does not resume relations with him until five or six months after the
birth of the child. If, in the interval, he has relations with any other
woman, it is believed his wife will certainly die. "The negro is very
rarely vicious," Johnston says, "after he has attained to the age of
puberty. He is only more or less uxorious. The children are vicious, as
they are among most races of mankind, the boys outrageously so. As regards
the little girls over nearly the whole of British Central Africa, chastity
before puberty is an unknown condition, except perhaps among the A-nyanja.
Before a girl is become a woman it is a matter of absolute indifference
what she does, and scarcely any girl remains a virgin after about 5 years
of age."[214] Among the Bangala of the upper Congo a woman suckles her
child for six to eighteen months and during all this period the husband
has no intercourse with his wife, for that, it is believed, would kill the
child.[215]

Among the Yoruba-speaking people of West Africa A.B. Ellis mentions that
suckling lasts for three years, during the whole of which period the wife
must not cohabit with her husband.[216]

Although chastity before marriage appears to be, as a rule, little
regarded in Africa, this is not always so. In some parts of West Africa, a
girl, at all events if of high birth, when found guilty of unchastity may
be punished by the insertion into her vagina of bird pepper, a kind of
capsicum, beaten into a mass; this produces intense pain and such acute
inflammation that the canal may even be obliterated.[217]

Among the Dahomey women there is no coitus during pregnancy nor during
suckling, which lasts for nearly three years. The same is true among the
Jekris and other tribes on the Niger, where it is believed that the milk
would suffer if intercourse took place during lactation.[218]

In another part of Africa, among the Suaheli, even after marriage only
incomplete coitus is at first allowed and there is no intercourse for a
year after the child's birth.[219]

Farther south, among the Ba Wenda of north Transvaal, says the Rev. R.
Wessmann, although the young men are permitted to "play" with the young
girls before marriage, no sexual intercourse is allowed. If it is seen
that a girl's labia are apart when she sits down on a stone, she is
scolded, or even punished, as guilty of having had intercourse.[220]

Among the higher races in India the sexual instinct is very developed, and
sexual intercourse has been cultivated as an art, perhaps more elaborately
than anywhere else. Here, however, we are far removed from primitive
conditions and among a people closely allied to the Europeans. Farther to
the east, as among the Cambodians, strict chastity seems to prevail, and
if we cross the Himalayas to the north we find ourselves among wild people
to whom sexual license is unknown. Thus, among the Turcomans, even a few
days after the marriage has been celebrated, the young couple are
separated for an entire year.[221]

All the great organized religions have seized on this value of sexual
abstinence, already consecrated by primitive magic and religion, and
embodied it in their system. It was so in ancient Egypt. Thus, according
to Diodorus, on the death of a king, the entire population of Egypt
abstained from sexual intercourse for seventy-two days. The Persians,
again, attached great value to sexual as to all other kinds of purity.
Even involuntary seminal emissions were severely punishable. To lie with a
menstruating woman, according to the _Vendidad_, was as serious a matter
as to pollute holy fire, and to lie with a pregnant woman was to incur a
penalty of 2000 strokes. Among the modern Parsees a man must not lie with
his wife after she is four months and ten days pregnant. Mohammedanism
cannot be described as an ascetic religion, yet long and frequent periods
of sexual abstinence are enjoined. There must be no sexual intercourse
during the whole of pregnancy, during suckling, during menstruation (and
for eight days before and after), nor during the thirty days of the
Ramedan fast. Other times of sexual abstinence are also prescribed; thus
among the Mohammedan Yezidis of Mardin in northern Mesopotamia there must
be no sexual intercourse on Wednesdays or Fridays.[222]

In the early Christian Church many rules of sexual abstinence still
prevailed, similar to those usual among savages, though not for such
prolonged periods. In Egbert's Penitential, belonging to the ninth
century, it is stated that a woman must abstain from intercourse with her
husband three months after conception and for forty days after birth.
There were a number of other occasions, including Lent, when a husband
must not know his wife.[223] "Some canonists say," remarks Jeremy Taylor,
"that the Church forbids a mutual congression of married pairs upon
festival days.... The Council of Eliberis commanded abstinence from
conjugal rights for three or four or seven days before the communion. Pope
Liberius commanded the same during the whole time of Lent, supposing the
fast is polluted by such congressions."[224]


FOOTNOTES:

[196] A. Sutherland, _Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct_, vol. i,
pp. 8, 187. As has been shown by, for instance, Dr. Iwan Bloch (_Beiträge
zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Erster Theil, 1902), every
perverse sexual practice may be found, somewhere or other, among savages
or barbarians; but, as the same writer acutely points out (p. 58), these
devices bear witness to the need of overcoming frigidity rather than to
the strength of the sexual impulse.

[197] Ploss and Bartels have brought together in _Das Weib_ a large number
of facts in the same sense, more especially under the headings of
_Abstinenz-Vorschriften_ and _Die Fernhaltung der Schwangeren_. I have not
drawn upon their collection.

[198] _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, May, 1896, p. 369.

[199] Hyades and Deniker, _Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn_, vol. vii, p.
188.

[200] F. Cook, _New York Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics_, 1894.

[201] A. d'Orbigny, _L'Homme Américain_, 1839, vol. i, p. 47.

[202] A.B. Holder, "Gynecic Notes Among the American Indians," _American
Journal of Obstetrics_, 1892, vol. xxvi, No. 1.

[203] _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1905, p. 139.

[204] Foley, _Bulletin de la Société d' Anthropologie_, Paris, November 6,
1879.

[205] J.S. Gardiner, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, February,
1898, p. 409.

[206] As regards the modern Maoris, a medical correspondent in New Zealand
writes: "It is nothing for members of both sexes to live in the same room,
and for promiscuous intercourse to take place between father and daughter
or brother and sister. Maori women, who will display a great deal of
modesty when in the presence of male Maoris, will openly ask strange
Europeans to have sexual intercourse with them, and without any desire for
reward. The men, however, seem to prefer their own women, and even when
staying in towns, where they can obtain prostitutes, they will remain
continent until they return home again, a period of perhaps a month."

[207] Schellong, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1889, i, pp. 17, 19;
Haddon, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, February, 1890, pp.
316, 397; Guise, ib., February and May, 1899, p. 207; Seligmann, ib.,
1902, pp. 298, 301-302; _Reports Cambridge Expedition_, vol. v, pp.
199-200, 275.

[208] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1900, ht. v, p. 414.

[209] R. Brough Smyth, _The Aborigines of Victoria_, vol. ii, p. 318.

[210] _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1894, pp. 170, 177, 187.

[211] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1896, iv, pp. 180-181.

[212] W.W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, p. 524.

[213] W.F. Daniell, _Medical Topography of Gulf of Guinea_, 1849, p. 55.

[214] Sir H.H. Johnston, _British Central Africa_, 1899, pp. 409, 414.

[215] Rev. J.H. Weeks, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1910,
p. 418.

[216] Sir A.B. Ellis, _Yoruba-Speaking Peoples_, p. 185.

[217] W.F. Daniell, op. cit., p. 36.

[218] _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, August and November,
1898, p. 106.

[219] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, ii and iii, p. 84; Velten,
_Sitten und Gebraüche der Suaheli_, p. 12.

[220] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1896, p. 364.

[221] Vambery, _Travels in Central Asia_, 1864, p. 323.

[222] Heard, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, Jan.-June, 1911,
p. 210. The same rule is also observed by the Christians of this district.

[223] Haddon and Stubbs, _Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents_, vol.
iii, p. 423.

[224] Jeremy Taylor, _The Rule of Conscience_, bk. iii, ch. iv, rule xx.




III.


Thus it would seem probable that, contrary to a belief once widely
prevalent, the sexual instinct has increased rather than diminished with
the growth of civilization. This fact was clear to the insight of
Lucretius, though it has often been lost sight of since.[225] Yet even
observation of animals might have suggested the real bearing of the facts.
The higher breeds of cattle, it is said, require the male more often than
the inferior breeds.[226] Thorough-bred horses soon reach sexual maturity,
and I understand that since pains have been taken to improve cart-horses
the sexual instincts of the mares have become less trustworthy. There is
certainly no doubt that in our domestic animals generally, which live
under what may be called civilized conditions, the sexual system and the
sexual needs are more developed than in the wild species most closely
related to them.[227] All observers seem to agree on this point, and it is
sufficient to refer to the excellent summary of the question furnished by
Heape in the study of "The 'Sexual Season' of Mammals," to which reference
has already been made. He remarks, moreover, that, "while the sexual
activity of domestic animals and of wild animals in captivity may be more
frequently exhibited, it is not so violent as is shown by animals in the
wild state."[228] So that, it would seem, the greater periodicity of the
instinct in the wild state, alike in animals and in man, is associated
with greater violence of the manifestations when they do appear. Certain
rodents, such as the rat and the mouse, are well known to possess both
great reproductive power and marked sexual proclivities. Heape suggests
that this also is "due to the advantages derived from their intimate
relations with the luxuries of civilization." Heape recognizes that, as
regards reproductive power, the same development may be traced in man: "It
would seem highly probable that the reproductive power of man has
increased with civilization, precisely as it may be increased in the lower
animals by domestication; that the effect of a regular supply of good
food, together with all the other stimulating factors available and
exercised in modern civilized communities, has resulted in such great
activity of the generative organs, and so great an increase in the supply
of the reproductive elements, that conception in the healthy human female
may be said to be possible almost at any time during the reproductive
period."

"People of sense and reflection are most apt to have violent and constant
passions," wrote Mary Wollstonecraft, "and to be preyed on by them."[229]
It is that fact which leads to the greater importance of sexual phenomena
among the civilized as compared to savages. The conditions of civilization
increase the sexual instinct, which consequently tends to be more
intimately connected with moral feelings. Morality is bound up with the
development of the sexual instinct. The more casual and periodic character
of the impulse in animals, since it involves greater sexual indifference,
tends to favor a loose tie between the sexes, and hence is not favorable
to the development of morals as we understand morals. In man the
ever-present impulse of sex, idealizing each sex to the other sex, draws
men and women together and holds them together. Foolish and ignorant
persons may deplore the full development which the sexual instinct has
reached in civilized man; to a finer insight that development is seen to
be indissolubly linked with all that is most poignant and most difficult,
indeed, but also all that is best, in human life as we know it.


FOOTNOTES:

[225] _De Rerum Naturâ_, v, 1016.

[226] Raciborski (_Traité de la Menstruation_, p. 43) quotes the
observation of an experienced breeder of choice cattle to this effect.

[227] "The organs which in the feral state," as Adlerz remarks
(_Biologisches Centralblatt_, No. 4, 1902; quoted in _Science_, May 16,
1902), "are continually exercised in a severe struggle for existence, do
not under domestication compete so closely with one another for the less
needed nutriment. Hence, organs like the reproductive glands, which are
not so directly implicated in self-preservation, are able to avail
themselves of more food."

[228] _Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science_, vol. xliv, 1900, p.
12, 31, 39.

[229] "Love," in _Thoughts on the Education of Daughters_.




APPENDIX B.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SEXUAL INSTINCT.


It is a very remarkable fact that, although for many years past serious
attempts have been made to elucidate the psychology of sexual perversions,
little or no endeavor has been made to study the development of the normal
sexual emotions. Nearly every writer seems either to take for granted that
he and his readers are so familiar with all the facts of normal sex
psychology that any detailed statement is altogether uncalled for, or else
he is content to write a few fragmentary remarks, mostly made up of
miscellaneous extracts from anatomical, philosophical, and historical
works.

Yet it is as unreasonable to take normal phenomena for granted here as in
any other region of science. A knowledge of such phenomena is as necessary
here as physiology is to pathology or anatomy to surgery. So far from the
facts of normal sex development, sex emotions, and sex needs being uniform
and constant, as is assumed by those who consider their discussion
unnecessary, the range of variation within fairly normal limits is
immense, and it is impossible to meet with two individuals whose records
are nearly identical.

There are two fundamental reasons why the endeavor should be made to
obtain a broad basis of clear information on the subject. In the first
place, the normal phenomena give the key to the abnormal phenomena, and
the majority of sexual perversions, including even those that are most
repulsive, are but exaggerations of instincts and emotions that are
germinal in normal human beings. In the second place, we cannot even know
what is normal until we are acquainted with the sexual life of a large
number of healthy individuals. And until we know the limits of normal
sexuality we are not in position to lay down any reasonable rules of
sexual hygiene.

On these grounds I have for some time sought to obtain the sexual
histories, and more especially the early histories, of men and women who,
on _prima facie_ grounds, may fairly be considered, or are at all events
by themselves and others considered, ordinarily healthy and normal.

There are many difficulties about such a task, difficulties which are
sufficiently obvious. There is, first of all, the natural reticence to
reveal facts of so intimately personal a character. There is the
prevailing ignorance and unintelligence which leads to the phenomena being
obscure to the subject himself. When the first difficulty has been
overcome, and the second is non-existent, there is still a lack of
sufficiently strong motive to undertake the record, as well as a failure
to realize the value of such records. I have, however, received a large
number of such histories, for the most part offered spontaneously with
permission to make such further inquiries as I thought desirable. Some of
these histories are extremely interesting and instructive. In the present
Appendix, and in a corresponding Appendix to the two following volumes of
these _Studies_, I bring forward a varied selection of these narratives.
In a few cases, it will be seen, the subjects are, to say the least, on
the borderland of the abnormal, but they do not come before us as patients
desiring treatment. They are playing their, usually active, sometimes even
distinguished, part in the world, which knows nothing of their intimate
histories.

HISTORY I.--E.T. (I reproduce this history, written in the third
person, as it reached my hands.) T.'s earliest recollections of
ideas of a sexual character are vaguely associated with thoughts
upon whipping inflicted on companions by their parents, and
sometimes upon his own person. About the age of 7 T. occasionally
depicted to himself the appearance of the bare nates and
genitalia of boys during flagellation. Reflection upon whipping
gave rise to slight curious sensations at the base of the abdomen
and in the nerves of the sexual system. The sight of a boy being
whipped upon the bare nates caused erection before the age of 9.
He cannot account for these excitations, as at the time he had
not learned the most rudimentary facts of sex. The spectacle of
the boy's nudity had no attraction for him, while the beating
aroused his indignation against the person who administered it.
T. knew a boy and girl of about his own age whose imaginations
dwelt somewhat morbidly upon whipping. The three used to talk
together about such chastisement, and the little girl liked to
read "stories that had whippings in them." None of these children
delighted in cruelty; the fascination in the theme of castigation
seemed to be in imagining the spectacle of the exposed nates,
though actual witnessing of the whipping made them angry at the
time.

Accustomed to watch a young sister being bathed, T. had no
distinct curiosity concerning the differences in sex until the
age of 9. About this time he asked his father where babies came
from, and was told to be quiet. When he persisted in the inquiry
his father threatened to box his ears. His mother told him
subsequently that doctors brought babies to mothers. He credited
the story so far as to carefully watch the doctor who came when
his mother "was going to have a new baby," in the hope of seeing
a bundle in his arm. T. was 9 when he interrogated a servant-girl
of 16 about babies and their origin. She laughed and said that
one day she would tell him how children came. One Sunday this
servant took T. for a country walk and initiated him in sexual
intercourse, telling him he was too young to be a father, but
that was the way babies were made. The girl took him into a
field, saying she would show him how to do something which would
make him "feel as though he was in heaven," informing him that
she had often done this with young men. She then succeeded in
causing erection and instructed him how to act. His feeling at
the time was one of disgust; the appearance and odor of the
female genitalia repelled him. Afterward, however, he wished to
repeat the experience with girls of his own age. Finding the boy
unresponsive, the girl took the masculine position and embraced
him with great passion. T. can recall the expression of the
girl's face, the perspiration on her forehead, and the whispered
query whether it pleased him. The embrace lasted for about ten
minutes, when the girl said it had "done her good." Later the
same day they met a girl cousin of this servant about 10 or 12
years old. The three went to a lonely part of the seashore. The
servant there suggested that T. should repeat the act with the
little girl. T. was too shy, though the girl seemed quite willing
and experienced. The older girl told the younger to keep watch a
few yards away, while she again brought about intercourse in the
same way. The servant told T. not to tell anyone. Intercourse
with the servant was never repeated after that day; from shame he
kept the promise for many years.

After this episode T. began to speculate about sexual matters and
to observe the coupling of dogs with newly acquired interest. At
10 years he often lay awake, listening to a woman of 25 singing
to a piano accompaniment. The woman's voice seemed very
beautiful, and so strongly impressed him that he fell in love
with her and longed to embrace her sexually. This secret
attachment was much more romantic than sensual, though the idea
of embracing the woman seemed to T. a natural part of the
romance. He was beginning to invest the sex with angelic
qualities. The thought of his adventure with the servant no
longer caused repulsion, but rather pleasure. He reflected that
if he could meet the girl now he could be very fond of her and
understand things better. At this time he had not masturbated,
nor even heard of the practice. One day, while playing with a
girl of his own age, he succeeded in overcoming her shyness and
induced her to expose herself, at the same time uncovering his
own sexual parts. On this occasion and once afterward he
succeeded in penetrating the vulva. Both he and the girl
experienced imperfect enjoyment.

At boarding-school, where he was sent at 10, T. learned the
vulgar phrases for sexual organs and sexual acts, and acquired
the habit of moderate masturbation. Coarse talk and indecent
jests about the opposite sex were common amusements of the
playroom and dormitories. At first the obscene conversation was
very distasteful; later he became more used to it, but thought it
strange that sex intimacy should be a subject for ridicule and
jest.

He began to read love-stories and think much about girls. At the
same time he learned the nature of "the sin of fornication," and
wondered why it should be considered so heinous. Parts of the
Bible condemning intercourse between the unmarried alarmed him.
Being of a serious as well as emotional and amorous nature, he
became converted to evangelic belief. His mother warned him to
beware of unclean companions at school. He tried to act as a
Christian and think only pure thoughts about women. The talk,
however, was always of girls and of being in love. His mind was
often engrossed with amatory ideas of a poetic, sensuous nature,
his sexual experiences having a firm hold on his imagination,
while they gave him gratifying assurance of actual knowledge
concerning things merely imagined by most of his companions.

His health was vigorous and he keenly enjoyed all outdoor games
and excelled in daring and schoolboy mischief.

At 12 he fell deeply in love with a girl of corresponding age. He
never felt any powerful sexual desire for his sweetheart, and
never attempted anything but kissing and decorous caresses. He
liked to walk and sit with the girl, to hold her hand, and stroke
her soft hair. He felt real grief when separated from her. His
thoughts of her were seldom sensual. A year or so afterward he
had a temporary passion for a woman of 30, who used to flirt with
him and allow kissing. T. thought her queen-like and very lovely,
and wished to be her knight.

One day he saw, for a moment, in a friend's house, a dark,
earnest-looking girl of 13, who made a very deep impression upon
him, and, though he did not exchange a word with her, he often
thought about her afterward. Five years later he met the dark
girl again, and the pair were mutually drawn to one another. He
proposed marriage and avowed a most desperate passion. A refusal
on the plea of youth caused him the deepest misery. About eight
years thereafter T. married the girl, and the marriage proved a
very happy one for both.

When he was 15 T. made the acquaintance of a pretty blonde of the
same age. She was a high-spirited hoiden. They were soon close
friends and later lovers. They wrote a number of letters to each
other and exchanged locks of hair and presents. Their talk about
love was unreserved. One day she told T. that she had been
sexually embraced by a former lover, a boy of 16, hinting very
plainly that she would like T. to embrace her. This amour lasted
for about six months. The lovers had many opportunities for
clandestine intercourse. They used to consummate their passion in
a part of a wood they called "the bower." Now and then one or the
other would experience a pricking of conscience, but they were
too passionately attached to each other to sever the intimacy. At
length the girl began to dread the risk of conception and the
intercourse ceased. Looking back upon this episode T. avers that
the attachment and its physical expression seemed quite natural,
poetic, and beautiful, though at times his religious principles
condemned his conduct. He now thinks that the experience is by no
means to be regretted either by the girl or himself. It was a
wholesome youthful passion, as innocent as the mating of birds,
and the insight which it gave to both of the hidden emotions of
human nature was morally advantageous in after-life.

T. believes that his amative precocity was due to the early
awakening of sex feeling by the servant-girl. But he also
believes that the love passion would have asserted itself early
in any case, since he inherits a warm temperament, had erectile
power long before puberty, and has considerable seminal capacity.
Having closely watched the effects of suppressed normal emotions
and desires in youth at the time of pubescence, he maintains that
such suppression is disastrous, causing unhealthy thoughts and
leading to the formation of a habit of masturbation which may
persist throughout life. He believes that temporary sexual
intimacies between boys and girls under 20 from the period of
puberty would be far less harmful than separation of the sexes
until marriage, with its resultants: masturbation, hysteria,
repressed and disordered functions in young women, seduction,
prostitution, venereal affections, and many other evils.


HISTORY II.--The following narrative was written by a married
lady: "My mother (herself a very passionate and attractive woman)
recognized the difficulty for English girls of getting
satisfactorily married, and determined, if possible, to shield us
from disappointment by turning our thoughts in a different
direction. Theoretically the idea was perhaps good, but in
practice it proved useless. The natural desires were there.
Disappointment and disillusion followed their repression none the
less surely for having altered their natural shape. I think the
love I had for my mother was almost sexual, as to be with her was
a keen pleasure, and to be long away from her an almost
unendurable pain. She used to talk to us a good deal on all sorts
of subjects, but she never troubled about education in the
ordinary sense. When 9 years old I had been taught nothing except
to read and write. She never forbade us to read anything, but if
by accident we got hold of a book of which she did not approve
she used to say: 'I think that is rather a silly story, don't
you?' We were so eager to come up to her standard of taste that
we at once imagined we thought it silly, too. In the same way she
discouraged ideas about love or marriage, not by suggesting there
was anything wrong or improper about them, but by implying great
contempt for girls who thought about lovers, etc. Up to the age
of about 20 I had a vague general impression that love was very
well for ordinary women, but far beneath the dignity of a
somewhat superior person like myself. To show how little it
entered my thoughts I may add that, up to 17, I fancied a woman
got a child by being kissed on the lips by a man. Hence all the
fuss in novels about the kiss on the mouth.

"When I was 9 years old I began to feel a great craving for
scientific knowledge. _A Child's Guide to Science_, which I
discovered at a second-hand book-stall (and which, by the way,
informed me that heat is due to a substance called caloric),
became a constant companion. In order to learn about light and
gravitation, I saved up my money and ordered (of all books)
Newton's _Principia_, shedding bitter tears when I found I could
not understand a word of it. At the same time I was horribly
ashamed of this desire for knowledge. I got such books as I could
surreptitiously and hid them in odd corners. Why, I cannot
imagine, as no one would have objected, but, on the contrary, I
should have been helped to suitable books.

"My sisters and I were all violently argumentative, but our
quarrels were all on abstract subjects. We saw little of other
children and made no friendships, preferring each other's society
to that of outsiders. When I was about 10 a girl of the same age
came to stay with us for a few days. When we went to bed the
first night she asked me if I ever played with myself, whereupon
I took a great dislike to her. No sexual ideas or feelings were
excited. When still quite a child, however, I had feelings of
excitement which I now recognize as sexual. Such feelings always
came to me in bed (at least I cannot remember them at any other
time) and were generally accompanied by a gradually increasing
desire to make water. For a long time I would not dare to get out
of bed for fear of being scolded for staying awake, and only did
so at last when actually compelled. In the mean time the sexual
excitement increased also, and I believe I thought the latter was
the result of the former, or, perhaps, rather, that both were the
same thing. (This was when I was about 7 or 8 years old.) So far
as I can recollect, the excitement did not recur when the desire
to make water had been gratified. I seemed to remember wondering
why thinking of certain things (I can't remember what these were)
should make one want to urinate. (In later life I have found
that, if the bladder is not emptied before coitus, pleasure is
often more intense.) There were also feelings, which I now
recognize as sexual, in connection with ideas of whipping.

"As a child and girl I had very strong religious feelings (I
should have now if I could believe in the reality of religion),
which were absent in my sisters. These feelings were much the
same as I experienced later sexually; I felt toward God what I
imagined I should like to feel to my husband if I married. This,
I fancy, is what usually occurs. At 14 I went to a
boarding-school where there were seventy girls between 7 and 19.
I think it goes to show that there is but very little sexual
precocity among English girls that during the three years I
stayed there I never heard a word the strictest mother would have
objected to. One or two of the older girls were occasionally a
little sentimental, but on no occasion did I hear the physical
side of things touched upon. I think this is partly due to the
amount of exercise we took. When picturing my childhood I always
see myself racing about, jumping walls, climbing trees. In France
and Italy I have been struck by the greater sedateness of
Continental children. Our idea of naughtiness consisted chiefly
in having suppers in our bedrooms and sliding down the banisters
after being sent to bed. The first gratified our natural
appetite, while the second supplied the necessary thrill in the
fear of being caught.

"I made no violent friendships with the other girls, but I became
much attached to the French governess. She was 30, and a born
teacher, very strict with all of us, and doubly so with me for
fear of showing favoritism. But she was never unjust, and I was
rather proud of her severity and took a certain pleasure in being
punished by her, the punishment always taking the form of
learning by heart, which I rather liked doing. So I had my
thrill, excitement, I don't quite know what to call it, without
any very great inconvenience to myself. Just before we left
school the sexual instinct began to show itself in enthusiasm for
art with a capital A, Ouida's novels being mainly responsible. My
sister and I agreed that we would spend our lives traveling about
France, Italy, and the Continent, generally _à la Tricotrin_,
with a violin in one pocket and an Atravante Dante in the other.
To do this satisfactorily to ourselves we must be artists, and I
resolved to go in for music and become a second Liszt. When my
father offered to take us to Italy, the artist's Mecca, for a
couple of years, we were wild with delight. We went, and
disillusionment began. It may perhaps seem absurd, but we
suffered acutely that first summer. Our villa was quite on the
beach, the lowest of its flight of steps being washed by the
Mediterranean. At the back were grounds which seemed a paradise.
Long alleys covered over with vines and carpeted with long grass
and poppies, grassy slopes dotted with olives and ilex, roses
everywhere, and almost every flower in profusion, with, at night,
the fireflies and the heavy scents of syringa and orange
blossoms. In the midst of every possible excitement to the senses
there was one thing wanting, and we did not know what that was.

"We attributed our restlessness and dissatisfaction to the slow
progress in our artistic education, and consoled ourselves by
thinking when once we had mastered the technical difficulties we
should feel all right. And of course we did derive a very real
pleasure from all the beauties of art and nature with which Italy
abounds.

"It seems to me, however, that the art craze is one of the modern
phases of woman's sexual life. When we were in Italy the great
centers of the country were simply overrun with girls studying
art, most of whom had very little talent, but who had mistaken
the restlessness due to the first awakening of the sexual
instinct for the divine flame of genius. In our case it did not
matter, as we were not dependent upon our own exertions. But it
must have been terribly hard for girls who had burned their boats
and chosen art as a career, to have added to the repression of
their natural desires the bitterness of knowing that in their
chosen walk of life they were failures. The results as far as
work goes might not be so bad if the passions, as in men, were
occasionally gratified. It is the constant drudgery combined with
the disappointment and finding that art alone does not satisfy
which is so paralyzing. Besides, sexual gratification is always
followed by exaltation of the mental faculties, with, in my
experience, no depressing reaction such as follows pleasure
excited by mental causes alone.

"At one time when living at the villa I met a man about 45, who
took rather a fancy to me. I mention this because it woke me up;
no emotion was excited, but I realized for the first time (I must
have been nearly 20) that I was no longer a child, and that a
man could think of me in connection with love. It was only after
this, and not immediately after, either, that men's society began
to have an interest for me, and that I began to think a man's
love would be a pleasant thing to possess, after all.

"The sexual instinct, at any rate as regards consciousness, thus
developed slowly and in what I believe to be a very usual
sequence: religion, admiration for an older woman, and art. I am
not sure that I have made quite enough of the first, yet I do not
know that there is any more to say. There were very strong
physical feelings connected with all these which were identical
with those now connected with passion, but they were completely
satisfied by the mental idea which excited them.

"The first time I can remember feeling keen physical pleasure was
when I was between 7 and 8 years old. I can't recollect the
cause, but I remember lying quite still in my little cot clasping
the iron rails at the top. It may be said that this is hardly
slow development, but I mean slow as regards (1) any connection
of the idea with a man or (2) any physical means of excitation.

"I have laid stress on my desire for knowledge, as I think my
sexual feelings were affected by it. A great part of my feeling
for my mother was due to the stores of information she appeared
to possess. The omniscience of God was to me his most striking
attribute. My French teacher's capacity was her chief attraction.
When, as a girl, I thought of marriage, I desired a man who
'could explain things to me.' One learns later to live one's
mental and sexual life separately to a great extent. But at 20 I
could not have done so; given the opportunity, I should have made
the mistake of Dorothea in _Middlemarch_.

"I have spoken of the depressing after-effects of pleasure
brought about by a purely mental cause, but I do not think this
is the case in childhood and early youth. (Perhaps some women
feel no such depression afterward, and this may account for their
coldness in regard to men.) This may perhaps be accounted for by
the fact that it occurs much more rarely, and also it is perhaps
a natural process before the sexual organs fully develop, and so
not harmful.

"I always find it difficult in expressing the different degrees
of physical excitement even to myself, though I know exactly what
I felt. As a child, from the time of the early experience already
mentioned (about the age of 7 or 8), and as a young girl, the
second stage (secretion of mucus) was always reached. The amount
of secretion has always been excessive, but at first secretion
only lasted a short time; later it began to last for several
hours, or even sometimes the whole night, if the natural
gratification has been withheld for a long time (say, three
months). I do not remember ever feeling the third stage (complete
orgasm) until I saw the first man I fancied I cared for. I do not
think that mental causes alone have ever produced more than the
first two stages (general diffuse excitement and secretion). I
have sometimes wondered whether I could produce the third
mechanically, but I have a curious unreasonable repugnance to
trying the experiment; it would seem to materialize it too much.
As a child and a girl I was contented to arrive at the second
stage, possibly because I did not realize that there was any
other, and perhaps this is why I have experienced no evil
results.

"In dreams the third stage seems to come suddenly without any
leading up to it, either mental or physical, of which I am
conscious. I do not, however, remember having any such dreams
before I was engaged. They came at a later period; even then,
when great pleasure was experienced, it came, as a rule, suddenly
and sharply, with no dreams leading up to it. The dreams
generally take a sad form (an Evangeline and Gabriel business),
where one vainly seeks the person who eludes one. I have,
however, sometimes had pleasurable dreams of men who were quite
indifferent to me and of whom I never thought when awake. The
impression on waking is so strong one could almost fancy one's
self really in love with them. I can quite understand falling in
love with a person by dreaming of him in this way.

"The first time I remember experiencing the third stage in waking
moments was at a picnic, when the man, to whom I have before
referred as the first that I fancied I cared for, leaned against
me accidentally in passing a plate or dish; but I was already in
a violent state of excitement at being with him. There was no
possibility of anything between us, as he was married. If he