I went out with the boys from my brothers'
school. They always liked me to play with them, and, though not
pleasant-tongued boys, were always civil and polite to me. I
organized games and fortifications that they would never have
imagined for themselves, led storming parties, and instituted
some rather dangerous games of a fighting kind. I taught my
brothers; to throw stones. Sometimes I led adventures such as
breaking into empty houses. I liked being out after dark.

"In the winter I made and rigged boats and went sailing them, and
I went rafting and pole-leaping. I became a very good jumper and
climber, could go up a rope, bowl overhand, throw like a boy, and
whistle three different ways. I collected beetles and butterflies
and went shrimping and learned to fish. I had very little money
to spend, but I picked things up and I made all traps, nets,
cages, etc., myself. I learned from every working-man, I could
get hold of the use of all ordinary carpenters' tools, and how to
weld hot iron, pave, lay bricks and turf, and so on.

"When I was about 11 my parents got more mortified at my behavior
and perpetually threatened me with a boarding-school. I was told
for months how it would take the nonsense out of me--'shape me,'
'turn me into a young lady.' My going was finally announced to me
as a punishment to me for being what I was.

"Certainly, the horror of going to this school and the cruel and
unsympathetic way that I was sent there gave me a shock that I
never got over. The only thing that reconciled me to going was my
intense indignation with those who sent me. I appealed to be
allowed to learn Latin and boys' subjects, but was laughed at.

"I was so helpless that I knew I could not run away without being
caught, or I would have run away anywhere from home and school. I
never cried or fretted, but burnt with anger and went like a
trapped rabbit.

"In no words can I describe the severity of the nervous shock, or
the suffering of my first year at school. The school was noted
for its severity and I heard that at one period the elder girls
ran away so often that they wore a uniform dress. I knew two who
had run away. The teachers in my time were ignorant,
self-indulgent women who cared nothing for the girls or their
education and made much money out of them. There was a suspicious
reformatory atmosphere, and my money was taken from me and my
letters read.

"I was intensely shy. I hated the other girls. There were no
refinements anywhere; I had no privacy in my room, which was
always overcrowded; we had no hot water, no baths, improper food,
and no education. We were not allowed to wear enough clean linen,
and for five years I never felt clean.

"I never had one moment to myself, was not allowed to read
anything, had even not enough lesson books, was taught nothing to
speak of except a little inferior music and drawing. I never got
enough exercise, and was always tired and dull, and could not
keep my digestion in order. My pride and self-respect were
degraded in innumerable ways, I suffered agonies of disgust, and
the whole thing was a dreary penal servitude.

"I did not complain. I made friends with a few of the girls. Some
of the older girls were attracted to me. Some talked of men and
love affairs to me, but I was not greatly interested. No one ever
spoke of any other matters of sex to me or in my hearing, but
most of the girls were shy with me and I with them.

"In about two years' time the teachers got to like me and thought
me one of their nicest girls. I certainly influenced them and got
them to allow the girls more privileges.

"I lay great stress upon the physical privations and disgust that
I felt during these years. The mental starvation was not quite so
great because it was impossible for them to crush my mind as they
did my body. That it all materially aided to arrest the
development of my body I am certain.

"It is difficult to estimate sexual influences of which as a
child I was practically unaware. I certainly admired the
liveliest and cleverest girls and made friends with them and
disliked the common, lumpy, uneducated type that made two-thirds
of my companions. The lively girls liked me, and I made several
nice friends whom I have kept ever since. One girl of about 15
took a violent liking for me and figuratively speaking licked the
dust from my shoes. I would never take any notice of her. When I
was nearly 16 one of my teachers began to notice me and be very
kind to me. She was twenty years older than I was. She seemed to
pity my loneliness and took me out for walks and sketching, and
encouraged me to talk and think. It was the first time in my life
that anyone had ever sympathized with me or tried to understand
me and it was a most beautiful thing to me. I felt like an orphan
child who had suddenly acquired a mother, and through her I began
to feel less antagonistic to grown people and to feel the first
respect I had ever felt for what they said. She petted me into a
state of comparative docility and made the other teachers like
and trust me. My love for her was perfectly pure, and I thought
of her's as simply maternal. She never roused the least feeling
in me that I can think of as sexual. I liked her to touch me and
she sometimes held me in her arms or let me sit on her lap. At
bedtime she used to come and say good-night and kiss me upon the
mouth. I think now that what she did was injudicious to a degree,
and I wish I could believe it was as purely unselfish and kind as
it seemed to me then. After I had left school I wrote to her and
visited her during a few years. Once she wrote to me that if I
could give her employment she would come and live with me. Once
when she was ill with neurasthenia her friends asked me to go to
the seaside with her, which I did. Here she behaved in an
extraordinary way, becoming violently jealous over me with
another elderly friend of mine who was there. I could hardly
believe my senses and was so astonished and disgusted that I
never went near her again. She also accused me of not being
'loyal' to her; to this day I have no idea what she meant. She
then wrote and asked me what was wrong between us, and I replied
that after the words she had had with me my confidence in her was
at an end. It gave me no particular pang as I had by this time
outgrown the simple gratitude of my childish days and not
replaced it by any stronger feeling. All my life I have had the
profoundest repugnance to having any 'words' with other women.

"I was much less interested in sex matters than other children of
my age. I was altogether less precocious, though I knew more, I
imagine, than other girls. Nevertheless, by the time I was 15
social matters had begun to interest me greatly. It is difficult
to say how this happened, as I was forbidden all books and
newspapers (except in my holidays when I had generally a reading
orgy, though not the books I needed or wanted). I had abundant
opportunities for speculation, but no materials for any
profitable thinking.

"Dreaming was forced upon me. I dreamed fairy-tales by night and
social dreams by day. In the nightdreams, sometimes in the
day-dreams, I was always the prince or the pirate, rescuing
beauty in distress, or killing the unworthy. I had one dream
which I dreamed over and over again and enjoyed and still
sometimes dream. In this I was always hunting and fighting, often
in the dark; there was usually a woman or a princess, whom I
admired, somewhere in the background, but I have never really
seen her. Sometimes I was a stowaway on board ship or an Indian
hunter or a backwoodsman making a log-cabin for my wife or rather
some companion. My daythoughts were not about the women round
about me, or even about the one who was so kind to me; they were
almost impersonal. I went on, at any rate, from myself to what I
thought the really ideal and built up a very beautiful vision of
solid human friendship in which there was everything that was
strong and wholesome on either side, but very little of sex. To
imagine this in its fullness I had to imagine all social, family,
and educational conditions vastly different from anything I had
come across. From this my thoughts ran largely on social matters.
In whatever direction my thoughts ran I always surveyed them from
the point of view of a boy. I was trying to wait patiently till I
could escape from slavery and starvation, and trying to keep the
open mind I have spoken of, though I never opened a book of
poetry, or a novel, or a history, but I slipped naturally back
into my non-girl's attitude and read it through my own eyes. All
my surface-life was a sham, and only through books, which were
few, did I ever see the world naturally. A consideration of
social matters led me to feel very sorry for women, whom I
regarded as made by a deliberate process of manufacture into the
fools I thought they were, and by the same process that I myself
was being made one. I felt more and more that men were to be
envied and women pitied. I lay stress on this for it started in
me a deliberate interest in women as women. I began to feel
protective and kindly toward women and children and to excuse
women from their responsibility for calamities such as my
school-career. I never imagined that men required, or would have
thanked me for, any sort of sympathy. But it came about in these
ways, and without the least help that I can trace, that by the
time I was 19 years of age I was keenly interested in all kinds
of questions: pity for downtrodden women, suffrage questions,
marriage laws, questions of liberty, freedom of thought, care of
the poor, views of Nature and Man and God. All these things
filled my mind to the exclusion of individual men and women. As
soon as I left school I made a headlong plunge into books where
these things were treated; I had the answers to everything to
find after a long period of enforced starvation. I had to work
for my knowledge. No books or ideas came near me but what I went
in search of. Another thing that helped me to take an expansive
view of life at this time was my intense love of Nature. All
birds and animals affected me by their beauty and grace, and I
have always kept a profound sympathy with them as well as some
subtle understanding which enables me to tame them, at times
remarkably. I not only loved all other creatures, but I believed
that men and women were the most beautiful things in the universe
and I would rather look at them (unclothed) than on any other
thing, as my greatest pleasure. I was prepared to like them
because they were beautiful. When the time came for me to leave
school I rather dreaded it, chiefly because I dreaded my life at
home. I had a great longing at this time to run away and try my
fortune anywhere; possibly if I had been stronger I might have
done so. But I was in very poor health through the physical
crushing I had had, and in very poor spirits through this and my
mental repression. I still knew myself a prisoner and I was
bitterly disappointed and ashamed at having no education. I
afterward had myself taught arithmetic and other things.

"The next period of my life which covered about six years was not
less important to my development, and was a time of extreme
misery to me. It found me, on leaving school, almost a child.
This time between 18 and 24 should, I think, count as my proper
period of puberty, which probably in most children occupies the
end years of their school-life.

"It was at this time that I began to make a good many friends of
my own and to become aware of psychical and sexual attractions. I
had never come across any theories on the subject, but I decided
that I must belong to a third sex of some kind. I used to wonder
if I was like the neuter bees! I knew physical and psychical sex
feeling and yet I seemed to know it quite otherwise from other
men and women. I asked myself if I could endure living a woman's
life, bearing children and doing my duty by them. I asked myself
what hiatus there could be between my bodily structure and my
feelings, and also what was the meaning of the strong physical
feelings which had me in their grip without choice of my own.
[Experience of physical sex sensations first began about 16 in
sleep; masturbation was accidentally discovered at the age of 19,
abandoned at 28, and then at 34 deliberately resumed as a method
of purely physical relief.] These three things simply would not
be reconciled and I said to myself that I must find a way of
living in which there was as little sex of any kind as possible.
There was something that I simply lacked; that I never doubted.
Curiously enough, I thought that the ultimate explanation might
be that there were men's minds in women's bodies, but I was more
concerned in finding a way of life than in asking riddles without
answers.