STUDIES

IN THE

PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX

The External Sensory Stimuli Affecting Selection in Man. The Four Senses Involved.

The Primitive Character of the Skin. Its Qualities. Touch the Earliest Source of Sensory Pleasure. The Characteristics of Touch. As the Alpha and Omega of Affection. The Sexual Organs a Special Adaptation of Touch. Sexual Attraction as Originated by Touch. Sexual Hyperæsthesia to Touch. The Sexual Associations of Acne.

Ticklishness. Its Origin and Significance. The Psychology of Tickling. Laughter. Laughter as a Kind of Detumescence. The Sexual Relationships of Itching. The Pleasure of Tickling. Its Decrease with Age and Sexual Activity.

The Secondary Sexual Skin Centres. Orificial Contacts. Cunnilingus and Fellatio. The Kiss. The Nipples. The Sympathy of the Breasts with the Primary Sexual Centres. This Connection Operative both through the Nerves and through the Blood. The Influence of Lactation on the Sexual Centres. Suckling and Sexual Emotion. The Significance of the Association between Suckling and Sexual Emotion. The Association as a Cause of Sexual Perversity.

The Bath. Antagonism of Primitive Christianity to the Cult of the Skin. Its Cult of Personal Filth. The Reasons which Justified this Attitude. The World-wide Tendency to Association between Extreme Cleanliness and Sexual Licentiousness. The Immorality Associated with Public Baths in Europe down to Modern Times.

Summary. Fundamental Importance of Touch. The Skin the Mother of All the Other Senses.

The Primitiveness of Smell. The Anatomical Seat of the Olfactory Centres. Predominance of Smell among the Lower Mammals. Its Diminished Importance in Man. The Attention Paid to Odors by Savages.

Rise of the Study of Olfaction. Cloquet. Zwaardemaker. The Theory of Smell. The Classification of Odors. The Special Characteristics of Olfactory Sensation in Man. Smell as the Sense of Imagination. Odors as Nervous Stimulants. Vasomotor and Muscular Effects. Odorous Substances as Drugs.

The Specific Body Odors of Various Peoples. The Negro, etc. The European. The Ability to Distinguish Individuals by Smell. The Odor of Sanctity. The Odor of Death. The Odors of Different Parts of the Body. The Appearance of Specific Odors at Puberty. The Odors of Sexual Excitement. The Odors of Menstruation. Body Odors as a Secondary Sexual Character. The Custom of Salutation by Smell. The Kiss. Sexual Selection by Smell. The Alleged Association between Size of Nose and Sexual Vigor. The Probably Intimate Relationship between the Olfactory and Genital Spheres. Reflex Influences from the Nose. Reflex Influences from the Genital Sphere. Olfactory Hallucinations in Insanity as Related to Sexual States. The Olfactive Type. The Sense of Smell in Neurasthenic and Allied States. In Certain Poets and Novelists. Olfactory Fetichism. The Part Played by Olfaction in Normal Sexual Attraction. In the East, etc. In Modern Europe. The Odor of the Armpit and its Variations. As a Sexual and General Stimulant. Body Odors in Civilization Tend to Cause Sexual Antipathy unless some Degree of Tumescence is Already Present. The Question whether Men or Women are more Liable to Feel Olfactory Influences. Women Usually more Attentive to Odors. The Special Interest in Odors Felt by Sexual Inverts.

The Influence of Perfumes. Their Aboriginal Relationship to Sexual Body Odors. This True even of the Fragrance of Flowers. The Synthetic Manufacture of Perfumes. The Sexual Effects of Perfumes. Perfumes perhaps Originally Used to Heighten the Body Odors. The Special Significance of the Musk Odor. Its Wide Natural Diffusion in Plants and Animals and Man. Musk a Powerful Stimulant. Its Widespread Use as a Perfume. Peau d'Espagne. The Smell of Leather and its Occasional Sexual Effects. The Sexual Influence of the Odors of Flowers. The Identity of many Plant Odors with Certain Normal and Abnormal Body Odors. The Smell of Semen in this Connection.

The Evil Effects of Excessive Olfactory Stimulation. The Symptoms of Vanillism. The Occasional Dangerous Results of the Odors of Flowers. Effects of Flowers on the Voice.

The Place of Smell in Human Sexual Selections. It has given Place to the Predominance of Vision largely because in Civilized Man it Fails to Act at a Distance. It still Plays a Part by Contributing to the Sympathies or the Antipathies of Intimate Contact.

The Physiological Basis of Rhythm. Rhythm as a Physiological Stimulus. The Intimate Relation of Rhythm to Movement. The Physiological Influence of Music on Muscular Action, Circulation, Respiration, etc. The Place of Music in Sexual Selection among the Lower Animals. Its Comparatively Small Place in Courtship among Mammals. The Larynx and Voice in Man. The Significance of the Pubertal Changes. Ancient Beliefs Concerning the Influence of Music in Morals, Education and Medicine. Its Therapeutic Uses. Significance of the Romantic Interest in Music at Puberty. Men Comparatively Insusceptible to the Specifically Sexual Influence of Music. Rarity of Sexual Perversions on the Basis of the Sense of Hearing. The Part of Music in Primitive Human Courtship. Women Notably Susceptible to the Specifically Sexual Influence of Music and the Voice.

Summary. Why the Influence of Music in Human Sexual Selection is Comparatively Small.

Primacy of Vision in Man. Beauty as a Sexual Allurement. The Objective Element in Beauty. Ideals of Feminine Beauty in Various Parts of the World. Savage Women sometimes Beautiful from European Point of View. Savages often Admire European Beauty. The Appeal of Beauty to some Extent Common even to Animals and Man.

Beauty to Some Extent Consists Primitively in an Exaggeration of the Sexual Characters. The Sexual Organs. Mutilations, Adornments, and Garments. Sexual Allurement the Original Object of Such Devices. The Religious Element. Unæsthetic Character of the Sexual Organs. Importance of the Secondary Sexual Characters. The Pelvis and Hips. Steatopygia. Obesity. Gait. The Pregnant Woman as a Mediæval Type of Beauty. The Ideals of the Renaissance. The Breasts. The Corset. Its Object. Its History. Hair. The Beard. The Element of National or Racial Type in Beauty. The Relative Beauty of Blondes and Brunettes. The General European Admiration for Blondes. The Individual Factors in the Constitution of the Idea of Beauty. The Love of the Exotic.

Beauty Not the Sole Element in the Sexual Appeal of Vision. Movement. The Mirror. Narcissism. Pygmalionism. Mixoscopy. The Indifference of Women to Male Beauty. The Significance of Woman's Admiration of Strength. The Spectacle of Strength is a Tactile Quality made Visible.

The Alleged Charm of Disparity in Sexual Attraction. The Admiration for High Stature. The Admiration for Dark Pigmentation. The Charm of Parity. Conjugal Mating. The Statistical Results of Observation as Regards General Appearance, Stature, and Pigmentation of Married Couples. Preferential Mating and Assortative Mating. The Nature of the Advantage Attained by the Fair in Sexual Selection. The Abhorrence of Incest and the Theories of its Cause. The Explanation in Reality Simple. The Abhorrence of Incest in Relation to Sexual Selection. The Limits to the Charm of Parity in Conjugal Mating. The Charm of Disparity in Secondary Sexual Characters.

Summary of the Conclusions at Present Attainable in Regard to the Nature of Beauty and its Relation to Sexual Selection.

The External Sensory Stimuli Affecting Selection in Man—The Four Senses Involved.

The Primitive Character of the Skin—Its Qualities—Touch the Earliest Source of Sensory Pleasure—The Characteristics of Touch—As the Alpha and Omega of Affection—The Sexual Organs a Special Adaptation of Touch—Sexual Attraction as Originated by Touch—Sexual Hyperæsthesia to Touch—The Sexual Associations of Acne.

Woods Hutchinson ( Studies in Human and Comparative Pathology , 1901, Chapters VII and VIII) has admirably set forth the immense importance of the skin, as in the first place "a tissue which is silk to the touch, the most exquisitely beautiful surface in the universe to the eye, and yet a wall of adamant against hostile attack. Impervious alike, by virtue of its wonderful responsive vitality, to moisture and drought, cold and heat, electrical changes, hostile bacteria, the most virulent of poisons and the deadliest of gases, it is one of the real Wonders of the World. More beautiful than velvet, softer and more pliable than silk, more impervious than rubber, and more durable under exposure than steel, well-nigh as resistant to electric currents as glass, it is one of the toughest and most dangerproof substances in the three kingdoms of nature" (although, as this author adds, we "hardly dare permit it to see the sunlight or breathe the open air"). But it is more than this. It is, as Woods Hutchinson expresses it, the creator of the entire body; its embryonic infoldings form the alimentary canal, the brain, the spinal cord, while every sense is but a specialization of its general organic activity. It is furthermore a kind of "skin-heart," promoting the circulation by its own energy; it is the great heat-regulating organ of the body; it is an excretory organ only second to the kidneys, which descend from it, and finally it still remains the seat of touch.

It may be added that the extreme beauty of the skin as a surface is very clearly brought out by the inadequacy of the comparisons commonly used in order to express its beauty. Snow, marble, alabaster, ivory, milk, cream, silk, velvet, and all the other conventional similes furnish surfaces which from any point of view are incomparably inferior to the skin itself. ( Cf. Stratz, Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers , Chapter XII.)

With reference to the extraordinary vitality of the skin, emphasized by Woods Hutchinson, it may be added that, when experimenting on the skin with the electric current, Waller found that healthy skin showed signs of life ten days or more after excision. It has been found also that fragments of skin which have been preserved in sterile fluid for even as long as nine months may still be successfully transplanted on to the body. ( British Medical Journal , July 19, 1902.)

Everything indicates, remark Stanley Hall and Donaldson ("Motor Sensations in the Skin," Mind , 1885), that the skin is "not only the primeval and most reliable source of our knowledge of the external world or the archæological field of psychology," but a field in which work may shed light on some of the most fundamental problems of psychic action. Groos ( Spiele der Menschen , pp. 8-16) also deals with the primitive character of touch sensations.

Touch sensations are without doubt the first of all the sensory impressions to prove pleasurable. We should, indeed, expect this from the fact that the skin reflexes have already appeared before birth, while a pleasurable sensitiveness of the lips is doubtless a factor in the child's response to the contact of the maternal nipple. Very early memories of sensory pleasure seem to be frequently, perhaps most frequently, tactile in character, though this fact is often disguised in recollection, owing to tactile impression being vague and diffused; there is thus in Elizabeth Potwin's "Study of Early Memories" ( Psychological Review , November, 1901) no separate group of tactile memories, and the more elaborate investigation by Colegrove ("Individual Memories," American Journal of Psychology , January, 1899) yields no decisive results under this head. See, however, Stanley Hall's valuable study, "Some Aspects of the Early Sense of Self," American Journal of Psychology , April, 1898. Külpe has a discussion of the psychology of cutaneous sensations ( Outlines of Psychology [English translation], pp. 87 et seq. )

Harriet Martineau, at the beginning of her Autobiography , referring to the vivid character of tactile sensations in early childhood, remarks, concerning an early memory of touching a velvet button, that "the rapture of the sensation was really monstrous." And a lady tells me that one of her earliest memories at the age of 3 is of the exquisite sensation of the casual contact of a cool stone with the vulva in the act of urinating. Such sensations, of course, cannot be termed specifically sexual, though they help to furnish the tactile basis on which the specifically sexual sensations develop.

The elementary sensitiveness of the skin is shown by the fact that moderate excitation suffices to raise the temperature, while Heidenhain and others have shown that in animals cutaneous stimuli modify the sensibility of the brain cortex, slight stimulus increasing excitability and strong stimulus diminishing it. Féré has shown that the slight stimulus to the skin furnished by placing a piece of metal on the arm or elsewhere suffices to increase the output of work with the ergograph. (Féré, Comptes Rendus Société de Biologie , July 12, 1902; id. , Pathologic des Emotions , pp. 40 et seq. )

Féré found that the application of a mustard plaster to the skin, or an icebag, or a hot-water bottle, or even a light touch with a painter's brush, all exerted a powerful effect in increasing muscular work with the ergograph. "The tonic effect of cutaneous excitation," he remarks, "throws light on the psychology of the caress. It is always the most sensitive parts of the body which seek to give or to receive caresses. Many animals rub or lick each other. The mucous surfaces share in this irritability of the skin. The kiss is not only an expression of feeling; it is a means of provoking it. Cataglottism is by no means confined to pigeons. The tonic value of cutaneous stimulation is indeed a commonly accepted idea. Wrestlers rub their hands or limbs, and the hand-shake also is not without its physiological basis.

"Cutaneous excitations may cause painful sensations to cease. Many massage practices which favor work act chiefly as sensorial stimulants; on this account many nervous persons cannot abandon them, and the Greeks and Romans found in massage not only health, but pleasure. Lauder Brunton regards many common manœuvres, like scratching the head and pulling the mustache, as methods of dilating the bloodvessels of the brain by stimulating the facial nerve. The motor reactions of cutaneous excitations favor this hypothesis." (Féré, Travail et Plaisir , Chapter XV, "Influence des Excitations du Toucher sur le Travail.")

"We believe nothing is so exciting to the instinct or mere passions as the presence of the hand or those tactile caresses which mark affection," states the anonymous author of an article on "Woman in her Psychological Relations," in the Journal of Psychological Medicine , 1851. "They are the most general stimuli in lower animals. The first recourse in difficulty or danger, and the primary solace in anguish, for woman is the bosom of her husband or her lover. She seeks solace and protection and repose on that part of the body where she herself places the objects of her own affection. Woman appears to have the same instinctive impulse in this respect all over the world."

The following observations were written by a lady (aged 30) who has never had sexual relationships: "I am only conscious of a very sweet and pleasurable emotion when coming in contact with honorable men, and consider that a comparison can be made between the idealism of such emotions and those of music, of beauties of Nature, and of productions of art. While studying and writing articles upon a new subject I came in contact with a specialist, who rendered me considerable aid, and, one day, while jointly correcting a piece of work, he touched my hand. This produced a sweet and pure sensation of thrill through the whole system. I said nothing; in fact, was too thrilled for speech; and never to this day have shown any responsive action, but for months at certain periods, generally twice a month, I have experienced the most pleasurable emotions. I have seen this friend twice since, and have a curious feeling that I stand on one side of a hedge, while he is on the other, and, as neither makes an approach, pleasure of the highest kind is experienced, but not allowed to go beyond reasonable and health-giving bounds. In some moments I feel overcome by a sense of mastery by this man, and yet, feeling that any approach would be undignified, some pleasure is experienced in restraining and keeping within proper bounds this passional emotion. All these thrills of pleasurable emotion possess a psychic value, and, so long as the nervous system is kept in perfect health, they do not seem to have the power to injure, but rather one is able to utilize the passionate emotions as weapons for pleasure and work."

Various parts of the skin surface appear to have special sexual sensitiveness, peculiarly marked in many individuals, especially women; so that, as Féré remarks ( L'Instinct Sexuel , second edition, 1902, p. 130), contact stimulation of the lips, lobe of ear, nape of neck, little finger, knee, etc., may suffice even to produce the orgasm. Some sexually hyperæsthetic women, as has already been noted, experience this when shaking hands with a man who is attractive to them. In some neurotic persons this sensibility, as Féré shows, may exist in so morbid a degree that even the contact of the sensitive spot with unattractive persons or inanimate objects may produce the orgasm. In this connection reference may be made to the well-known fact that in some hysterical subjects there are so-called "erogenous zones" simple pressure on which suffices to evoke the complete orgasm. There is, perhaps, some significance, from our present point of view, in the fact that, as emphasized by Savill ("Hysterical Skin Symptoms," Lancet , January 30, 1904), the skin is one of the very best places to study hysteria.

The intimate connection between the skin and the sexual sphere is also shown in pathological conditions of the skin, especially in acne as well as simple pimples on the face. The sexual development of puberty involves a development of hair in various regions of the body which previously were hairless. As, however, the sebaceous glands on the face and elsewhere are the vestiges of former hairs and survive from a period when the whole body was hairy, they also tend to experience in an abortive manner this same impulse. Thus, we may say that, with the development of the sexual organs at puberty, there is correlated excitement of the whole pilo-sebaceous apparatus. In the regions where this apparatus is vestigial, and notably in the face, this abortive attempt of the hair-follicles and their sebaceous appendages to produce hairs tends only to disorganization, and simple comedones or pustular acne pimples are liable to occur. As a rule, acne appears about puberty and dies out slowly during adolescence. While fairly common in young women, it is usually much less severe, but tends to be exacerbated at the menstrual periods; it is also apt to appear at the change of life. (Stephen Mackenzie, "The Etiology and Treatment of Acne Vulgaris," British Medical Journal , September 29, 1894. Laycock [ Nervous Diseases of Women , 1840, p. 23] pointed out that acne occurs chiefly in those parts of the surface covered by sexual hair. A lucid account of the origin of acne will be found in Woods Hutchinson's Studies in Human and Comparative Pathology , pp. 179-184. G. J. Engelmann ["The Hystero-neuroses," Gynæcological Transactions , 1887, pp. 124 et seq. ] discusses various pathological disorders of the skin as reflex disturbances originating in the sexual sphere.)

The influence of menstruation in exacerbating acne has been called in question, but it seems to be well established. Thus, Bulkley ("Relation between Certain Diseases of the Skin and the Menstrual Function," Transactions of the Medical Society of New York , 1901, p. 328) found that, in 510 cases of acne in women, 145, or nearly one-third, were worse about the monthly period. Sometimes it only appeared during menstruation. The exacerbation occurred much more frequently just before than just after the period. There was usually some disturbance of menstruation. Various other disorders of the skin show a similar relationship to menstruation.

It has been asserted that masturbation is a frequent or constant cause of acne at puberty. (See, e.g. , discussion in British Medical Journal , July, 1882.) This cannot be accepted. Acne very frequently occurs without masturbation, and masturbation is very frequently practiced without producing acne. At the same time we may well believe that at the period of puberty, when the pilo-sebaceous system is already in sensitive touch with the sexual system, the shock of frequently repeated masturbation may (in the same way as disordered menstruation) have its repercussion on the skin. Thus, a lady has informed me that at about the age of 18 she found that frequently repeated masturbation was followed by the appearance of comedones .

Ticklishness—Its Origin and Significance—The Psychology of Tickling—Laughter—Laughter as a Kind of Detumescence—The Sexual Relationships of Itching—The Pleasure of Tickling—Its Decrease with Age and Sexual Activity.

Prof. C. L. Herrick adopts this explanation of the phenomena of tickling, and rests it, in part, on Dogiel's study of the tactile corpuscles ("Psychological Corollaries of Modern Neurological Discoveries," Journal of Comparative Neurology , March, 1898). The following remarks of Prof. A. Allin may also be quoted in further explanation of the same theory: "So far as ticklishness is concerned, a very important factor in the production of this feeling is undoubtedly that of the summation of stimuli. In a research of Stirling's, carried on under Ludwig's direction, it was shown that reflex contractions only occur from repeated shocks to the nerve-centres—that is, through summation of successive stimuli. That this result is also due in some degree to an alternating increase in the sensibility of the various areas in question from altered supply of blood is reasonably certain. As a consequence of this summation-process there would result in many cases and in cases of excessive nervous discharge the opposite of pleasure, namely: pain. A number of instances have been recorded of death resulting from tickling, and there is no reason to doubt the truth of the statement that Simon de Montfort, during the persecution of the Albigenses, put some of them to death by tickling the soles of their feet with a feather. An additional causal factor in the production of tickling may lie in the nature and structure of the nervous process involved in perception in general. According to certain histological researches of recent years we know that between the sense-organs and the central nervous system there exist closely connected chains of conductors or neurons, along which an impression received by a single sensory cell on the periphery is propagated avalanchelike through an increasing number of neurons until the brain is reached. If on the periphery a single cell is excited the avalanchelike process continues until finally hundreds or thousands of nerve-cells in the cortex are aroused to considerable activity. Golgi, Ramón y Cajal, Koelliker, Held, Retzius, and others have demonstrated the histological basis of this law for vision, hearing, and smell, and we may safely assume from the phenomena of tickling that the sense of touch is not lacking in a similar arrangement. May not a suggestion be offered, with some plausibility, that even in ideal or representative tickling, where tickling results, say, from someone pointing a finger at the ticklish places, this avalanchelike process may be incited from central centres, thus producing, although in a modified degree, the pleasant phenomena in question? As to the deepest causal factor, I should say that tickling is the result of vasomotor shock." (A. Allin, "On Laughter," Psychological Review , May, 1903.)

Reference has been made to the view of Alrutz, according to which tickling is a milder degree of itching. It is more convenient and probably more correct to regard itching or pruritus, as it is termed in its pathological forms, as a distinct sensation, for it does not arise under precisely the same conditions as tickling nor is it relieved in the same way. There is interest, however, in pointing out in this connection that, like tickling, itching has a real parallelism to the specialized sexual sensations. Bronson, who has very ably interpreted the sensations of itching (New York Neurological Society, October 7, 1890; Medical News , February 14, 1903, and summarized in the British Medical Journal , March 7, 1903; and elsewhere), regards it as a perversion of the sense of touch, a dysæsthesia due to obstructed nerve-excitation with imperfect conduction of the generated force into correlated nervous energy. The scratching which relieves itching directs the nervous energy into freer channels, sometimes substituting for the pruritus either painful or voluptuous sensations. Such voluptuous sensations may be regarded as a generalized aphrodisiac sense comparable to the specialized sexual orgasm. Bronson refers to the significant fact that itching occurs so frequently in the sexual region, and states that sexual neurasthenia is sometimes the only discoverable cause of genital and anal pruritus. ( Cf. discussion on pruritus, British Medical Journal , November 30, 1895.) Gilman, again ( American Journal of Psychology , vi, p. 22), considers that scratching, as well as sneezing, is comparable to coitus.

"When young," writes a lady aged 28, "I was extremely fond of being tickled, and I am to some extent still. Between the ages of 10 and 12 it gave me exquisite pleasure, which I now regard as sexual in character. I used to bribe my younger sister to tickle my feet until she was tired."

Stanley Hall and Allin in their investigation of the phenomena of tickling, largely carried out among young women teachers, found that in 60 clearly marked cases ticklishness was more marked at one time than another, "as when they have been 'carrying on,' or are in a happy mood, are nervous or unwell, after a good meal, when being washed, when in perfect health, when with people they like, etc." (Hall and Allin, "Tickling and Laughter," American Journal of Psychology , October, 1897.) It will be observed that most of the conditions mentioned are such as would be favorable to excitations of an emotionally sexual character.

The palms of the hands may be very ticklish during sexual excitement, especially in women, and Moll ( Konträre Sexualempfindung , p. 180) remarks that in some men titillation of the skin of the back, of the feet, and even of the forehead evokes erotic feelings.

It may be added that, as might be expected, titillation of the skin often has the same significance in animals as in man. "In some animals," remarks Louis Robinson (art. "Ticklishness," Dictionary of Psychological Medicine ), "local titillation of the skin, though in parts remote from the reproductive organs, plainly acts indirectly upon them as a stimulus. Thus, Harvey records that, by stroking the back of a favorite parrot (which he had possessed for years and supposed to be a male), he not only gave the bird gratification,—which was the sole intention of the illustrious physiologist,—but also caused it to reveal its sex by laying an egg."

In Iceland, according to Margarethe Filhés (as quoted by Max Bartels, Zeitschrift für Ethnologie , 1900, ht. 2-3, p. 57), it may be known whether a youth is pure or a maid is intact by their susceptibility to tickling. It is considered a bad sign if that is lost.

I am indebted to a medical correspondent for the following communication: "Married women have told me that they find that after marriage they are not ticklish under the arms or on the breasts, though before marriage any tickling or touching in these regions, especially by a man, would make them jump or get hysterical or 'queer,' as they call it. Before coitus the sexual energy seems to be dissipated along all the nerve-channels and especially along the secondary sexual routes,—the breasts, nape of neck, eyebrows, lips, cheeks, armpits, and hair thereon, etc.,—but after marriage the surplus energy is diverted from these secondary channels, and response to tickling is diminished. I have often noted in insane cases, especially mania in adolescent girls, that they are excessively ticklish. Again, in ordinary routine practice I have observed that, though married women show no ticklishness during auscultation and percussion of the chest, this is by no means always so in young girls. Perhaps ticklishness in virgins is Nature's self-protection against rape and sexual advances, and the young girl instinctively wishing to hide the armpits, breasts, and other ticklish regions, tucks herself up to prevent these parts being touched. The married woman, being in love with a man, does not shut up these parts, as she reciprocates the advances that he makes; she no longer requires ticklishness as a protection against sexual aggression."

The Secondary Sexual Skin Centres—Orificial Contacts—Cunnilingus and Fellatio—The Kiss—The Nipples—The Sympathy of the Breasts with the Primary Sexual Centres—This Connection Operative both through the Nerves and through the Blood—The Influence of Lactation on the Sexual Centres—Suckling and Sexual Emotion—The Significance of the Association between Suckling and Sexual Emotion—This Association as a Cause of Sexual Perversity.

The essentially sexual character of the sensitivity of the orificial contacts is shown by the fact that it may sometimes be accidentally developed even in early childhood. This is well illustrated in a case recorded by Féré. A little girl of 4, of nervous temperament and liable to fits of anger in which she would roll on the ground and tear her clothes, once ran out into the garden in such a fit of temper and threw herself on the lawn in a half-naked condition. As she lay there two dogs with whom she was accustomed to play came up and began to lick the uncovered parts of the body. It so happened that as one dog licked her mouth the other licked her sexual parts. She experienced a shock of intense sensation which she could never forget and never describe, accompanied by a delicious tension of the sexual organs. She rose and ran away with a feeling of shame, though she could not comprehend what had happened. The impression thus made was so profound that it persisted throughout life and served as the point of departure of sexual perversions, while the contact of a dog's tongue with her mouth alone afterward sufficed to evoke sexual pleasure. (Féré, Archives de Neurologie , 1903, No. 90.)

I do not purpose to discuss here either cunnilingus (the apposition of the mouth to the female pudendum) or fellatio (the apposition of the mouth to the male organ), the agent in the former case being, in normal heterosexual relationships, a man, in the latter a woman; they are not purely tactile phenomena, but involve various other physical and psychic elements. Cunnilingus was a very familiar manifestation in classic times, as shown by frequent and mostly very contemptuous references in Aristophanes, Juvenal, and many other Greek and Roman writers; the Greeks regarded it as a Phœnician practice, just as it is now commonly considered French; it tends to be especially prevalent at all periods of high civilization. Fellatio has also been equally well known, in both ancient and modern times, especially as practiced by inverted men. It may be accepted that both cunnilingus and fellatio , as practiced by either sex, are liable to occur among healthy or morbid persons, in heterosexual or homosexual relationships. They have little psychological significance, except to the extent that when practiced to the exclusion of normal sexual relationships they become perversions, and as such tend to be associated with various degenerative conditions, although such associations are not invariable.

The essentially normal character of cunnilingus and fellatio , when occurring as incidents in the process of tumescence, is shown by the fact that they are practiced by many animals. This is the case, for instance, among dogs. Moll points out that not infrequently the bitch, while under the dog, but before intromission, will change her position to lick the dog's penis—apparently from an instinctive impulse to heighten her own and his excitement—and then return to the normal position, while cunnilingus is of constant occurrence among animals, and on account of its frequency among dogs was called by the Greeks σκὑλαξ (Rosenbaum, Geschichte der Lustseuche im Altertume , fifth edition, pp. 260-278; also notes in Moll, Untersuchungen über pie Libido Sexualis , Bd. I, pp. 134, 369; and Bloch, Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis , Teil II, pp. 216 et seq. )

The occurrence of cunnilingus as a sexual episode of tumescence among lower human races is well illustrated by a practice of the natives of the Caroline Islands (as recorded by Kubary in his ethnographic study of this people and quoted by Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib , vol. i). It is here customary for a man to place a piece of fish between the labia, while he stimulates the latter by his tongue and teeth until under stress of sexual excitement the woman urinates; this is regarded as an indication that the proper moment for intercourse has arrived. Such a practice rests on physiologically sound facts whatever may be thought of it from an æsthetic standpoint.

The contrast between the normal æsthetic standpoint in this matter and the lover's is well illustrated by the following quotations: Dr. A. B. Holder, in the course of his description of the American Indian boté , remarks, concerning fellatio : "Of all the many varieties of sexual perversion, this, it seems to me, is the most debased that could be conceived of." On the other hand, in a communication from a writer and scholar of high intellectual distinction occurs the statement: "I affirm that, of all sexual acts, fellatio is most an affair of imagination and sympathy." It must be pointed out that there is no contradiction in these two statements, and that each is justified, according as we take the point of view of the ordinary onlooker or of the impassioned lover eager to give a final proof of his or her devotion. It must be added that from a scientific point of view we are not entitled to take either side.

The breasts of young girls sometimes become tender at puberty in sympathy with the evolution of the sexual organs, although the swelling of the breasts at this period is not normally a glandular process. At the recurring periods of menstruation, again, sensations in the breasts are not uncommon.

It is not, however, until impregnation occurs that really decisive changes take place in the breasts. "As soon as the ovum is impregnated, that is to say within a few days," as W. D. A. Griffith states it ("The Diagnosis of Pregnancy," British Medical Journal , April 11, 1903), "the changes begin to occur in the breast, changes which are just as well worked out as are the changes in the uterus and the vagina, which, from the commencement of pregnancy, prepare for the labor which ought to follow nine months afterward. These are changes in the direction of marked activity of function. An organ which was previously quite passive, without activity of circulation and the effects of active circulation, begins to grow and continues to grow in activity and size as pregnancy progresses."

The association between breasts and womb is so obvious that it has not escaped many savage peoples, who are often, indeed, excellent observers. Among one primitive people at least the activity of the breast at impregnation seems to be clearly recognized. The Sinangolo of British New Guinea, says Seligmann ( Journal of the Anthropological Institute , July-December, 1902, p. 298) believe that conception takes place in the breasts; on this account they hold that coitus should never take place before the child is weaned or he might imbibe semen with the milk.

It is natural to assume that this connection between the activity of the womb and the glandular activity of the breasts is a nervous connection, by means of the spinal cord, and such a connection certainly exists and plays a very important part in the stimulating action of the breasts on the sexual organs. But that there is a more direct channel of communication even than the nervous system is shown by the fact that the secretion of milk will take place at parturition, even when the nervous connection has been destroyed. Mironoff found that, when the mammary gland is completely separated from the central nervous system, secretion, though slightly diminished, still continued. In two goats he cut the nerves shortly before parturition and after birth the breasts still swelled and functioned normally ( Archives des Sciences Biologiques , St. Petersburg, 1895, summarized in L'Année Biologique ; 1895, p. 329). Ribbert, again, cut out the mammary gland of a young rabbit and transplanted it into the ear; five months after the rabbit bore young and the gland secreted milk freely. The case has been reported of a woman whose spinal cord was destroyed by an accident at the level of the fifth and sixth dorsal vertebræ, yet lactation was perfectly normal ( British Medical Journal , August 5, 1899, p. 374). We are driven to suppose that there is some chemical change in the blood, some internal secretion from the uterus or the ovaries, which acts as a direct stimulant to the breasts. (See a comprehensive discussion of the phenomena of the connection between the breasts and sexual organs, though the conclusions are not unassailable, by Temesvary, Journal of Obstetrics and Gynæcology of the British Empire , June, 1903). That this hypothetical secretion starts from the womb rather than the ovaries seems to be indicated by the fact that removal of both ovaries during pregnancy will not suffice to prevent lactation. In favor of the ovaries, see Beatson, Lancet , July, 1896; in favor of the uterus, Armand Routh, "On the Interaction between the Ovaries and the Mammary Glands," British Medical Journal , September 30, 1899.

Freund found in Germany that stimulation of the nipples by an electrical cupping apparatus brought about contraction of the pregnant uterus. At an earlier period it was recommended to irritate the nipple in order to excite the uterus to parturient action. Simpson, while pointing out that this was scarcely adequate to produce the effect desired, thought that placing a child to the breast after labor had begun might increase uterine action. (J. Y. Simpson, Obstetric Memoirs , vol. i, p. 836; also Féré, L'Instinct Sexuel , second edition, p. 132).

The influence of lactation over the womb in preventing the return of menstruation during its continuance is well known. According to Remfry's investigation of 900 cases in England, in 57 per cent. of cases there is no menstruation during lactation. (L. Remfry, in paper read before Obstetrical Society of London, summarized in the British Medical Journal , January 11, 1896, p. 86). Bendix, in Germany, found among 140 cases that in about 40 per cent. there was no menstruation during lactation (paper read before Düsseldorf meeting of the Society of German Naturalists and Physicians, 1899). When the child is not suckled menstruation tends to reappear about six months after parturition.

It is possible that the divergent opinions of authorities concerning the necessarily favorable influence of lactation in promoting the return of the womb to its normal size may be due to a confusion of two distinct influences: the reflex action of the nipple on the womb and the effects of prolonged glandular secretion of the breasts in debilitated persons. The act of suckling undoubtedly tends to promote uterine contraction, and in healthy women during lactation the womb may even (according to Vineberg) be temporarily reduced to a smaller size than before impregnation, thus producing what is known as "lactation atrophy." In debilitated women, however, the strain of milk-production may lead to general lack of muscular tone, and involution of the womb thus be hindered rather than aided by lactation.

Cabanis seems to have realized the significance of this connection as the basis of the sympathy between mother and child, and more recently Lombroso and Ferrero have remarked ( La Donna Delinquente , p. 438) on the fact that maternal love has a sexual basis in the element of venereal pleasure, though usually inconsiderable, experienced during suckling. Houzeau has referred to the fact that in the majority of animals the relation between mother and offspring is only close during the period of lactation, and this is certainly connected with the fact that it is only during lactation that the female animal can derive physical gratification from her offspring. When living on a farm I have ascertained that cows sometimes, though not frequently, exhibit slight signs of sexual excitement, with secretion of mucus, while being milked; so that, as the dairymaid herself observed, it is as if they were being "bulled." The sow, like some other mammals, often eats her own young after birth, mistaking them, it is thought, for the placenta, which is normally eaten by most mammals; it is said that the sow never eats her young when they have once taken the teat.

It occasionally happens that this normal tendency for suckling to produce voluptuous sexual emotions is present in an extreme degree, and may lead to sexual perversions. It does not appear that the sexual sensations aroused by suckling usually culminate in the orgasm; this however, was noted in a case recorded by Féré, of a slightly neurotic woman in whom intense sexual excitement occurred during suckling, especially if prolonged; so far as possible, she shortened the periods of suckling in order to prevent, not always successfully, the occurrence of the orgasm (Féré, Archives de Neurologie No. 30, 1903). Icard refers to the case of a woman who sought to become pregnant solely for the sake of the voluptuous sensations she derived from suckling, and Yellowlees (Art. "Masturbation," Dictionary of Psychological Medicine ) speaks of the overwhelming character of "the storms of sexual feeling sometimes observed during lactation."

It may be remarked that the frequency of the association between lactation and the sexual sensations is indicated by the fact that, as Savage remarks, lactational insanity is often accompanied by fancies regarding the reproductive organs.

The powerful effect which stimulation of the nipple produces on the sexual sphere has led to the breasts playing a prominent part in the erotic art of those lands in which this art has been most carefully cultivated. Thus in India, according to Vatsyayana, many authors are of the opinion that in approaching a woman a lover should begin by sucking the nipples of her breasts, and in the songs of the Bayaderes of Southern India sucking the nipple is mentioned as one of the natural preliminaries of coitus.

In some cases, and more especially in neurotic persons, the sexual pleasure derived from manipulation of the nipple passes normal limits and, being preferred even to coitus, becomes a perversion. In girls' schools, it is said, especially in France, sucking and titillation of the breasts are not uncommon; in men, also, titillation of the nipples occasionally produces sexual sensations (Féré, L'Instinct Sexuel , second edition, p. 132). Hildebrandt recorded the case of a young woman whose nipples had been sucked by her lover; by constantly drawing her breasts she became able to suck them herself and thus attained extreme sexual pleasure. A. J. Bloch, of New Orleans, has noted the case of a woman who complained of swelling of the breasts; the gentlest manipulation produced an orgasm, and it was found that the swelling had been intentionally produced for the sake of this manipulation. Moraglia in Italy knew a very beautiful woman who was perfectly cold in normal sexual relationships, but madly excited when her husband pressed or sucked her breasts. Lombroso ( Archivio di Psichiatria , 1885, fasc. IV) has described the somewhat similar case of a woman who had no sexual sensitivity in the clitoris, vagina, or labia, and no pleasure in coitus except in very strange positions, but possessed intense sexual feelings in the right nipple as well as in the upper third of the thigh.

It is remarkable that not only is suckling apt to be accompanied by sexual pleasure in the mother, but that, in some cases, the infant also appears to have a somewhat similar experience. This is, at all events, indicated in a remarkable case recorded by Féré ( L'Instinct Sexuel , second edition, p. 257). A female infant child of slightly neurotic heredity was weaned at the age of 14 months, but so great was her affection for her mother's breasts, though she had already become accustomed to other food, that this was only accomplished with great difficulty and by allowing her still to caress the naked breasts several times a day. This went on for many months, when the mother, becoming again pregnant, insisted on putting an end to it. So jealous was the child, however, that it was necessary to conceal from her the fact that her younger sister was suckled at her mother's breasts, and once at the age of 3, when she saw her father aiding her mother to undress, she became violently jealous of him. This jealousy, as well as the passion for her mother's breasts, persisted to the age of puberty, though she learned to conceal it. At the age of 13, when menstruation began, she noticed in dancing with her favorite girl friends that when her breasts came in contact with theirs she experienced a very agreeable sensation, with erection of the nipples; but it was not till the age of 16 that she observed that the sexual region took part in this excitement and became moist. From this period she had erotic dreams about young girls. She never experienced any attraction for young men, but eventually married; though having much esteem and affection for her husband, she never felt any but the slightest sexual enjoyment in his arms, and then only by evoking feminine images. This case, in which the sensations of an infant at the breast formed the point of departure of a sexual perversion which lasted through life, is, so far as I am aware, unique.

The Bath—Antagonism of Primitive Christianity to the Cult of the Skin—Its Cult of Personal Filth—The Reasons which Justified this Attitude—The World-wide Tendency to Association between Extreme Cleanliness and Sexual Licentiousness—The Immorality Associated with Public Baths in Europe down to Modern Times.

Our knowledge of the bathing arrangements of Roman days is chiefly derived from Pompeii. Three public baths (two for both men and women, who were also probably allowed to use the third occasionally) have so far been excavated in this small town, as well as at least three private bathing establishments (at least one of them for women), while about a dozen houses contain complete baths for private use. Even in a little farm house at Boscoreale (two miles out of Pompeii) there was an elaborate series of bathing rooms. It may be added that Pompeii was well supplied with water. All houses but the poorest had flowing jets, and some houses had as many as ten jets. (See Man's Pompeii , Chapters XXVI-XXVIII.)

The Church succeeded to the domination of imperial Rome, and adopted many of the methods of its predecessor. But there could be no greater contrast than is presented by the attitude of Paganism and of Christianity toward the bath.

As regards the tendencies of the public baths in imperial Rome, some of the evidence is brought together in the section on this subject in Rosenbaum's Geschichte der Lustseuche im Alterthume . As regards the attitude of the earliest Christian ascetics in this matter I may refer the reader to an interesting passage in Lecky's History of European Morals (vol. ii, pp. 107-112), in which are brought together a number of highly instructive examples of the manner in which many of the most eminent of the early saints deliberately cultivated personal filth.

In the middle ages, when the extreme excesses of the early ascetics had died out, and monasticiam became regulated, monks generally took two baths a year when in health; in illness they could be taken as often as necessary. The rules of Cluny only allowed three towels to the community: one for the novices, one for the professed, and one for the lay brothers. At the end of the seventeenth century Madame de Mazarin, having retired to a convent of Visitandines, one day desired to wash her feet, but the whole establishment was set in an uproar at such an idea, and she received a direct refusal. In 1760 the Dominican Richard wrote that in itself the bath is permissible, but it must be taken solely for necessity, not for pleasure. The Church taught, and this lesson is still inculcated in convent schools, that it is wrong to expose the body even to one's own gaze, and it is not surprising that many holy persons boasted that they had never even washed their hands. (Most of these facts have been taken from A. Franklin, Les Soins de Toilette , one of the Vie Privée d'Autrefois series, in which further details may be found.)

In sixteenth-century Italy, a land of supreme elegance and fashion, superior even to France, the conditions were the same, and how little water found favor even with aristocratic ladies we may gather from the contemporary books on the toilet, which abound with recipes against itch and similar diseases. It should be added that Burckhardt ( Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien , eighth edition, volume ii, p. 92) considers that in spite of skin diseases the Italians of the Renaissance were the first nation in Europe for cleanliness.

It is unnecessary to consider the state of things in other European countries. The aristocratic conditions of former days are the plebeian conditions of to-day. So far as England is concerned, such documents as Chadwick's Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Laboring Population of Great Britain (1842) sufficiently illustrate the ideas and the practices as regards personal cleanliness which prevailed among the masses during the nineteenth century and which to a large extent still prevail.

If any doubt is felt as to the really essential character of the connection between cleanliness and the sexual impulse it may be dispelled by the consideration that the association is by no means confined to Christian Europe. If we go outside Europe and even Christendom altogether, to the other side of the world, we find it still well marked. The wantonness of the luxurious people of Tahiti when first discovered by European voyagers is notorious. The Areoi of Tahiti, a society largely constituted on a basis of debauchery, is a unique institution so far as primitive peoples are concerned. Cook, after giving one of the earliest descriptions of this society and its objects at Tahiti (Hawkesworth, An Account of Voyages , etc., 1775, vol. ii, p. 55), immediately goes on to describe the extreme and scrupulous cleanliness of the people of Tahiti in every respect; they not only bathed their bodies and clothes every day, but in all respects they carried cleanliness to a higher point than even "the politest assembly in Europe." Another traveler bears similar testimony: "The inhabitants of the Society Isles are, among all the nations of the South Seas, the most cleanly; and the better sort of them carry cleanliness to a very great length"; they bathe morning and evening in the sea, he remarks, and afterward in fresh water to remove the particles of salt, wash their hands before and after meals, etc. (J. R. Forster, " Observations made during a Voyage round the World ," 1798, p. 398.) And William Ellis, in his detailed description of the people of Tahiti ( Polynesian Researches , 1832, vol. i, especially Chapters VI and IX), while emphasizing their extreme cleanliness, every person of every class bathing at least once or twice a day, dwells on what he considers their unspeakable moral debasement; "notwithstanding the apparent mildness of their disposition and the cheerful vivacity of their conversation, no portion of the human race was ever perhaps sunk lower in brutal licentiousness and moral degradation."

After leaving Tahiti Cook went on to New Zealand. Here he found that the people were more virtuous than at Tahiti, and also, he found, less clean.

Yet it is worth while to point out, as bearing on the associations of the bath here emphasized, that even in Islam we may trace the existence of a religious attitude unfavorable to the bath. Before the time of Mohammed there were no public baths in Arabia, and it was and is believed that baths are specially haunted by the djinn—the evil spirits. Mohammed himself was at first so prejudiced against public baths that he forbade both men and women to enter them. Afterward, however, he permitted men to use them provided they wore a cloth round the loins, and women also when they could not conveniently bathe at home. Among the Prophet's sayings is found the assertion: "Whatever woman enters a bath the devil is with her," and "All the earth is given to me as a place of prayer, and as pure, except the burial ground and the bath." (See, e.g. , E. W. Lane, Arabian Society in the Middle Ages , 1883, pp. 179-183.) Although, therefore, the bath, or hammam , on grounds of ritual ablution, hygiene, and enjoyment speedily became universally popular in Islam among all classes and both sexes, Mohammed himself may be said to have opposed it.

For the history of the bath in mediæval times and later Europe, see A. Franklin, Les Soins de Toilette , in the Vie Privée d'Autrefois series; Rudeck, Geschichte der öffentlichen Sittlichkeit in Deutschland ; T. Wright, The Homes of Other Days ; E. Dühren, Das Geschlechtsleben in England , bd. 1.

Outside the Church, there was a greater amount of cleanliness than we are sometimes apt to suppose. It may, indeed, be said that the uncleanliness of holy men and women would have attracted no attention if it had corresponded to the condition generally prevailing. Before public baths were established bathing in private was certainly practiced; thus Ordericus Vitalis, in narrating the murder of Mabel, the Countess de Montgomery, in Normandy in 1082, casually mentions that she was lying on the bed after her bath ( Ecclesiastical History , Book V, Chapter XIII). In warm weather, it would appear, mediæval ladies bathed in streams, as we may still see countrywomen do in Russia, Bohemia, and occasionally nearer home. The statement of the historian Michelet, therefore, that Percival, Iseult, and the other ethereal personages of mediæval times "certainly never washed" ( La Sorcière , p. 110) requires some qualification.

In 1292 there were twenty-six bathing establishments in Paris, and an attendant would go through the streets in the morning announcing that they were ready. One could have a vapor bath only or a hot bath to succeed it, as in the East. No woman of bad reputation, leper, or vagabond was at this time allowed to frequent the baths, which were closed on Sundays and feast-days. By the fourteenth century, however, the baths began to have a reputation for immorality, as well as luxury, and, according to Dufour, the baths of Paris "rivaled those of imperial Rome: love, prostitution, and debauchery attracted the majority to the bathing establishments, where everything was covered by a decent veil." He adds that, notwithstanding the scandal thus caused and the invectives of preachers, all went to the baths, young and old, rich and poor, and he makes the statement, which seems to echo the constant assertion of the early Fathers, that "a woman who frequented the baths returned home physically pure only at the expense of her moral purity."

In Germany there was even greater freedom of manners in bathing, though, it would seem, less real licentiousness. Even the smallest towns had their baths, which were frequented by all classes. As soon as the horn blew to announce that the baths were ready all hastened along the street, the poorer folk almost completely undressing themselves before leaving their homes. Bathing was nearly always in common without any garment being worn, women attendants commonly rubbed and massaged both sexes, and the dressing room was frequently used by men and women in common; this led to obvious evils. The Germans, as Weinhold points out ( Die Deutschen Frauen im Mittelalter , 1882, bd. ii, pp. 112 et seq. ), have been fond of bathing in the open air in streams from the days of Tacitus and Cæsar until comparatively modern times, when the police have interfered. It was the same in Switzerland. Poggio, early in the sixteenth century, found it the custom for men and women to bathe together at Baden, and said that he seemed to be assisting at the floralia of ancient Rome, or in Plato's Republic. Sénancour, who quotes the passage ( De l'Amour , 1834, vol. i, p. 313), remarks that at the beginning of the nineteenth century there was still great liberty at the Baden baths.

Of the thirteenth century in England Thomas Wright ( Homes of Other Days , 1871, p. 271) remarks: "The practice of warm bathing prevailed very generally in all classes of society, and is frequently alluded to in the mediæval romances and stories. For this purpose a large bathing-tub was used. People sometimes bathed immediately after rising in the morning, and we find the bath used after dinner and before going to bed. A bath was also often prepared for a visitor on his arrival from a journey; and, what seems still more singular, in the numerous stories of amorous intrigues the two lovers usually began their interviews by bathing together."

In England the association between bathing and immorality was established with special rapidity and thoroughness. Baths were here officially recognized as brothels, and this as early as the twelfth century, under Henry II. These organized bath-brothels were confined to Southwark, outside the walls of the city, a quarter which was also given up to various sports and amusements. At a later period, "hot-houses," bagnios, and hummums (the eastern hammam ) were spread all over London and remained closely identified with prostitution, these names, indeed, constantly tending to become synonymous with brothels. (T. Wright, Homes of Other Days , 1871, pp. 494-496, gives an account of them.)

In France the baths, being anathematized by both Catholics and Huguenots, began to lose vogue and disappear. "Morality gained," remarks Franklin, "but cleanliness lost." Even the charming and elegant Margaret of Navarre found it quite natural for a lady to mention incidentally to her lover that she had not washed her hands for a week. Then began an extreme tendency to use cosmetics, essences, perfumes, and a fierce war with vermin, up to the seventeenth century, when some progress was made, and persons who desired to be very elegant and refined were recommended to wash their faces "nearly every day." Even in 1782, however, while a linen cloth was advised for the purpose of cleaning the face and hands, the use of water was still somewhat discountenanced. The use of hot and cold baths was now, however, beginning to be established in Paris and elsewhere, and the bathing establishments at the great European health resorts were also beginning to be put on the orderly footing which is now customary. When Casanova, in the middle of the eighteenth century, went to the public baths at Berne he was evidently somewhat surprised when he found that he was invited to choose his own attendant from a number of young women, and when he realized that these attendants were, in all respects, at the disposition of the bathers. It is evident that establishments of this kind were then already dying out, although it may be added that the customs described by Casanova appear to have persisted in Budapest and St. Petersburg almost or quite up to the present. The great European public baths have long been above suspicion in this respect (though homosexual practices are not quite excluded), while it is well recognized that many kinds of hot baths now in use produce a powerfully stimulating action upon the sexual system, and patients taking such baths for medical purposes are frequently warned against giving way to these influences.

The struggle which in former ages went on around bathing establishments has now been in part transferred to massage establishments. Massage is an equally powerful stimulant to the skin and the sexual sphere,—acting mainly by friction instead of mainly by heat,—and it has not yet attained that position of general recognition and popularity which, in the case of bathing establishments, renders it bad policy to court disrepute.

Like bathing, massage is a hygienic and therapeutic method of influencing the skin and subjacent tissues which, together with its advantages, has certain concomitant disadvantages in its liability to affect the sexual sphere. This influence is apt to be experienced by individuals of both sexes, though it is perhaps specially marked in women. Jouin (quoted in Paris Journal de Médecine , April 23, 1893) found that of 20 women treated by massage, of whom he made inquiries, 14 declared that they experienced voluptuous sensations; 8 of these belonged to respectable families; the other 6 were women of the demimonde and gave precise details; Jouin refers in this connection to the aliptes of Rome. It is unnecessary to add that the gynæcological massage introduced in recent years by the Swedish teacher of gymnastics, Thure-Brandt, as involving prolonged rubbing and kneading of the pelvic regions, " pression glissante du vagin " etc. ( Massage Gynécologique , by G. de Frumerie, 1897), whatever its therapeutic value, cannot fail in a large proportion of cases to stimulate the sexual emotions. (Eulenburg remarks that for sexual anæsthesia in women the Thure-Brandt system of massage may "naturally" be recommended, Sexuale Neuropathie , p. 78.) I have been informed that in London and elsewhere massage establishments are sometimes visited by women who seek sexual gratification by massage of the genital regions by the masseuse .

Summary—Fundamental Importance of Touch—The Skin the Mother of All the Other Senses.

The Primitiveness of Smell—The Anatomical Seat of the Olfactory Centres—Predominance of Smell among the Lower Mammals—Its Diminished Importance in Man—The Attention Paid to Odors by Savages.

Prof. G. Elliot Smith, a leading authority on the brain, has well summarized the facts concerning the predominance of the olfactory region in the mammal brain, and his conclusions may be quoted. It should be premised that Elliot Smith divides the brain into rhinencephalon and neopallium. Rhinencephalon designates the regions which are pre-eminently olfactory in function: the olfactory bulb, its peduncle, the tuberculum olfactorium and locus perforatus, the pyriform lobe, the paraterminal body, and the whole hippocampal formation. The neopallium is the dorsal cap of the brain, with frontal, parietal, and occipital areas, comprehending all that part of the brain which is the seat of the higher associative activities, reaching its fullest development in man.

"In the early mammals the olfactory areas form by far the greater part of the cerebral hemisphere, which is not surprising when it is recalled that the forebrain is, in the primitive brain, essentially an appendage, so to speak, of the smell apparatus. When the cerebral hemisphere comes to occupy such a dominant position in the brain it is perhaps not unnatural to find that the sense of smell is the most influential and the chief source of information to the animal; or, perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that the olfactory sense, which conveys general information to the animal such as no other sense can bring concerning its prey (whether near or far, hidden or exposed), is much the most serviceable of all the avenues of information to the lowly mammal leading a terrestrial life, and therefore becomes predominant; and its particular domain—the forebrain—becomes the ruling portion of the nervous system.

"This early predominance of the sense of smell persists in most mammals (unless an aquatic mode of life interferes and deposes it: compare the Cetacea, Sirenia , and Pinnipedia , for example) even though a large neopallium develops to receive visual, auditory, tactile, and other impressions pouring into the forebrain. In the Anthropoidea alone of nonaquatic mammals the olfactory regions undergo an absolute (and not only relative, as in the Carnivora and Ungulata ) dwindling, which is equally shared by the human brain, in common with those of the other Simiidæ , the Cercopithecidæ , and the Cebidæ . But all the parts of the rhinencephalon, which are so distinct in macrosmatic mammals, can also be recognized in the human brain. The small ellipsoidal olfactory bulb is moored, so to speak, on the cribriform plate of the ethmoid bone by the olfactory nerves; so that, as the place of attachment of the olfactory peduncle to the expanding cerebral hemisphere becomes removed (as a result of the forward extension of the hemisphere) progressively farther and farther backward, the peduncle becomes greatly stretched and elongated. And, as this stretching involves the gray matter without lessening the number of nerve-fibres in the olfactory tract, the peduncle becomes practically what it is usually called— i.e. , the olfactory 'tract.' The tuberculum olfactorium becomes greatly reduced and at the same time flattened; so that it is not easy to draw a line of demarcation between it and the anterior perforated space. The anterior rhinal fissure, which is present in the early human fœtus, vanishes (almost, if not altogether) in the adult. Part of the posterior rhinal fissure is always present in the 'incisura temporalis,' and sometimes, especially in some of the non-European races, the whole of the posterior rhinal fissure is retained in that typical form which we find in the anthropoid apes." (G. Elliot Smith, in Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Physiological Series of Comparative Anatomy Contained in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England , second edition, vol. ii.) A full statement of Elliot Smith's investigations, with diagrams, is given by Bullen, Journal of Mental Science , July, 1899. It may be added that the whole subject of the olfactory centres has been thoroughly studied by Elliot Smith, as well as by Edinger, Mayer, and C. L. Herrick. In the Journal of Comparative Neurology , edited by the last named, numerous discussions and summaries bearing on the subject will be found from 1896 onward. Regarding the primitive sense-organs of smell in the various invertebrate groups some information will be found in A. B. Griffiths's Physiology of the Invertebrata , Chapter XI.

We may observe this very well in the case of the dog. Thus, a young dog, well known to me, who had never had connection with a bitch, but was always in the society of its father, once met the latter directly after the elder dog had been with a bitch. He immediately endeavored to behave toward the elder dog, in spite of angry repulses, exactly as a dog behaves toward a bitch in heat. The messages received by the sense of smell were sufficiently urgent not only to set the sexual mechanism in action, but to overcome the experiences of a lifetime. There is an interesting chapter on the sense of smell in the mental life of the dog in Giessler's Psychologie des Geruches , 1894, Chapter XI, Passy (in the appendix to his memoir on olfaction, L'Année Psychologique , 1895) gives the result of some interesting experiments as to the effects of perfume on dogs; civet and castoreum were found to have the most powerfully exciting effect.

The influences of smell are equally omnipotent in the sexual life of many insects. Thus, Féré has found that in cockchafers sexual coupling failed to take place when the antennæ, which are the organs of smell, were removed; he also found that males, after they had coupled with females, proved sexually attractive to other males ( Comptes Rendus de la Société de Biologie , May 21, 1898). Féré similarly found that, in a species of Bombyx , males after contact with females sometimes proved attractive to other males, although no abnormal relationships followed. ( Soc. de Biol , July 30, 1898.)

In New Ireland, Duffield remarks ( Journal of the Anthropological Institute , 1886, p. 118), the natives have a very keen sense of smell; unusual odors are repulsive to them, and "carbolic acid drove them wild."

The New Caledonians, according to Foley ( Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie , November 6, 1879), only like the smells of meat and fish which are becoming "high," like popoya , which smells of fowl manure, and kava , of rotten eggs. Fruits and vegetables which are beginning to go bad seem the best to them, while the fresh and natural odors which we prefer seem merely to say to them: "We are not yet eatable." (A taste for putrefying food, common among savages, by no means necessarily involves a distaste for agreeable scents, and even among Europeans there is a widespread taste for offensively smelling and putrid foods, especially cheese and game.)

The natives of Torres Straits were carefully examined by Dr. C. S. Myers with regard to their olfactory acuteness and olfactory preferences. It was found that acuteness was, if anything, slightly greater than among Europeans. This appeared to be largely due to the careful attention they pay to odors. The resemblances which they detected among different odorous substances were frequently found to rest on real chemical affinities. The odors they were observed to dislike most frequently were asafœtida, valerianic acid, and civet, the last being regarded as most repulsive of all on account of its resemblance to fæcal odor, which these people regard with intense disgust. Their favorite odors were musk, thyme, and especially violet. ( Report of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits , vol. ii, Part II, 1903.)

In Australia Lumholtz ( Among Cannibals , p. 115) found that the blacks had a keener sense of smell than he possessed.

In New Zealand the Maoris, as W. Colenso shows, possessed, formerly at all events, a very keen sense of smell or else were very attentive to smell, and their taste as regarded agreeable and disagreeable odors corresponded very closely to European taste, although it must be added that some of their common articles of food possessed a very offensive odor. They are not only sensitive to European perfumes, but possessed various perfumes of their own, derived from plants and possessing a pleasant, powerful, and lasting odor; the choicest and rarest was the gum of the taramea ( Aciphylla Colensoi ), which was gathered by virgins after the use of prayers and charms. Sir Joseph Banks noted that Maori chiefs wore little bundles of perfumes around their necks, and Cook made the same observation concerning the young women. References to the four chief Maori perfumes are contained in a stanza which is still often hummed to express satisfaction, and sung by a mother to her child:—

In the summer season the sleeping houses of Maori chiefs were often strewed with a large, sweet-scented, flowering grass of powerful odor. (W. Colenso, Transactions of the New Zealand Institute , vol. xxiv, reprinted in Nature , November 10, 1892.)

Javanese women rub themselves with a mixture of chalk and strong essence which, when rubbed off, leaves a distinct perfume on the body. (Stratz, Die Frauenkleidung , p. 84.)

The Samoans, Friedländer states ( Zeitschrift für Ethnologie , 1899, p. 52), are very fond of fragrant and aromatic odors. He gives a list of some twenty odorous plants which they use, more especially as garlands for the head and neck, including ylang-ylang and gardenia; he remarks that of one of these plants (cordyline) he could not himself detect the odor.

The Nicobarese, Man remarks ( Journal of the Anthropological Institute , 1889, p. 377), like the natives of New Zealand, particularly dislike the smell of carbolic acid. Both young men and women are very partial to scents; the former say they find their use a certain passport to the favor of their wives, and they bring home from the jungle the scented leaves of a certain creeper to their sweethearts and wives.

Swahili women devote much attention to perfuming themselves. When a woman wishes to make herself desirable she anoints herself all over with fragrant ointments, sprinkles herself with rose-water, puts perfume into her clothes, strews jasmine flowers on her bed as well as binding them round her neck and waist, and smokes ûdi , the perfumed wood of the aloe; "every man is glad when his wife smells of ûdi " (Velten, Sitten und Gebraüche der Suaheli , pp. 212-214).

Rise of the Study of Olfaction—Cloquet—Zwaardemaker—The Theory of Smell—The Classification of Odors—The Special Characteristics of Olfactory Sensation in Man—Smell as the Sense of Imagination—Odors as Nervous Stimulants—Vasomotor and Muscular Effects—Odorous Substances as Drugs.

The earliest and most general tendency in regard to the theory of smell was to regard it as a kind of chemical sense directly stimulated by minute particles of solid substance. A vibratory theory of smell, however, making it somewhat analogous to hearing, easily presents itself. When I first began the study of physiology in 1881, a speculation of this kind presented itself to my mind. Long before Philipp von Walther, a professor at Landshut, had put forward a dynamic theory of olfaction ( Physiologie des Menschen , 1807-8, vol. ii, p. 278). "It is a purely dynamic operation of the odorous substance in the olfactory organ," he stated. Odor is conveyed by the air, he believed, in the same way as heat. It must be added that his reasons for this theory will not always bear examination. More recently a similar theory has been seriously put forward in various quarters. Sir William Ramsay tentatively suggested such a theory ( Nature , vol. xxv, p. 187) in analogy with light and sound. Haycraft ( Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh , 1883-87, and Brain , 1887-88), largely starting from Mendelieff's law of periodicity, similarly sought to bring smell into line with the higher senses, arguing that molecules with the same vibration have the same smell. Rutherford ( Nature , August 11, 1892, p. 343), attaching importance to the evidence brought forward by von Brunn showing that the olfactory cells terminate in very delicate short hairs, also stated his belief that the different qualities of smell result from differences in the frequency and form of the vibrations initiated by the action of the chemical molecules on these olfactory cells, though he admitted that such a conception involved a very subtle conception of molecular vibration. Vaschide and Van Melle (Paris Academy of Sciences, December 26, 1899) have, again, argued that smell is produced by rays of short wave-lengths, analogous to light-rays, Röntgen rays, etc. Chemical action is however, a very important factor in the production of odors; this has been well shown by Ayrton ( Nature , September 8, 1898). We seem to be forced in the direction of a chemico-vibratory theory, as pointed out by Southerden ( Nature , March 26, 1903), the olfactory cells being directly stimulated, not by the ordinary vibrations of the molecules, but by the agitations accompanying chemical changes.

The vibratory hypothesis of the action of odors has had some influence on the recent physiologists who have chiefly occupied themselves with olfaction. "It is probable," Zwaardemaker writes ( L'Année Psychologique , 1898), "that aroma is a physico-chemical attribute of the molecules"; he points out that there is an intimate analogy between color and odor, and remarks that this analogy leads us to suppose in an aroma ether vibrations of which the period is determined by the structure of the molecule.

Since the physiology of olfaction is yet so obscure it is not surprising that we have no thoroughly scientific classification of smells, notwithstanding various ambitious attempts to reach a classification. The classification adopted by Zwaardemaker is founded on the ancient scheme of Linnæus, and may here be reproduced:—

• I. Ethereal odors (chiefly esters; Rimmel's fruity series).
• II. Aromatic odors (terpenes, camphors, and the spicy, herbaceous, rosaceous, and almond series; the chemical types are well determined: cineol, eugenol, anethol, geraniol, benzaldehyde).
• III. The balsamic odors (chiefly aldehydes, Rimmel's jasmin, violet, and balsamic series, with the chemical types: terpineol, ionone, vanillin).
• IV. The ambrosiacal odors (ambergris and musk).
• V. The alliaceous odors, with the cacodylic group (asafœtida, ichthyol, etc.).
• VI. Empyreumatic odors.
• VII. Valerianaceous odors (Linnæus's Odores hircini , the capryl group, largely composed of sexual odors).
• VIII. Narcotic odors (Linnæus's Odores tetri ).
• IX. Stenches.

A valuable and interesting memoir, "Revue Générale sur les Sensations Olfactives," by J. Passy, the chief French authority on this subject, will be found in the second volume of L'Année Psychologique , 1895. In the fifth issue of the same year-book (for 1898) Zwaardemaker presents a full summary of his work and views, "Les Sensations Olfactives, leurs Combinaisons et leurs Compensations." A convenient, but less authoritative, summary of the facts of normal and pathological olfaction will be found in a little volume of the "Actualités Médicales" series by Dr. Collet, L'Odorat et ses Troubles , 1904. In a little book entitled Wegweiser zu einer Psychologie des Geruches (1894) Giessler has sought to outline a psychology of smell, but his sketch can only be regarded as tentative and provisional.

Rousseau (in Emile , Bk. II) regarded smell as the sense of the imagination. So, also, at an earlier period, it was termed (according to Cloquet) by Cardano. Cloquet frequently insisted on the qualities of odors which cause them to appeal to the imagination; on their irregular and inconstant character; on their power of intoxicating the mind on some occasions; on the curious individual and racial preferences in the matter of odors. He remarked on the fact that the Persians employed asafœtida as a seasoning, while valerian was accounted a perfume in antiquity. (Cloquet, Osphrésiologie , pp. 28, 45, 71, 112.) It may be added, as a curious example familiar to most people of the dependence of the emotional tone of a smell on its associations, that, while the exhalations of other people's bodies are ordinarily disagreeable to us, such is not the case with our own; this is expressed in the crude and vigorous dictum of the Elizabethan poet, Marston, "Every man's dung smell sweet i' his own nose." There are doubtless many implications, moral as well as psychological, in that statement.

The modern authorities on olfaction, Passy and Zwaardemaker, both alike insist on the same characteristics of the sense of smell: its extreme acuity and yet its vagueness. "We live in a world of odor," Zwaardemaker remarks ( L'Année Psychologique , 1898, p. 203), "as we live in a world of light and of sound. But smell yields us no distinct ideas grouped in regular order, still less that are fixed in the memory as a grammatical discipline. Olfactory sensations awake vague and half-understood perceptions, which are accompanied by very strong emotion. The emotion dominates us, but the sensation which was the cause of it remains unperceived." Even in the same individual there are wide variations in the sensitiveness to odors at different times, more especially as regards faint odors; Passy ( L'Année Psychologique , 1895, p. 387) brings forward some observations on this point.

Maudsley noted the peculiarly suggestive power of odors; "there are certain smells," he remarked, "which never fail to bring back to me instantly and visibly scenes of my boyhood"; many of us could probably say the same. Another writer (E. Dillon, "A Neglected Sense," Nineteenth Century , April, 1894) remarks that "no sense has a stronger power of suggestion."

Ribot has made an interesting investigation as to the prevalence and nature of the emotional memory of odors ( Psychology of the Emotions , Chapter XI). By "emotional memory" is meant the spontaneous or voluntary revivability of the image, olfactory or other. (For the general question, see an article by F. Pillon, "La Mémoire Affective, son Importance Théorique et Pratique," Revue Philosophique , February, 1901; also Paulhan, "Sur la Mémoire Affective," Revue Philosophique , December, 1902 and January, 1903.) Ribot found that 40 per cent. of persons are unable to revive any such images of taste or smell; 48 per cent, could revive some; 12 per cent, declared themselves capable of reviving all, or nearly all, at pleasure. In some persons there is no necessary accompanying revival of visual or tactile representations, but in the majority the revived odor ultimately excites a corresponding visual image. The odors most frequently recalled were pinks, musk, violets, heliotrope, carbolic acid, the smell of the country, of grass, etc. Piéron ( Revue Philosophique , December, 1902) has described the special power possessed by vague odors, in his own case, of evoking ancient impressions.

Dr. J. N. Mackenzie ( American Journal of the Medical Sciences , January, 1886) considers that civilization exerts an influence in heightening or encouraging the influence of olfaction as it affects our emotions and judgment, and that, in the same way, as we ascend the social scale the more readily our minds are influenced and perhaps perverted by impressions received through the sense of smell.

The Specific Body Odors of Various Peoples—The Negro, etc.—The European—The Ability to Distinguish Individuals by Smell—The Odor of Sanctity—The Odor of Death—The Odors of Different Parts of the Body—The Appearance of Specific Odors at Puberty—The Odors of Sexual Excitement—The Odors of Menstruation—Body Odors as a Secondary Sexual Character—The Custom of Salutation by Smell—The Kiss—Sexual Selection by Smell—The Alleged Association between Size of Nose and Sexual Vigor—The Probably Intimate Relationship between the Olfactory and Genital Spheres—Reflex Influences from the Nose—Reflex Influences from the Genital Sphere—Olfactory Hallucinations in Insanity as Related to Sexual States—The Olfactive Type—The Sense of Smell in Neurasthenic and Allied States—In Certain Poets and Novelists—Olfactory Fetichism—The Part Played by Olfaction in Normal Sexual Attraction—In the East, etc.—In Modern Europe—The Odor of the Armpit and its Variations—As a Sexual and General Stimulant—Body Odors in Civilization Tend to Cause Sexual Antipathy unless some Degree of Tumescence is Already Present—The Question whether Men or Women are more Liable to Feel Olfactory Influences—Women Usually more Attentive to Odors—The Special Interest in Odors Felt by Sexual Inverts.

Although the distinctively individual odor of most persons is not sufficiently marked to be generally perceptible, there are cases in which it is more distinct to all nostrils. The most famous case of this kind is that of Alexander the Great, who, according to Plutarch, exhaled so sweet an odor that his tunics were soaked with aromatic perfume ( Convivalium Disputationum , lib. I, quest. 6). Malherbe, Cujas, and Haller are said to have diffused a musky odor. The agreeable odor of Walt Whitman has been remarked by Kennedy and others. The perfume exhaled by many holy men and women, so often noted by ancient writers (discussed by Görres in the second volume of his Christliche Mystik ) and which has entered into current phraseology as a merely metaphorical "odor of sanctity," was doubtless due, as Hammond first pointed out, to abnormal nervous conditions, for it is well known that such conditions affect the odor, and in insanity, for instance, the presence is noted of bodily odors which have sometimes even been considered of diagnostic importance. J. B. Friedreich, Allgemeine Diagnostik der Psychischen Krankheiten , second edition, 1832, pp. 9-10, quotes passages from various authors on this point, which he accepts; various writers of more recent date have made similar observations.

The odor of sanctity was specially noted at death, and was doubtless confused with the odor mortis , which frequently precedes death and by some is regarded as an almost certain indication of its approach. In the British Medical Journal , for May and June, 1898, will be found letters from several correspondents substantiating this point. One of these correspondents (Dr. Tuckey, of Tywardwreath, Cornwall) mentions that he has in Cornwall often seen ravens flying over houses in which persons lay dying, evidently attracted by a characteristic odor.

The odor of the infant is said to be of butyric acid; that of old people to resemble dry leaves. Continent young men have been said by many ancient writers to smell more strongly than the unchaste, and some writers have described as "seminal odor"—an odor resembling that of animals in heat, faintly recalling that of the he-goat, according to Venturi—the exhalations of the skin at such times.

During sexual excitement, as women can testify, a man very frequently, if not normally, gives out an odor which, as usually described, proceeds from the skin, the breath, or both. Grimaldi states that it is as of rancid butter; others say it resembles chloroform. It is said to be sometimes perceptible for a distance of several feet and to last for several hours after coitus. (Various quotations are given by Gould and Pyle, Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine , section on "Human Odors," pp. 397-403.) St. Philip Neri is said to have been able to recognize a chaste man by smell.

During menstruation girls and young women frequently give off an odor which is quite distinct from that of the menstrual fluid, and is specially marked in the breath, which may smell of chloroform or violets. Pouchet (confirmed by Raciborski, Traité de la Menstruation , 1868, p. 74) stated that about a day before the onset of menstruation a characteristic smell is exuded. Menstruating girls are also said sometimes to give off a smell of leather. Aubert, of Lyons (as quoted by Galopin), describes the odor of the skin of a woman during menstruation as an agreeable aromatic or acidulous perfume of chloroform character. By some this is described as emanating especially from the armpits. Sandras (quoted by Raciborski) knew a lady who could always tell by a sensation of faintness and malaise —apparently due to a sensation of smell—when she was in contact with a menstruating woman. I am acquainted with a man, having strong olfactory sympathies and antipathies, who detects the presence of menstruation by smell. It is said that Hortense Baré, who accompanied her lover, the botanist Commerson, to the Pacific disguised as a man, was recognized by the natives as a woman by means of smell.

Women, like men, frequently give out an odor during coitus or strong sexual excitement. This odor may be entirely different from that normally emanating from the woman, of an acid or hircine character, and sufficiently strong to remain in a room for a considerable period. Many of the ancient medical writers (as quoted by Schurigius, Parthenologia , p. 286) described the goaty smell produced by venery, especially in women; they regarded it as specially marked in harlots and in the newly married, and sometimes even considered it a certain sign of defloration. The case has been recorded of a woman who emitted a rose odor for two days after coitus (McBride, quoted by Kiernan in an interesting summary, "Odor in Pathology," Doctor's Magazine , December, 1900). There was, it is said ( Journal des Savans 1684, p. 39, quoting from the Journal d'Angleterre ) a monk in Prague who could recognize by smell the chastity of the women who approached him. (This monk, it is added, when he died, was composing a new science of odors.)

Gustav Klein (as quoted by Adler, Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindungen des Weibes , p. 25) argues that the special function of the glands at the vulvar orifice—the glandulæ vestibulares majores —is to give out an odorous secretion to act as an attraction to the male, this relic of sexual periodicity no longer, however, playing an important part in the human species. The vulvar secretion, however, it may be added, still has a more aromatic odor than the vaginal secretion, with its simple mucous odor, very clearly perceived during parturition.

It may be added that we still know extremely little concerning the sexual odors of women among primitive peoples. Ploss and Bartels are only able to bring forward ( Das Weib , 1901, bd. 1, p. 218) a statement concerning the women of New Caledonia, who, according to Moncelon, when young and ardent, give out during coitus a powerful odor which no ablution will remove. In abnormal states of sexual excitement such odor may be persistent, and, according to an ancient observation, a nymphomaniac, whose periods of sexual excitement lasted all through the spring-time, at these periods always emitted a goatlike odor. It has been said (G. Tourdes, art. "Aphrodisie," Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales ) that the erotic temperament is characterized by a special odor.

The Romans firmly believed in the connection between a large nose and a large penis. "Noscitur e naso quanta sit hasta viro," stated Ovid. This belief continued to prevail, especially in Italy, through the middle ages; the physiognomists made much of it, and licentious women (like Joanna of Naples) were, it appears, accustomed to bear it in mind, although disappointment is recorded often to have followed. (See e.g. , the quotations and references given by J. N. Mackenzie, "Physiological and Pathological Relations between the Nose and the Sexual Apparatus in Man." Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin , No. 82, January, 1898; also Hagen, Sexuelle Osphrésiologie , pp. 15-19.) A similar belief as to the association between the sexual impulse in women and a long nose was evidently common in England in the sixteenth century, for in Massinger's Emperor of the East (Act II, Scene I) we read,

At the present day, a proverb of the Venetian people still embodies the belief in the connection between a large nose and a large sexual member.

The probability that such an association tends in many cases to prevail is indicated not only by the beliefs of antiquity, when more careful attention was paid to these matters, but by the testimony of various modern observers, although it does not appear that any series of exact observations have yet been made.

It may be noted that Marro, in his careful anthropological study of criminals ( I Caratteri dei Delinquenti ), found no class of criminals with so large a proportion alike of anomalies of the nose and anomalies of the genital organs as sexual offenders.

The late Professor Hack, of Freiburg, in 1884, called general medical attention to the intimate connection between the nose and states of nervous hyperexcitability in various parts of the body, although such a connection had been recognized for many centuries in medical literature. While Hack and his disciples thus gave prominence to this association, they undoubtedly greatly exaggerated its importance and significance. (Sir Felix Semon, British Medical Journal , November 9, 1901.) Even many workers who have more recently further added to our knowledge have also, as sometimes happens with enthusiasts, unduly strained their own data. Starting from the fact that in women during menstruation examination of the nose reveals a degree of congestion not found during the rest of the month, Fliess ( Die Beziehungen zwischen Nase und Weiblichen Geschlechtsorganen , 1897), with the help of a number of elaborate and prolonged observations, has reached conclusions which, while they seem to be hazardous at some points, have certainly contributed to build up our knowledge of this obscure subject. Schiff ( Wiener klinische Wochenschrift , 1900, p. 58, summarized in British Medical Journal , February 16, 1901), starting from a skeptical standpoint, has confirmed some of Fliess's results, and in a large number of cases controlled painful menstruation by painting with cocaine the so-called "genital spots" in the nose, all possibility of suggestion being avoided. Ries, of Chicago, has been similarly successful with the method of Fliess ( American Gynæcology , vol. iii, No. 4, 1903). Benedikt ( Wiener medicinische Wochenschrift , No. 8, 1901, summarized in Journal of Medical Science , October, 1901), while pointing out that the nose is not the only organ in sympathetic relation with the sexual sphere, suggests that the mechanism of the relationship is involved in the larger problem of the harmony in growth and in nutrition of the different parts of the organism. In this way, probably, we may attach considerable significance to the existence of a kind of erectile tissue in the nose.

An interesting example of a reflex influence from the nose affecting the genital sphere has been brought forward by Dr. E. S. Talbot, of Chicago: "A 56-year-old man was operated on (September 1, 1903) for the removal of the left cartilage of the septum of the nose owing to a previous traumatic fracture at the sixteenth year. No pain was experienced until two years ago, when a continual soreness occurred at the apical end of the fracture during the winter months. The operation was decided upon fearing more serious complications. The parts were cocainized. No pain was experienced in the operation except at one point at the lower posterior portion near the floor of the nose. A profound shock to the general system followed. The reflex influence of the pain upon the genital organs caused semen to flow continually for three weeks. Treatment of general motor irritability with camphor monobromate and conium, on consultation with Dr. Kiernan, checked the flow. The discharge produced spinal neurasthenia. The legs and feet felt heavy. Erythromelalgia caused uneasiness. The patient walked with difficulty. The tired feeling in the feet and limbs was quite noticeable four months after the operation, although the pain had, to a great extent diminished." (Chicago Academy of Medicine, January, 1904, and private letter.)

J. N. Mackenzie has brought together a great many original observations, together with interesting quotations from old medical literature, in his two papers: "The Pathological Nasal Reflex" ( New York Medical Journal , August 20, 1887) and "The Physiological and Pathological Relations between the Nose and the Sexual Apparatus of Man" ( Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin , January 1, 1898). A number of cases have also been brought together from the literature by G. Endriss in his Inaugural Dissertation, Die bisherigen Beobachtungen von Physiologischen und Pathologischen Beziehungen der oberen Luftwege zu den Sexualorganen , Teil. II, Würzburg, 1892.

Many eminent alienists in various countries are very decidedly of the opinion that there is a special tendency to the association of olfactory hallucinations with sexual manifestations, and, although one or two authorities have expressed doubt on the matter, the available evidence clearly indicates such an association. Hallucinations of smell are comparatively rare as compared to hallucinations of sight and hearing; they are commoner in women than in men and they not infrequently occur at periods of sexual disturbance, at adolescence, in puerperal fever, at the change of life, in women with ovarian troubles, and in old people troubled with sexual desires or remorse for such desires. They have often been noted as specially frequent in cases of excessive masturbation.

Krafft-Ebing, who found olfactory hallucinations common in various sexual states, considers that they are directly dependent on sexual excitement ( Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie , bd. 34, ht. 4, 1877). Conolly Norman believes in a distinct and frequent association between olfactory hallucinations and sexual disturbance ( Journal of Mental Science , July, 1899, p. 532). Savage is also impressed by the close association between sexual disturbance or changes in the reproductive organs and hallucinations of smell as well as of touch. He has found that persistent hallucinations of smell disappeared when a diseased ovary was removed, although the patient remained insane. He considers that such hallucinations of smell are allied to reversions. (G. H. Savage, "Smell, Hallucinations of," Tuke's Dictionary of Psychological Medicine ; cf. the same author's manual of Insanity and Allied Neuroses .) Matusch, while not finding olfactory hallucinations common at the climacteric, states that when they are present they are connected with uterine trouble and sexual craving. He finds them more common in young women. (Matusch, "Der Einfluss des Climacterium auf Entstchung und Form der Geistesstörung," Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie , vol. xlvi, ht. 4). Féré has related a significant case of a young man in whom hallucinations of smell accompanied the sexual orgasm; he subsequently developed epilepsy, to which the hallucination then constituted the aura ( Comptes Rendus de la Société de Biologie , December, 1896). The prevalence of a sexual element in olfactory hallucinations has been investigated by Bullen, who examined into 95 cases of hallucinations of smell among the patients in several asylums. (In a few cases there were reasons for believing that peripheral conditions existed which would render these hallucinations more strictly illusions.) Of these, 64 were women. Sixteen of the women were climacteric cases, and 3 of them had sexual hallucinations or delusions. Fourteen other women (chiefly cases of chronic delusional insanity) had sexual delusions. Altogether, 31 men and women had sexual delusions. This is a large proportion. Bullen is not, however, inclined to admit any direct connection between the reproductive system and the sense of smell. He finds that other hallucinations are very frequently associated with the olfactory hallucinations, and considers that the co-existence of olfactory and sexual troubles simply indicates a very deep and widespread nervous disturbance. (F. St. John Bullen, "Olfactory Hallucinations in the Insane," Journal of Mental Science , July, 1899.) In order to elucidate the matter fully we require further precise inquiries on the lines Bullen has laid down.

It may be of interest to note, in this connection, that smell and taste hallucinations appear to be specially frequent in forms of religious insanity. Thus, Dr. Zurcher, in her inaugural dissertation on Joan of Arc ( Jeanne d'Arc , Leipzig, 1895, p. 72), estimates that on the average in such insanity nearly 50 per cent, of the hallucinations affect smell and taste; she refers also to the olfactory hallucinations of great religious leaders, Francis of Assisi, Katherina Emmerich, Lazzaretti, and the Anabaptists.

Olfactory influences play a certain part in various sexually abnormal tendencies and practices which do not proceed from an exclusively olfactory fascination. Thus, cunnilingus and fellatio derive part of their attraction, more especially in some individuals, from a predilection for the odors of the sexual parts. (See, e.g. , Moll, Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis , bd. 1, p. 134.) In many cases smell plays no part in the attraction; "I enjoy cunnilingus , if I like the girl very much," a correspondent writes, " in spite of the smell." We may associate this impulse with the prevalence of these practices among sexual inverts, in whom olfactory attractions are often specially marked. Those individuals, also, who are sexually affected by the urinary and alvine excretions (" renifleurs ," " stereoraires ," etc.) are largely, though not necessarily altogether, moved by olfactory impressions. The attraction was, however, exclusively olfactory in the case of the young woman recorded by Moraglia ( Archivio di Psichiatria , 1892, p. 267), who was irresistibly excited by the odor of the fermented urine of men, and possibly also in the case narrated to Moraglia by Prof. L. Bianchi ( ib. p. 568), in which a wife required flatus from her husband.

The sexual pleasure derived from partial strangulation (discussed in the study of "Love and Pain" in a previous volume) may be associated with heightened olfactory sexual excitation. Dr. Kiernan, who points this out to me, has investigated a few neuropathic patients who like to have their necks squeezed, as they express it, and finds that in the majority the olfactory sensibility is thus intensified.

Of the Padmini, the perfect woman, the "lotus woman," Hindu writers say that "her sweat has the odor of musk," while the vulgar woman, they say, smells of fish ( Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana ). Ploss and Bartels ( Das Weib , 1901, p. 218) bring forward a passage from the Tamil Kokkôgam , minutely describing various kinds of sexual odor in women, which they regard as resting on sound observation.

Four things in a woman, says the Arab, should be perfumed: the mouth, the armpits, the pudenda, and the nose. The Persian poets, in describing the body, delighted to use metaphors involving odor. Not only the hair and the down on the face, but the chin, the mouth, the beauty spots, the neck, all suggested odorous images. The epithets applied to the hair frequently refer to musk, ambergris, and civet. ( Anis El-Ochchâq translated by Huart, Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes , fasc. 25, 1875.)

The Hebrew Song of Songs furnishes a typical example of a very beautiful Eastern love-poem in which the importance of the appeal to the sense of smell is throughout emphasized. There are in this short poem as many as twenty-four fairly definite references to odors,—personal odors, perfumes, and flowers,—while numerous other references to flowers, etc., seem to point to olfactory associations. Both the lover and his sweetheart express pleasure in each other's personal odor.

And again: "His cheeks are as a bed of spices [or balsam], as banks of sweet herbs." While of her he says: "The smell of thy breath [or nose] is like apples."

Greek and Roman antiquity, which has so largely influenced the traditions of modern Europe, was lavish in the use of perfumes, but showed no sympathy with personal odors. For the Roman satirists, like Martial, a personal odor is nearly always an unpleasant odor, though, there are a few allusions in classic literature recognizing bodily smell as a sexual attraction. Ovid, in his Ars Amandi (Book III), says it is scarcely necessary to remind a lady that she must not keep a goat in her armpits: " ne trux caper iret in alas ." " Mulier tum bene olet ubi nihil olet " is an ancient dictum, and in the sixteenth century Montaigne still repeated the same saying with complete approval.

A different current of feeling began to appear with the new emotional movement during the eighteenth century. Rousseau called attention to the importance of the olfactory sense, and in his educational work, Emile (Bk. II), he referred to the odor of a woman's " cabinet de toilette " as not so feeble a snare as is commonly supposed. In the same century Casanova wrote still more emphatically concerning the same point; in the preface to his Mémoires he states: "I have always found sweet the odor of the women I have loved"; and elsewhere: "There is something in the air of the bedroom of the woman one loves, something so intimate, so balsamic, such voluptuous emanations, that if a lover had to choose between Heaven and this place of delight his hesitation would not last for a moment" ( Mémoires , vol. iii). In the previous century, in England, Sir Kenelm Digby, in his interesting and remarkable Private Memoirs , when describing a visit to Lady Venetia Stanley, afterward his wife, touches on personal odor as an element of attraction; he had found her asleep in bed and on her breasts "did glisten a few drops of sweatlike diamond sparks, and had a more fragrant odor than the violets or primroses whose season was newly passed."

In 1821 Cadet-Devaux published, in the Revue Encyclopédique , a study entitled "De l'atmosphère de la Femme et de sa Puissance," which attracted a great deal of attention in Germany as well as in France; he considered that the exhalations of the feminine body are of the first importance in sexual attraction.

Prof. A. Galopin in 1886 wrote a semiscientific book, Le Parfum de la Femme , in which the sexual significance of personal odor is developed to its fullest. He writes with enthusiasm concerning the sweet and health-giving character of the natural perfume of a beloved woman, and the mischief done both to health and love by the use of artificial perfumes. "The purest marriage that can be contracted between a man and a woman," he asserts (p. 157) "is that engendered by olfaction and sanctioned by a common assimilation in the brain of the animated molecules due to the secretion and evaporation of two bodies in contact and sympathy."

In a book written during the first half of the nineteenth century which contains various subtle observations on love we read, with reference to the sweet odor which poets have found in the breath of women: "In reality many women have an intoxicatingly agreeable breath which plays no small part in the love-compelling atmosphere which they spread around them" ( Eros oder Wörterbuch über die Physiologie , 1849, Bd. 1, p. 45).

Most of the writers on the psychology of love at this period, however, seem to have passed over the olfactory element in sexual attraction, regarding it probably as too unæsthetic. It receives no emphasis either in Sénancour's De l'Amour or Stendhal's De l'Amour or Michelet's L'Amour .

The poets within recent times have frequently referred to odors, personal and other, but the novelists have more rarely done so. Zola and Huysmans, the two novelists who have most elaborately and insistently developed the olfactory side of life, have dwelt more on odors that are repulsive than on those that are agreeable. It is therefore of interest to note that in a few remarkable novels of recent times the attractiveness of personal odor has been emphasized. This is notably so in Tolstoy's War and Peace , in which Count Peter suddenly resolves to marry Princess Helena after inhaling her odor at a ball. In d'Annunzio's Trionfo della Morte the seductive and consoling odor of the beloved woman's skin is described in several passages; thus, when Giorgio kissed Ippolita's arms and shoulders, we are told, "he perceived the sharp and yet delicate perfume of her, the perfume of the skin that in the hour of joy became intoxicating as that of the tuberose, and a terrible lash to desire."

Aubert, of Lyons, noted that during menstruation the odor of the armpits may become more powerful, and describes it as being at this time an aromatic odor of acidulous or chloroform character. Galopin remarks that, while some women's armpits smell of sheep in rut, others, when exposed to the air, have a fragrance of ambergris or violet. Dark persons (according to Gould and Pyle) are said sometimes to exhale a prussic acid odor, and blondes more frequently musk; Galopin associates the ambergris odor more especially with blondes.

While some European poets have faintly indicated the woman's armpit as a centre of sexual attraction, it is among Eastern poets that we may find the idea more directly and naturally expressed. Thus, in a Chinese drama ("The Transmigration of Yo-Chow," Mercure de France , No. 8, 1901) we find a learned young doctor addressing the following poem to his betrothed:—

This poet seems, however, to have been carried to a pitch of enthusiasm unusual even in China, for his future mother-in-law, after expressing her admiration for the poem, remarks: "But who would have thought one could find so many beautiful things under my daughter's armpit!"

The odor of the armpit is the most powerful in the body, sufficiently powerful to act as a muscular stimulant even in the absence of any direct sexual association. This is indicated by an observation made by Féré, who noticed, when living opposite a laundry, that an old woman who worked near the window would, toward the close of the day, introduce her right hand under the sleeve of the other to the armpit and then hold it to her nose; this she would do about every five minutes. It was evident that the odor acted as a stimulant to her failing energies. Féré has been informed by others who have had occasion to frequent workrooms that this proceeding is by no means uncommon among persons of both sexes. (Féré, L'Instinct Sexuel , second edition, p. 135.) I have myself noticed the same gesture very deliberately made in the street by a young English woman of the working class, under circumstances which suggested that it acted as an immediate stimulant in fatigue.

Huysmans—who in his novels has insisted on odors, both those of a personal kind and perfumes, with great precision—has devoted one of the sketches, "Le Gousset," in his Croquis Parisiens (1880) to the varying odors of women's armpits. "I have followed this fragrance in the country," he remarks, "behind a group of women gleaners under the bright sun. It was excessive and terrible; it stung your nostrils like an unstoppered bottle of alkali; it seized you, irritating your mucous membrane with a rough odor which had in it something of the relish of wild duck cooked with olives and the sharp odor of the shallot. On the whole, it was not a vile or repugnant emanation; it united, as an anticipated thing, with the formidable odors of the landscape; it was the pure note, completing with the human animals' cry of heat the odorous melody of beasts and woods." He goes on to speak of the perfume of feminine arms in the ball-room. "There the aroma is of ammoniated valerian, of chlorinated urine, brutally accentuated sometimes, even with a slight scent of prussic acid about it, a faint whiff of overripe peaches." These "spice-boxes," however, Huysmans continues, are more seductive when their perfume is filtered through the garments. "The appeal of the balsam of their arms is then less insolent, less cynical, than at the ball where they are more naked, but it more easily uncages the animal in man. Various as the color of the hair, the odor of the armpit is infinitely divisible; its gamut covers the whole keyboard of odors, reaching the obstinate scents of syringa and elder, and sometimes recalling the sweet perfume of the rubbed fingers that have held a cigarette. Audacious and sometimes fatiguing in the brunette and the black woman, sharp and fierce in the red woman, the armpit is heady as some sugared wines in the blondes." It will be noted that this very exact description corresponds at various points with the remarks of more scientific observers.

Sometimes the odor of the armpit may even become a kind of fetich which is craved for its own sake and in itself suffices to give pleasure. Féré has recorded such a case, in a friend of his own, a man of 60, with whom at one time he used to hunt, of robust health and belonging to a healthy family. On these hunting expeditions he used to tease the girls and women he met (sometimes even rather old women) in a surprising manner, when he came upon them walking in the fields with their short-sleeved chemises exposed. When he had succeeded in introducing his hand into the woman's armpit he went away satisfied, and frequently held the hand to his nose with evident pleasure. After long hesitation Féré asked for an explanation, which was frankly given. As a child he had liked the odor, without knowing why. As a young man women with strong odors had stimulated him to extraordinary sexual exploits, and now they were the only women who had any influence on him. He professed to be able to recognize continence by the odor, as well as the most favorable moment for approaching a woman. Throughout life a cold in the head had always been accompanied by persistent general excitement. (Féré, L'Instinct Sexuel , 1902, p. 134.)

"I cannot understand how people do not see how the senses are connected," said Jenny Lind to J. A. Symonds (Horatio Brown, J. A. Symonds , vol. i, p. 207). "What I have suffered from my sense of smell! My youth was misery from my acuteness of sensibility."

Mantegazza discusses the strength of olfactory antipathies ( Fisiologia dell' Odio , p. 101), and mentions that once when ill in Paraguay he was nursed by an Indian girl of 16, who was fresh as a peach and extremely clean, but whose odor—"a mixture of wild beast's lair and decayed onions"—caused nausea and almost made him faint.

Moll ( Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis , bd. i, p. 135) records the case of a neuropathic man who was constantly rendered impotent by his antipathy to personal body odors. It had very frequently happened to him to be attracted by the face and appearance of a girl, but at the last moment potency was inhibited by the perception of personal odor.

In the case of a man of distinguished ability known to me, belonging to a somewhat neuropathic family, there is extreme sensitiveness to the smell of a woman, which is frequently the most obvious thing to him about her. He has seldom known a woman whose natural perfume entirely suits him, and his olfactory impressions have frequently been the immediate cause of a rupture of relationships.

It was formerly discussed whether strong personal odor constituted adequate ground for divorce. Hagen, who brings forward references on this point ( Sexuelle Osphrésiologie , pp. 75-83), considers that the body odors are normally and naturally repulsive because they are closely associated with the capryl group of odors, which are those of many of the excretions.

Olfactory antipathies are, however, often strictly subordinated to the individual's general emotional attitude toward the object from which they emanate. This is illustrated in the case, known to me, of a man who on a hot day entering a steamboat with a woman to whom he was attached seated himself between her and a man, a stranger. He soon became conscious of an axillary odor which he concluded to come from the man and which he felt as disagreeable. But a little later he realized that it proceeded from his own companion, and with this discovery the odor at once lost its disagreeable character.

In this respect a personal odor resembles a personal touch. Two intimate touches of the hand, though of precisely similar physical quality, may in their emotional effects be separated by an immeasurable interval, in dependence on our attitude toward the person from whom they proceed.

In the oft-quoted case of the Austrian peasant who found that he was aided in seducing young women by dancing with them and then wiping their faces with a handkerchief he had kept in his armpit, we may doubtless regard the preliminary excitement of the dance as an essential factor in the influence produced.

In the same way, I am acquainted with the ease of a lady not usually sensitive to simple body odors (though affected by perfumes and flowers) who on one occasion, when already in a state of sexual erethism, was highly excited when perceiving the odor of her lover's axilla.

The same influence of preliminary excitement may be seen in another instance known to me, that of a gentlemen who when traveling abroad fell in with three charming young ladies during a long railway journey. He was conscious of a pleasurable excitement caused by the prolonged intimacy of the journey, but this only became definitely sexual when the youngest of the ladies, stretching before him to look out of the window and holding on to the rack above, accidentally brought her axilla into close proximity with his face, whereupon erection was caused, although he himself regards personal odors, at all events when emanating from strangers, as indifferent or repulsive.

A medical correspondent, referring to the fact that with many men (indeed women also) sexual excitement occurs after dancing for a considerable time, remarks that he considers the odor of the woman's sweat is here a considerable factor.

Edouard de Goncourt, in his novel Chérie —the intimate history of a young girl, founded, he states, on much personal observation—describes (Chapter LXXXV) the delight with which sensuous, but chaste young girls often take in strong perfumes. "Perfume and love," he remarks, "impart delights which are closely allied." In an earlier chapter (XLIV) he writes of his heroine at the age of 15: "The intimately happy emotion which the young girl experienced in reading Paul et Virginie and other honestly amorous books she sought to make more complete and intense and penetrating by soaking the book with scent, and the love-story reached her senses and imagination through pages moist with liquid perfume."

Carbini ( Archivio per l'Antropologia , 1896, fasc. 3) in a very thorough investigation of a large number of children, found that the earliest osmo-gustative sensations occurred in the fourth week in girls, the fifth week in boys; the first real and definite olfactory sensations appeared in the fifteenth month in girls, in the sixteenth in boys; while experiments on several hundred children between the ages of 3 and 6 years showed the girls slightly, but distinctly, superior to the boys. It may, of course, be argued that these results merely show a somewhat greater precocity of girls. I have summarized the main investigations into this question in Man and Woman , revised and enlarged edition, 1904, pp. 134-138. On the whole, they seem to indicate greater olfactory acuteness on the part of women, but the evidence is by no means altogether concordant in this sense. Popular and general scientific opinion is also by no means always in harmony. Thus, Tardif, in his book on odors in relation to the sexual instinct, throughout assumes, as a matter of course, that the sense of smell is most keen in men; while, on the other hand, I note that in a pamphlet by Mr. Martin Perls, a manufacturing perfumer, it is stated with equal confidence that "it is a well-known fact that ladies have, even without a practice of long standing, a keener sense of smell than men," and on this account he employs a staff of young ladies for testing perfumes by smell in the laboratory by the glazed paper test.

It is sometimes said that the use of strong perfumes by women indicates a dulled olfactory organ. On the other hand, it is said that the use of tobacco deadens the sensitiveness of the masculine nose. Both these statements seem to be without foundation. The use of a large amount of perfume is rather a question of taste than a question of sensory acuteness (not to mention that those who live in an atmosphere of perfume are, of course, only faintly conscious of it), and the chemist perfumer in his laboratory surrounded by strong odors can distinguish them all with great delicacy. As regards tobacco, in Spain the cigarreras are women and girls who live perpetually in an atmosphere of tobacco, and Señora Pardo Bazan, who knows them well, remarks in her novel, La Tribuna , which deals with life in a tobacco factory, that "the acuity of the sense of smell of the cigarreras is notable, and it would seem that instead of blunting the nasal membrane the tobacco makes the olfactory nerves keener."

"It was the same as if I was in a sweet apple garden, from the sweetness that came to me when the light wind passed over them and stirred their clothes," a woman is represented as saying concerning a troop of handsome men in the Irish sagas ( Cuchulain of Muirthemne , p. 161). The pleasure and excitement experienced by a woman in the odor of her lover is usually felt concerning a vague and mixed odor which may be characteristic, but is not definitely traceable to any specific bodily sexual odor. The general odor of the man she loves, one woman states, is highly, sometimes even overwhelmingly, attractive to her; but the specific odor of the male sexual organs which she describes as fishy has no attraction. A man writes that in his relations with women he has never been able to detect that they were influenced by the axillary or other specific odors. A woman writes: "To me any personal odor, as that of perspiration, is very disagreeable, and the healthy naked human body is very free from any odor. Fresh perspiration has no disagreeable smell; it is only by retention in the clothing that it becomes objectionable. The faint smell of smoke which lingers round men who smoke much is rather exciting to me, but only when it is very faint. If at all strong it becomes disagreeable. As most of the men who have attracted me have been great smokers, there is doubtless a direct association of ideas. It has only once occurred to me that an indifferent unpleasant smell became attractive in connection with some particular person. In this case it was the scent of stale tobacco, such as comes from the end of a cold cigar or cigarette. It was, and is now, very disagreeable to me, but, for the time and in connection with a particular person, it seemed to me more delightful and exciting than the most delicious perfume. I think, however, only a very strong attraction could overcome a dislike of this sort, and I doubt if I could experience such a twist-round if it had been a personal odor. Stale tobacco, though nasty, conveys no mentally disagreeable idea. I mean it does not suggest dirt or unhealthiness."

It is probably significant of the somewhat considerable part which, in one way or another, odors and perfumes play in the emotional life of women, that, of the 4 women whose sexual histories are recorded in Appendix B of vol. iii of these Studies , all are liable to experience sexual effects from olfactory stimuli, 3 of them from personal odors (though this fact is not in every case brought out in the histories as recorded), while of the 8 men not one has considered his olfactory experiences in this respect as worthy of mention.

The very marked sexual fascination which odor, associated with the men they love, exerts on women has easily passed unperceived, since women have not felt called upon to proclaim it. In sexual inversion, however, when the woman takes a more active and outspoken part than in normal love, it may very clearly be traced. Here, indeed, it is often exaggerated, in consequence of the common tendency for neurotic and neurasthenic persons to be more than normally susceptible to the influence of odors. In the majority of inverted women, it may safely be said, the odor of the beloved person plays a very considerable part. Thus, one inverted woman asks the woman she loves to send her some of her hair that she may intoxicate herself in solitude with its perfume ( Archivio di Psicopatie Sessuali , vol. i, fasc. 3, p. 36). Again, a young girl with some homosexual tendencies, was apt to experience sexual emotions when in ordinary contact with schoolfellows whose body odor was marked (Féré, L'Instinct Sexuel , p. 260). Such examples are fairly typical.

That the body odor of men may in a large number of cases be highly agreeable and sexually attractive is shown by the testimony of male sexual inverts. There is abundant evidence to this effect. Raffalovich ( L'Uranisme et l'Unisexualité , p. 126) insists on the importance of body odors as a sexual attraction to the male invert, and is inclined to think that the increased odor of the man's own body during sexual excitement may have an auto-aphrodisiacal effect which is reflected on the body of the loved person. The odor of peasants, of men who work in the open air, is specially apt to be found attractive. Moll mentions the case of an inverted man who found the "forest, mosslike odor" of a schoolfellow irresistibly attractive.

The following passage from a letter written by an Italian marquis has been sent to me: "Bonifazio stripped one evening, to give me pleasure. He has the full, rounded flesh and amber coloring which painters of the Giorgione school gave to their S. Sebastians. When he began to dress, I took up an old fascia , or girdle of netted silk, which was lying under his breeches, and which still preserved the warmth of his body. I buried my face in it, and was half inebriated by its exquisite aroma of young manhood and fresh hay. He told me he had worn it for two years. No wonder it was redolent of him. I asked him to let me keep it as a souvenir. He smiled and said: 'You like it because it has lain so long upon my panoia .' 'Yes, just so,' I replied; 'whenever I kiss it, thus and thus, it will bring you back to me.' Sometimes I tie it round my naked waist before I go to bed. The smell of it is enough to cause a powerful erection, and the contact of its fringes with my testicles and phallus has once or twice produced an involuntary emission."

I may here reproduce a communication which has reached me concerning the attractiveness of the odor of peasants: "One predominant attraction of these men is that they are pure and clean; their bodies in a state of healthy normal function. Then they possess, if they are temperate, what the Greek poet Straton called the φυδικὴ χρωτὸς (a quality which, according to this authority, is never found in women). This 'natural fair perfume of the flesh' is a peculiar attribute of young men who live in the open air and deal with natural objects. Even their perspiration has an odor very different from that of girls in ball-rooms: more refined, ethereal, pervasive, delicate, and difficult to seize. When they have handled hay—in the time of hay-harvest, or in winter, when they bring hay down from mountain huts—the youthful peasants carry about with them the smell of 'a field the Lord hath blessed.' Their bodies and their clothes exhale an indefinable fragrance of purity and sex combined. Every gland of the robust frame seems to have accumulated scent from herbs and grasses, which slowly exudes from the cool, fresh skin of the lad. You do not perceive it in a room. You must take the young man's hands and bury your face in them, or be covered with him under the same blanket in one bed, to feel this aroma. No sensual impression on the nerves of smell is more poignantly impregnated with spiritual poetry—the poetry of adolescence, and early hours upon the hills, and labor cheerfully accomplished, and the harvest of God's gifts to man brought home by human industry. It is worth mentioning that Aristophanes, in his description of the perfect Athenian Ephebus, dwells upon his being redolent of natural perfumes."

In a passage in the second part of Faust Goethe (who appears to have felt considerable interest in the psychology of smell) makes three women speak concerning the ambrosiacal odor of young men.

In this connection, also, I note a passage in a poem ("Appleton House") by our own English poet Marvell, which it is of interest to quote:—

The Influence of Perfumes—Their Aboriginal Relationship to Sexual Body Odors—This True even of the Fragrance of Flowers—The Synthetic Manufacture of Perfumes—The Sexual Effects of Perfumes—Perfumes perhaps Originally Used to Heighten the Body Odors—The Special Significance of the Musk Odor—Its Wide Natural Diffusion in Plants and Animals and Man—Musk a Powerful Stimulant—Its Widespread Use as a Perfume—Peau d'Espagne—The Smell of Leather and its Occasional Sexual Effects—The Sexual Influence of the Odors of Flowers—The Identity of many Plant Odors with Certain Normal and Abnormal Body Odors—The Smell of Semen in this Connection.

The methods now employed for obtaining the perfumes universally used in civilized lands are three: (1) the extraction of odoriferous compounds from the neutral products in which they occur; (2) the artificial preparation of naturally occurring odoriferous compounds by synthetic processes; (3) the manufacture of materials which yield odors resembling those of pleasant smelling natural objects. (See, e.g. , "Natural and Artificial Perfumes," Nature , December 27, 1900.) The essential principles of most of our perfumes belong to the complex class of organic compounds known as terpenes. During recent years a number of the essential elements of natural perfumes have been studied, in many cases the methods of preparing them artificially discovered, and they are largely replacing the use of natural perfumes not only for soaps, etc., but for scent essences, though it appears to be very difficult to imitate exactly the delicate fragrance achieved by Nature. Artificial musk was discovered accidentally by Bauer when studying the butyltoluenes contained in a resin extractive. Vanillin, the odoriferous principle of the vanilla bean, is an aldehyde which was first artificially prepared by Tiemann and Haarmann in 1874 by oxidizing coniferin, a glucoside contained in the sap of various coniferæ, but it now appears to be usually manufactured from eugenol, a phenol contained in oil of cloves. Piperonal, an aldehyde closely allied to vanillin, is used in perfumery under the name of heliotropin and is prepared from oil of sassafras and oil of camphor. Cumarine, the material to which tonka bean, sweet woodruff, and new-mown hay owe their characteristic odors, was synthetically prepared by W. H. Parkin in 1868 by heating sodiosalicylic aldehyde with acetic anhydride, though now more cheaply prepared from an herb growing in Florida. Irone, which has the perfume of violets, was isolated in 1893 from a ketone contained in orris-root; and ionone, another ketone which has a very closely similar odor of fresh violets and was isolated after some years' further work, is largely used in the preparation of violet perfume. Irone and ionone are closely similar in composition to oil of turpentine which when taken into the body is partly converted into perfume and gives a strong odor of violets to the urine. "Little has yet been accomplished toward ascertaining the relation between the odor and the chemical constitution of substances in general. Hydrocarbons as a class possess considerable similarity in odor, so also do the organic sulphides and, to a much smaller extent, the ketones. The subject waits for some one to correlate its various physiological, psychological and physical aspects in the same way that Helmholtz did for sound. It seems, as yet, impossible to assign any probable reason to the fact that many substances have a pleasant odor. It may, however, be worth suggesting that certain compounds, such as the volatile sulphides and the indoles, have very unpleasant odors because they are normal constituents of mammalian excreta and of putrefied animal products; the repulsive odors may be simply necessary results of evolutionary processes." ( Loc. cit. , Nature , December 27, 1900.)

Many of the perfumes in use are really combinations of a great many different odors in varying proportions, such as oil of rose, lavender oil, ylang-ylang, etc. The most highly appreciated perfumes are often made up of elements which in stronger proportion would be regarded as highly unpleasant.

In the study and manufacture of perfumes Germany and France have taken the lead in recent times. The industry is one of great importance. In France alone the trade in perfumes amounts to £4,000,000.

In that interesting novel—dealing with the adventures of a Jewish maiden at the Persian court of Xerxes—which under the title of Esther has found its way into the Old Testament we are told that it was customary in the royal harem at Shushan to submit the women to a very prolonged course of perfuming before they were admitted to the king: "six months with oil of myrrh and six months with sweet odors." ( Esther , Chapter II, v. 12.)

In the Arabian Nights there are many allusions to the use of perfumes by women with a more or less definitely stated aphrodisiacal intent. Thus we read in the story of Kamaralzaman: "With fine incense I will perfume my breasts, my belly, my whole body, so that my skin may melt more sweetly in thy mouth, O apple of my eye!"

Even among savages the perfuming of the body is sometimes practiced with the object of inducing love in the partner. Schellong states that the Papuans of Kaiser Wilhelm's Land rub various fragrant plants into their bodies for this purpose. ( Zeitschrift für Ethnologie , 1899, ht. i, p. 19.) The significance of this practice is more fully revealed by Haddon when studying the Papuans of Torres Straits among whom the initiative in courtship is taken by the women. It was by scenting himself with a pungent odorous substance that a young man indicated that he was ready to be sued by the girls. A man would wear this scent at the back of his neck during a dance in order to attract the attention of a particular girl; it was believed to act with magical certainty, after the manner of a charm ( Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits , vol. v, pp. 211, 222, and 328).

The Evil Effects of Excessive Olfactory Stimulation—The Symptoms of Vanillism—The Occasional Dangerous Results of the Odors of Flowers—Effects of Flowers on the Voice.

The reality and subtlety of the influence of odors is further shown, by the cases in which very intense effects are produced even by the temporary inhalation of flowers or perfumes or other odors. Such cases of idiosyncrasy in which a person—frequently of somewhat neurotic temperament—becomes acutely sensitive to some odor or odors have been recorded in medical literature for many centuries. In these cases the obnoxious odor produces congestion of the respiratory passages, sneezing, headache, fainting, etc., but occasionally, it has been recorded, even death. (Dr. J. N. Mackenzie, in his interesting and learned paper on "The Production of the so-called 'Rose Cold,' etc.," American Journal of Medical Sciences , January, 1886, quotes many cases, and gives a number of references to ancient medical authors; see also Layet, art. "Odeur," Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales .)

An interesting phenomenon of the group—though it is almost too common to be described as an idiosyncrasy—is the tendency of the odor of certain flowers to affect the voice and sometimes even to produce complete loss of voice. The mechanism of the process is not fully understood, but it would appear that congestion and paresis of the larynx is produced and spasm of the bronchial tube. Botallus in 1565 recorded cases in which the scent of flowers brought on difficulty of breathing, and the danger of flowers from this point of view is well recognized by professional singers. Joal has studied this question in an elaborate paper (summarized in the British Medical Journal , March 3, 1895), and Dr. Cabanès has brought together ( Figaro , January 20, 1894) the experiences of a number of well-known singers, teachers of singing, and laryngologists. Thus, Madame Renée Richard, of the Paris Opera, has frequently found that when her pupils have arrived with a bunch of violets fastened to the bodice or even with a violet and iris sachet beneath the corset, the voice has been marked by weakness and, on using the laryngoscope, she has found the vocal cords congested. Madame Calvé confirmed this opinion, and stated that she was specially sensitive to tuberose and mimosa, and that on one occasion a bouquet of white lilac has caused her, for a time, complete loss of voice. The flowers mentioned are equally dangerous to a number of other singers; the most injurious flower of all is found to be the violet. The rose is seldom mentioned, and artificial perfumes are comparatively harmless, though some singers consider it desirable to be cautious in using them.

The Place of Smell in Human Sexual Selections—It has given Place to the Predominance of Vision largely because in Civilized Man it Fails to Act at a Distance—It still Plays a Part by Contributing to the Sympathies or the Antipathies of Intimate Contact.

The Physiological Basis of Rhythm—Rhythm as a Physiological Stimulus—The Intimate Relation of Rhythm to Movement—The Physiological Influence of Music on Muscular Action, Circulation, Respiration, etc.—The Place of Music in Sexual Selection among the Lower Animals—Its Comparatively Small Place in Courtship among Mammals—The Larynx and Voice in Man—The Significance of the Pubertal Changes—Ancient Beliefs Concerning the Influence of Music in Morals, Education, and Medicine—Its Therapeutic Uses—Significance of the Romantic Interest in Music at Puberty—Men Comparatively Insusceptible to the Specifically Sexual Influence of Music—Rarity of Sexual Perversions on the Basis of the Sense of Hearing—The Part of Music in Primitive Human Courtship—Women Notably Susceptible to the Specifically Sexual Influence of Music and the Voice.

Aristotle seems to have first suggested that rhythm and melodies are motions, as actions are motions, and therefore signs of feeling. "All melodies are motions," says Helmholtz. "Graceful rapidity, gravel procession, quiet advance, wild leaping, all these different characters of motion and a thousand others can be represented by successions of tones. And as music expresses these motions it gives an expression also to those mental conditions which naturally evoke similar motions, whether of the body and the voice, or of the thinking and feeling principle itself." (Helmholtz, On the Sensations of Tone , translated by A. J. Ellis, 1885, p. 250.)

From another point of view the motor stimulus of music has been emphasized by Cyples: "Music connects with the only sense that can be perfectly manipulated. Its emotional charm has struck men as a great mystery. There appears to be no doubt whatever that it gets all the marvelous effects it has beyond the mere pleasing of the ear, from its random, but multitudinous summonses of the efferent activity, which at its vague challenges stirs unceasingly in faintly tumultuous irrelevancy. In this way, music arouses aimlessly, but splendidly, the sheer, as yet unfulfilled, potentiality within us." (W. Copies, The Process of Human Experience , p. 743.)

The fundamental element of transformed motion in music has been well brought out in a suggestive essay by Goblot ("La Musique Descriptive," Revue Philosophique , July, 1901): "Sung or played, melody figures to the ear a successive design, a moving arabesque. We talk of ascending and descending the gamut, of high notes or low notes; the; higher voice of woman is called soprano , or above , the deeper voice of man is called bass . Grave tones were so called by the Greeks because they seemed heavy and to incline downward. Sounds seem to be subject to the action of gravity; so that some rise and others fall. Baudelaire, speaking of the prelude to Lohengrin , remarks: 'I felt myself delivered from the bonds of weight .' And when Wagner sought to represent, in the highest regions of celestial space, the apparition of the angels bearing the Holy Grail to earth, he uses very high notes, and a kind of chorus played exclusively by the violins, divided into eight parts, in the highest notes of their register. The descent to earth of the celestial choir is rendered by lower and lower notes, the progressive disappearance of which represents the reascension to the ethereal regions.

"Sounds seem to rise and fall; that is a fact. It is difficult to explain it. Some have seen in it a habit derived from the usual notation by which the height of the note corresponds to its height in the score. But the impression is too deep and general to be explained by so superficial and recent a cause. It has been suggested also that high notes are generally produced by small and light bodies, low notes by heavy bodies. But that is not always true. It has been said, again, that high notes in nature are usually produced by highly placed objects, while low notes arise from caves and low placed regions. But the thunder is heard in the sky, and the murmur of a spring or the song of a cricket arise from the earth. In the human voice, again, it is said, the low notes seem to resound in the chest, high notes in the head. All this is unsatisfactory. We cannot explain by such coarse analogies an impression which is very precise, and more sensible (this fact has its importance) for an interval of half a tone than for an interval of an octave. It is probable that the true explanation is to be found in the still little understood connection between the elements of our nervous apparatus.

"Nearly all our emotions tend to produce movement. But education renders us economical of our acts. Most of these movements are repressed, especially in the adult and civilized man, as harmful, dangerous, or merely useless. Some are not completed, others are reduced to a faint incitation which externally is scarcely perceptible. Enough remain to constitute all that is expressive in our gestures, physiognomy, and attitudes. Melodic intervals possess in a high degree this property of provoking impulses of movement, which, even when repressed, leave behind internal sensations and motor images. It would be possible to study these facts experimentally if we had at our disposition a human being who, while retaining his sensations and their motor reactions, was by special circumstances rendered entirely spontaneous like a sensitive automaton, whose movements were neither intentionally produced nor intentionally repressed. In this way, melodic intervals in a hypnotized subject might be very instructive."

A number of experiments of the kind desired by Goblot had already been made by A. de Rochas in a book, copiously illustrated by very numerous instantaneous photographs, entitled Les Sentiments, la Musique et la Geste , 1900. Chapter III. De Rochas experimented on a single subject, Lina, formerly a model, who was placed in a condition of slight hypnosis, when various simple fragments of music were performed: recitatives, popular airs, and more especially national dances, often from remote parts of the world. The subject's gestures were exceedingly marked and varied in accordance with the character of the music. It was found that she often imitated with considerable precision the actual gestures of dances she could never have seen. The same music always evoked the same gestures, as was shown by instantaneous photographs. This subject, stated to be a chaste and well-behaved girl, exhibited no indications of definite sexual emotion under the influence of any kind of music. Some account is given in the same volume of other hypnotic experiments with music which were also negative as regards specific sexual phenomena.

Most persons have probably had occasion to observe the susceptibility of dogs to music. It may here suffice to give one personal observation. A dog (of mixed breed, partly collie), very well known to me, on hearing a nocturne of Chopin, whined and howled, especially at the more pathetic passages, once or twice catching and drawing out the actual note played; he panted, walked about anxiously, and now and then placed his head on the player's lap. When the player proceeded to a more cheerful piece by Grieg, the dog at once became indifferent, sat down, yawned, and scratched himself; but as soon as the player returned once more to the nocturne the dog at once repeated his accompaniment.

The Chinese and the Greeks have more especially insisted on the ethical qualities of music and on its moralizing and demoralizing effects. Some three thousand years ago, it is stated, a Chinese emperor, believing that only they who understood music are capable of governing, distributed administrative functions in accordance with this belief. He acted entirely in accordance with Chinese morality, the texts of Confucianism (see translations in the "Sacred Books of the East Series") show clearly that music and ceremony (or social ritual in a wide sense) are regarded as the two main guiding influences of life—music as the internal guide, ceremony as the external guide, the former being looked upon as the more important.

Among the Greeks Menander said that to many people music is a powerful stimulant to love. Plato, in the third book of the Republic , discusses what kinds of music should be encouraged in his ideal state. He does not clearly state that music is ever a sexual stimulant, but he appears to associate plaintive music (mixed Lydian and Hypolydian) with drunkenness, effeminacy, and idleness and considers that such music is "useless even to women that are to be virtuously given, not to say to men." He only admits two kinds of music: one violent and suited to war, the other tranquil and suited to prayer or to persuasion. He sets out the ethical qualities of music with a thoroughness which almost approaches the great Chinese philosopher: "On these accounts we attach such importance to a musical education, because rhythm and harmony sink most deeply into the recesses of the soul, and take most powerful hold of it, bringing gracefulness in their train, and making a man graceful if he be rightly nurtured, ... leading him to commend beautiful objects, and gladly receive them into his soul, and feed upon them, and grow to be noble and good." Plato is, however, by no means so consistent and thorough as the Chinese moralist, for having thus asserted that it is the influence of music which molds the soul into virtue, he proceeds to destroy his position with the statement that "we shall never become truly musical until we know the essential forms of temperance and courage and liberality and munificence," thus moving in a circle. It must be added that the Greek conception of music was very comprehensive and included poetry.

Aristotle took a wider view of music than Plato and admitted a greater variety of uses for it. He was less anxious to exclude those uses which were not strictly ethical. He disapproved, indeed, of the Phrygian harmony as the expression of Bacchic excitement. He accepts, however, the function of music as a κάθαρσις of emotion, a notion which is said to have originated with the Pythagoreans. (For a discussion of Aristotle's views on music, see W. L. Newman, The Politics of Aristotle , vol. i, pp. 359-369.)

Athenæus, in his frequent allusions to music, attributes to it many intellectual and emotional properties ( e.g. , Book XIV, Chapter XXV) and in one place refers to "melodies inciting to lawless indulgence" (Book XIII, Chapter LXXV).

We may gather from the Priapeia (XXVI) that cymbals and castanets were the special accompaniment in antiquity of wanton songs and dances: " cymbala, cum crotalis, pruriginis arma ."

The ancient belief in the moralizing influence of music has survived into modern times mainly in a somewhat more scientific form as a belief in its therapeutic effects in disordered nervous and mental conditions. (This also is an ancient belief as witnessed by the well-known example of David playing to Saul to dispel his melancholia.) In 1729 an apothecary of Oakham, Richard Broune, published a work entitled Medicina Musica , in which he argued that music was beneficial in many maladies. In more recent days there have been various experiments and cases brought forward showing its efficacy in special conditions.

An American physician (W. F. Hutchinson) has shown that anæsthesia may be produced with accurately made tuning forks at certain rates of vibration (summarized in the British Medical Journal , June 4, 1898). Ferrand in a paper read before the Paris Academy of Medicine in September, 1895, gives reasons for classing some kinds of music as powerful antispasmodics with beneficial therapeutic action. The case was subsequently reported of a child in whom night-terrors were eased by calming music in a minor key. The value of music in lunatic asylums is well recognized; see e.g. , Näcke, Revue de Psychiatrie , October, 1897. Vaschide and Vurpas ( Comptes Rendus de la Société de Biologie , December 13, 1902) have recorded the case of a girl of 20, suffering from mental confusion with excitation and central motor disequilibrium, whose muscular equilibrium was restored and movements rendered more co-ordinated and adaptive under the influence of music.

While there has been much extravagance in the ancient doctrine concerning the effects of music, the real effects are still considerable. Not only is this demonstrated by the experiments already referred to (p. 118), indicating the efficacy of musical sounds as physiological stimulants, but also by anatomical considerations. The roots of the auditory nerves, McKendrick has pointed out, are probably more widely distributed and have more extensive connections than those of any other nerve. The intricate connections of these nerves are still only being unraveled. This points to an explanation of how music penetrates to the very roots of our being, influencing by associational paths reflex mechanisms both cerebral and somatic, so that there is scarcely a function of the body that may not be affected by the rhythmical pulsations, melodic progressions, and harmonic combinations of musical tones. ( Nature , June 15, 1899, p. 164.)

As an interesting example of the importance attached by women novelists to the effects of the male voice I may refer to George Eliot's Mill on the Floss , probably the most intimate and personal of George Eliot's works. In Book VI of this novel the influence of Stephen Guest (a somewhat commonplace young man) over Maggie Tulliver is ascribed almost exclusively to the effect of his base voice in singing. We are definitely told of Maggie Tulliver's "sensibility to the supreme excitement of music." Thus, on one occasion, "all her intentions were lost in the vague state of emotion produced by the inspiring duet—emotion that seemed to make her at once strong and weak: strong for all enjoyment, weak for all resistance. Poor Maggie! She looked very beautiful when her soul was being played on in this way by the inexorable power of sound. You might have seen the slightest perceptible quivering through her whole frame as she leaned a little forward, clasping her hands as if to steady herself; while her eyes dilated and brightened into that wideopen, childish expression of wondering delight, which always came back in her happiest moments." George Eliot's novels contain many allusions to the powerful emotional effects of music.

It is unnecessary to refer to Tolstoy's Kreutzer Sonata , in which music is regarded as the Galeotto to bring lovers together—"the connecting bond of music, the most refined lust of the senses."

Vaschide and Vurpas, who emphasize the sexually stimulating effects of music, only bring forward one case in any detail, and it is doubtless significant that this case is a woman. "While listening to a piece of music X changes expression, her eyes become bright, the features are accentuated, a smile begins to form, an expression of pleasure appears, the body becomes more erect, there is a general muscular hypertonicity. X tells us that as she listens to the music she experiences sensations very like those of normal intercourse. The difference chiefly concerns the local genital apparatus, for there is no flow of vaginal mucus. On the psychic side the resemblance is marked." (Vaschide and Vurpas, "Du Coefficient Sexual de l'Impulsion Musicale," Archives de Neurologie , May, 1904.)

It is sometimes said, or implied, that a woman (or a man) sings better under the influence of sexual emotion. The writer of an article already quoted, on "Woman in her Psychological Relations" ( Journal of Psychological Medicine , 1851), mentions that "a young lady remarkable for her musical and poetical talents naïvely remarked to a friend who complimented her upon her singing: 'I never sing half so well as when I've had a love-fit.'" And George Eliot says. "There is no feeling, perhaps, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not make a man sing or play the better." While, however, it may be admitted that some degree of general emotional exaltation may exercise a favorable influence on the singing voice, it is difficult to believe that definite physical excitement at or immediately before the exercise of the voice can, as a rule, have anything but a deleterious effect on its quality. It is recognized that tenors (whose voices resemble those of women more than basses, who are not called upon to be so careful in this respect) should observe rules of sexual hygiene; and menstruation frequently has a definite influence in impairing the voice (H. Ellis, Man and Woman , fourth edition, p. 290). As the neighborhood of menstruation is also the period when sexual excitement is most likely to be felt, we have here a further indication that sexual emotion is not favorable to singing. I agree with the remarks of a correspondent, a musical amateur, who writes: "Sexual excitement and good singing do not appear to be correlated. A woman's emotional capacity in singing or acting may be remotely associated with hysterical neuroses, but is better evinced for art purposes in the absence of disturbing sexual influences. A woman may, indeed, fancy herself the heroine of a wanton romance and 'let herself go' a little in singing with improved results. But a memory of sexual ardors will help no woman to make the best of her voice in training. Some women can only sing their best when they think of the other women they are outsinging. One girl 'lets her soul go out into her voice' thinking of jamroll, another thinking of her lover (when she has none), and most, no doubt, when they think of nothing. But no woman is likely to 'find herself' in an artistic sense because she has lost herself in another sense—not even if she has done so quite respectably."

Summary—Why the Influence of Music in Human Sexual Selection is Comparatively Small.

Primacy of Vision in Man—Beauty as a Sexual Allurement—The Objective Element in Beauty—Ideals of Feminine Beauty in Various Parts of the World—Savage Women sometimes Beautiful from European Point of View—Savages often Admire European Beauty—The Appeal of Beauty to some Extent Common even to Animals and Man.

The sexual element in the constitution of beauty is well recognized even by those writers who concern themselves exclusively with the æsthetic conception of beauty or with its relation to culture. It is enough to quote two or three testimonies on this point. "The whole sentimental side of our æsthetic sensibility," remarks Santayana, "—without which it would be perceptive and mathematical rather than æsthetic,—is due to our sexual organization remotely stirred.... If anyone were desirous to produce a being with a great susceptibility to beauty, he could not invent an instrument better designed for that object than sex. Individuals that need not unite for the birth and rearing of each generation might retain a savage independence. For them it would not be necessary that any vision should fascinate, or that any languor should soften, the prying cruelty of the eye. But sex endows the individual with a dumb and powerful instinct, which carries his body and soul continually toward another; makes it one of the dearest enjoyments of his life to select and pursue a companion, and joins to possession the keenest pleasure, to rivalry the fiercest rage, and to solitude an eternal melancholy. What more could be needed to suffuse the world with the deepest meaning and beauty? The attention is fixed upon a well-defined object, and all the effects it produces in the mind are easily regarded as powers or qualities of that object.... To a certain extent this kind of interest will center in the proper object of sexual passion, and in the special characteristics of the opposite sex ^[131] ; and we find, accordingly, that woman is the most lovely object to man, and man, if female modesty would confess it, the most interesting to woman. But the effects of so fundamental and primitive a reaction are much more general. Sex is not the only object of sexual passion. When love lacks its specific object, when it does not yet understand itself, or has been sacrificed to some other interest, we see the stifled fire bursting out in various directions.... Passion then overflows and visibly floods those neighboring regions which it had always secretly watered. For the same nervous organization which sex involves, with its necessarily wide branchings and associations in the brain, must be partially stimulated by other objects than its specific or ultimate one; especially in man, who, unlike some of the lower animals, has not his instincts clearly distinct and intermittent, but always partially active, and never active in isolation. We may say, then, that for man all nature is a secondary object of sexual passion, and that to this fact the beauty of nature is largely due." (G. Santayana, The Sense of Beauty , pp. 59-62.)

Not only is the general fact of sexual attraction an essential element of æsthetic contemplation, as Santayana remarks, but we have to recognize also that specific sexual emotion properly comes within the æsthetic field. It is quite erroneous, as Groos well points out, to assert that sexual emotion has no æsthetic value. On the contrary, it has quite as much value as the emotion of terror or of pity. Such emotion, must, however, be duly subordinated to the total æsthetic effect. (K. Groos, Der Æsthetische Genuss , p. 151.)

"The idea of beauty," Remy de Gourmont says, "is not an unmixed idea; it is intimately united with the idea of carnal pleasure. Stendhal obscurely perceived this when he defined beauty as 'a promise of happiness.' Beauty is a woman, and women themselves have carried docility to men so far as to accept this aphorism which they can only understand in extreme sexual perversion.... Beauty is so sexual that the only uncontested works of art are those that simply show the human body in its nudity. By its perseverance in remaining purely sexual Greek statuary has placed itself forever above all discussion. It is beautiful because it is a beautiful human body, such a one as every man or every woman would desire to unite with in the perpetuation of the race.... That which inclines to love seems beautiful; that which seems beautiful inclines to love. This intimate union of art and of love is, indeed, the only explanation of art. Without this genital echo art would never have been born and never have been perpetuated. There is nothing useless in these deep human depths; everything which has endured is necessary. Art is the accomplice of love. When love is taken away there is no art; when art is taken away love is nothing but a physiological need." (Remy de Gourmont, Culture des Idées , 1900, p. 103, and Mercure de France , August, 1901, pp. 298 et seq. )

Beauty as incarnated in the feminine body has to some extent become the symbol of love even for women. Colin Scott finds that it is common among women who are not inverted for female beauty whether on the stage or in art to arouse sexual emotion to a greater extent than male beauty, and this is confirmed by some of the histories I have recorded in the Appendix to the third volume of these Studies . Scott considers that female beauty has come to be regarded as typical of ideal beauty, and thus tends to produce an emotional effect on both sexes alike. It is certainly rare to find any æsthetic admiration of men among women, except in the case of women who have had some training in art. In this matter it would seem that woman passively accepts the ideals of man. "Objects which excite a man's desire," Colin Scott remarks, "are often, if not generally, the same as those affecting woman. The female body has a sexually stimulating effect upon both sexes. Statues of female forms are more liable than those of male form to have a stimulating effect upon women as well as men. The evidence of numerous literary expressions seems to show that under the influence of sexual excitement a woman regards her body as made for man's gratification, and that it is this complex emotion which forms the initial stage, at least, of her own pleasure. Her body is the symbol for her partner, and indirectly for her, through his admiration of it, of their mutual joy and satisfaction." (Colin Scott, "Sex and Art," American Journal of Psychology , vol. vii, No. 2, p. 206; also private letter.)

At the same time it must be remembered that beauty and the conception of beauty have developed on a wider basis than that of the sexual impulse only, and also that our conceptions of the beautiful, even as concerns the human form, are to some extent objective, and may thus be in part reduced to law. Stratz, in his books on feminine beauty, and notably in Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers , insists on the objective element in beauty. Papillault, again, when discussing the laws of growth and the beauty of the face, argues that beauty of line in the face is objective, and not a creation of fancy, since it is associated with the highest human functions, moral and social. He remarks on the contrast between the prehistoric man of Chancelade,—delicately made, with elegant face and high forehead,—who created the great Magdalenian civilization, and his seemingly much more powerful, but less beautiful, predecessor, the man of Spy, with enormous muscles and powerful jaws. ( Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie , 1899, p. 220.)

The largely objective character of beauty is further indicated by the fact that to a considerable extent beauty is the expression of health. A well and harmoniously developed body, tense muscles, an elastic and finely toned skin, bright eyes, grace and animation of carriage—all these things which are essential to beauty are the conditions of health. It has not been demonstrated that there is any correlation between beauty and longevity, and the proof would not be easy to give, but it is quite probable that such a correlation may exist, and various indications point in this direction. One of the most delightful of Opie's pictures is the portrait of Pleasance Reeve (afterward Lady Smith) at the age of 17. This singularly beautiful and animated brunette lived to the age of 104. Most people are probably acquainted with similar, if less marked, cases of the same tendency.

Before attempting to analyze the conception of beauty, regarded in its sexual appeal to the human mind, it may be well to bring together a few fairly typical descriptions of a beautiful woman as she appears to the men of various nations.

In an Australian folklore story taken down from the lips of a native some sixty years ago by W. Dunlop (but evidently not in the native's exact words) we find this description of an Australian beauty: "A man took as his wife a beautiful girl who had long, glossy hair hanging around her face and down her shoulders, which were plump and round. Her face was adorned with red clay and her person wrapped in a fine large opossum rug fastened by a pin formed from the small bone of the kangaroo's leg, and also by a string attached to a wallet made of rushes neatly plaited of small strips skinned from their outside after they had been for some time exposed to the heat of the fire; which being thrown on her back, the string passing under one arm and across her breast, held the soft rug in a fanciful position of considerable elegance; and she knew well how to show to advantage her queenlike figure when she walked with her polished yam stick held in one of her small hands and her little feet appearing below the edge of the rug" (W. Dunlop, "Australian Folklore Stories," Journal of the Anthropological Institute , August and November, 1898, p. 27).

A Malay description of female beauty is furnished by Skeat. "The brow (of the Malay Helen for whose sake a thousand desperate battles are fought in Malay romances) is like the one-day-old moon; her eyebrows resemble 'pictured clouds,' and are 'arched like the fighting-cock's (artificial) spur'; her cheek resembles the 'sliced-off cheek of a mango'; her nose, 'an opening jasmine bud'; her hair, the 'wavy blossom shoots of the areca-palm'; slender is her neck, 'with a triple row of dimples'; her bosom ripening, her waist 'lissom as the stalk of a flower,' her head; 'of a perfect oval' (literally, bird's-egg shaped), her fingers like the leafy 'spears of lemon-grass' or the 'quills of the porcupine,' her eyes 'like the splendor of the planet Venus,' and her lips 'like the fissure of a pomegranate.'" (W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic , 1900, p. 363.)

In Mitford's Tales of Old Japan (vol. i, p. 215) a "peerlessly beautiful girl of 16" is thus described: "She was neither too fat nor too thin, neither too tall nor too short; her face was oval, like a melon-seed, and her complexion fair and white;; her eyes were narrow and bright, her teeth small and even; her nose was aquiline, and her mouth delicately formed, with lovely red lips; her eyebrows were long and fine; she had a profusion of long black hair; she spoke modestly, with a soft, sweet voice, and when she smiled, two lovely dimples appeared in her cheeks; in all her movements she was gentle and refined." The Japanese belle of ancient times, Dr. Nagayo Sensai remarks ( Lancet , February 15, 1890) had a white face, a long, slender throat and neck, a narrow chest, small thighs, and small feet and hands. Bälz, also, has emphasized the ethereal character of the Japanese ideal of feminine beauty, delicate, pale and slender, almost uncanny; and Stratz, in his interesting book, Die Körperformen in Kunst und Leben der Japaner (second edition, 1904), has dealt fully with the subject of Japanese beauty.

The Singalese are great connoisseurs of beauty, and a Kandyan deeply learned in the matter gave Dr. Davy the following enumeration of a woman's points of beauty: "Her hair should be voluminous, like the tail of the peacock, long, reaching to her knees, and terminating in graceful curls; her eyebrows should resemble the rainbow, her eyes, the blue sapphire and the petals of the blue manilla-flower. Her nose should be like the bill of the hawk; her lips should be bright and red, like coral or the young leaf of the iron-tree. Her teeth should be small, regular, and closely set, and like jessamine buds. Her neck should be large and round, resembling the berrigodea. Her chest should be capacious; her breasts, firm and conical, like the yellow cocoa-nut, and her waist small—almost small enough to be clasped by the hand. Her hips should be wide; her limbs tapering; the soles of her feet, without any hollow, and the surface of her body in general soft, delicate, smooth, and rounded, without the asperities of projecting bones and sinews." (J. Davy, An Account of the Interior of Ceylon , 1821, p. 110.)

The "Padmini," or lotus-woman, is described by Hindu writers as the type of most perfect feminine beauty. "She in whom the following signs and symptoms appear is called a Padmini : Her face is pleasing as the full moon; her body, well clothed with flesh, is as soft as the Shiras or mustard flower; her skin is fine, tender, and fair as the yellow lotus, never dark colored. Her eyes are bright and beautiful as the orbs of the fawn, well cut, and with reddish corners. Her bosom is hard, full, and high; she; has a good neck; her nose is straight and lovely; and three folds or wrinkles cross her middle—about the umbilical region. Her yoni [vulva] resembles the opening lotus bud, and her love-seed is perfumed like the lily that has newly burst. She walks with swanlike [more exactly, flamingolike] gait, and her voice is low and musical as the note of the Kokila bird [the Indian cuckoo]; she delights in white raiment, in fine jewels, and in rich dresses. She eats little, sleeps lightly, and being as respectful and religious as she is clever and courteous, she is ever anxious to worship the gods and to enjoy the conversation of Brahmans. Such, then, is the Padmini, or lotus-woman." ( The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana , 1883, p. 11.)

The Hebrew ideal of feminine beauty is set forth in various passages of the Song of Songs . The poem is familiar, and it will suffice to quote one passage:—

And the man is thus described in the same poem:—

"The maiden whose loveliness inspires the most impassioned expressions in Arabic poetry," Lane states, "is celebrated for her slender figure: She is like the cane among plants, and is elegant as a twig of the oriental willow. Her face is like the full moon, presenting the strongest contrast to the color of her hair, which is of the deepest hue of night, and falls to the middle of her back (Arab ladies are extremely fond of full and long hair). A rosy blush overspreads the center of each cheek; and a mole is considered an additional charm. The Arabs, indeed, are particularly extravagant in their admiration of this natural beauty spot, which, according to its place, is compared to a drop of ambergris upon a dish of alabaster or upon the surface of a ruby. The eyes of the Arab beauty are intensely black, ^[132] large, and long, of the form of an almond: they are full of brilliancy; but this is softened by long silken lashes, giving a tender and languid expression that is full of enchantment and scarcely to be improved by the adventitious aid of the black border of kohl; for this the lovely maiden adds rather for the sake of fashion than necessity, having what the Arabs term natural kohl. The eyebrows are thin and arched; the forehead is wide and fair as ivory; the nose straight; the mouth, small; the lips of a brilliant red; and the teeth, like pearls set in coral. The forms of the bosom are compared to two pomegranates; the waist is slender; the hips are wide and large; the feet and hands, small; the fingers, tapering, and their extremities dyed with the deep orange tint imparted by the leaves of the henna."

Lane adds a more minute analysis from an unknown author quoted by El-Ishákee: "Four things in a woman should be black —the hair of the head, the eyebrows, the eyelashes, and the dark part of the eyes; four white —the complexion of the skin, the white of the eyes, the teeth, and the legs; four red —the tongue, the lips, the middle of the cheeks, and the gums; four round —the head, the neck, the forearms, and the ankles; four long —the back, the fingers, the arms, and the legs; four wide —the forehead, the eyes, the bosom, and the hips; four fine —the eyebrows, the nose, the lips, and the fingers; four thick —the lower part of the back, the thighs, the calves of the legs, and the knees; four small —the ears, the breasts, the hands, and the feet." (E. W. Lane, Arabian Society in the Middle Ages , 1883, pp. 214-216.)

A Persian treatise on the figurative terms relating to beauty shows that the hair should be black, abundant, and wavy, the eyebrows dark and arched. The eyelashes also must be dark, and like arrows from the bow of the eyebrows. There is, however, no insistence on the blackness of the eyes. We hear of four varieties of eye: the dark-gray eye (or narcissus eye); the narrow, elongated eye of Turkish beauties; the languishing, or love-intoxicated, eye; and the wine-colored eye. Much stress is laid on the quality of brilliancy. The face is sometimes described as brown, but more especially as white and rosy. There are many references to the down on the lips, which is described as greenish (sometimes bluish) and compared to herbage. This down and that on the cheeks and the stray hairs near the ears were regarded as very great beauties. A beauty spot on the chin, cheek, or elsewhere was also greatly admired, and evoked many poetic comparisons. The mouth must be very small. In stature a beautiful woman must be tall and erect, like the cypress or the maritime pine. While the Arabs admired the rosiness of the legs and thighs, the Persians insisted on white legs and compared them to silver and crystal. ( Anis El-Ochchâq , by Shereef-Eddin Romi, translated by Huart, Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes , Paris, fasc. 25, 1875.)

In the story of Kamaralzaman in the Arabian Nights El-Sett Budur is thus described: "Her hair is so brown that it is blacker than the separation of friends. And when it is arrayed in three tresses that reach to her feet I seem to see three nights at once.

"Her face is as white as the day on which friends meet again. If I look on it at the time of the full moon I see two moons at once.

"Her cheeks are formed of an anemone divided into two corollas; they have the purple tinge of wine, and her nose is straighter and more delicate than the finest sword-blade.

"Her lips are colored agate and coral; her tongue secretes eloquence; her saliva is more desirable than the juice of grapes.

"But her bosom, blessed be the Creator, is a living seduction. It bears twin breasts of the purest ivory, rounded, and that may be held within the five fingers of one hand.

"Her belly has dimples full of shade and arranged with the harmony of the Arabic characters on the seal of a Coptic scribe in Egypt. And the belly gives origin to her finely modeled and elastic waist.

"At the thought of her flanks I shudder, for thence depends a mass so weighty that it obliges its owner to sit down when she has risen and to rise when she lies.

"Such are her flanks, and from them descend, like white marble, her glorious thighs, solid and straight, united above beneath their crown. Then come the legs and the slender feet, so small that I am astounded they can bear so great a weight."

An Egyptian stela in the Louvre sings the praise of a beautiful woman, a queen who died about 700 B.C., as follows: "The beloved before all women, the king's daughter who is sweet in love, the fairest among women, a maid whose like none has seen. Blacker is her hair than the darkness of night, blacker than the berries of the blackberry bush (?). Harder are her teeth (?) than the flints on the sickle. A wreath of flowers is each of her breasts, close nestling on her arms." Wiedemann, who quotes this, adds: "During the whole classic period of Egyptian history with few exceptions (such, for example, as the reign of that great innovator, Amenophis IV) the ideal alike for the male and the female body was a slender and but slightly developed form. Under the Ethiopian rule and during the Ptolemaic period in Egypt itself we find, for the first time, that the goddesses are represented with plump and well-developed outlines. Examination of the mummies shows that the earlier ideal was based upon actual facts, and that in ancient Egypt slender, sinewy forms distinguished both men and women. Intermarriage with other races and harem life may have combined in later times to alter the physical type, and with it to change also the ideal of beauty." (A. Wiedemann, Popular Literature in Ancient Egypt , p. 7.)

Commenting on Plato's ideas of beauty in the Banquet Eméric-David gives references from Greek literature showing that the typical Greek beautiful woman must be tall, her body supple, her fingers long, her foot small and light, the eyes clear and moderately large, the eyebrows slightly arched and almost meeting, the nose straight and firm, nearly—but not quite—aquiline, the breath sweet as honey. (Eméric-David, Recherches sur l'Art Statuaire , new edition, 1863, p. 42.)

At the end of classic antiquity, probably in the fifth century, Aristænetus in his first Epistle thus described his mistress Lais: "Her cheeks are white, but mixed in imitation of the splendor of the rose; her lips are thin, by a narrow space separated from the cheeks, but more red; her eyebrows are black and divided in the middle; the nose straight and proportioned to the thin lips; the eyes large and bright, with very black pupils, surrounded by the clearest white, each color more brilliant by contrast. Her hair is naturally curled, and, as Homer's saying is, like the hyacinth. The neck is white and proportioned to the face, and though unadorned more conspicuous by its delicacy; but a necklace of gems encircles it, on which her name is written in jewels. She is tall and elegantly dressed in garments fitted to her body and limbs. When dressed her appearance is beautiful; when undressed she is all beauty. Her walk is composed and slow; she looks like a cypress or a palm stirred by the wind. I cannot describe how the swelling, symmetrical breasts raise the constraining vest, nor how delicate and supple her limbs are. And when she speaks, what sweetness in her discourse!"

Renier has studied the feminine ideal of the Provençal poets, the troubadours who used the "langue d'oc." "They avoid any description of the feminine type. The indications refer in great part to the slender, erect, fresh appearance of the body, and to the white and rosy coloring. After the person generally, the eyes receive most praise; they are sweet, amorous, clear, smiling, and bright. The color is never mentioned. The mouth is laughing, and vermilion, and, smiling sweetly, it reveals the white teeth and calls for the delights of the kiss. The face is clear and fresh, the hand white and the hair constantly blonde. The troubadours seldom speak of the rest of the body. Peire Vidal is an exception, and his reference to the well-raised breasts may be placed beside a reference by Bertran de Born. The general impression conveyed by the love lyrics of the langue d'oc is one of great convention. There seemed to be no salvation outside certain phrases and epithets. The woman of Provence, sung by hundreds of poets, seems to have been composed all of milk and roses, a blonde Nuremburg doll." (R. Renier, Il Tipo Estetico della Donna nel Mediœvo , 1885, pp. 1-24.)

The conventional ideal of the troubadours is, again, thus described: "She is a lady whose skin is white as milk, whiter than the driven snow, of peculiar purity in whiteness. Her cheeks, on which vermilion hues alone appear, are like the rosebud in spring, when it has not yet opened to the full. Her hair, which is nearly always bedecked and adorned with flowers, is invariably of the color of flax, as soft as silk, and shimmering with a sheen of the finest gold." (J. F. Rowbotham, The Troubadours and Courts of Love , p. 228.)

In the most ancient Spanish romances, Renier remarks, the definite indications of physical beauty are slight. The hair is "of pure gold," or simply fair ( rudios , which is equal to blondos , a word of later introduction), the face white and rosy, the hand soft, white, and fragrant; in one place we find a reference to the uncovered breasts, whiter than crystal. But usually the ancient Castilian romances do not deal with these details. The poet contents himself with the statement that a lady is the sweetest woman in the world, " la mas linda mujer del mundo ." (R. Renier, Il Tipo Estetico della Donna nel Mediœvo , pp. 68 et seq. )

In a detailed and well-documented thesis, Alwin Schultz describes the characteristics of the beautiful woman as she appealed to the German authors of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. She must be of medium height and slender. Her hair must be fair, like gold; long, bright, and curly; a man's must only reach to his shoulders. Dark hair is seldom mentioned and was not admired. The parting of the hair must be white, but not too broad. The forehead must be white and bright and rounded, without wrinkles. The eyebrows must be darker than the hair, arched, and not too broad, as though drawn with a pencil, the space between them not too broad. The eyes must be bright, clear, and sparkling, not too large or too small; nothing definite was said of the color, but they were evidently usually blue. The nose must be of medium size, straight, and not curved. The cheeks must be white, tinged with red; if the red was absent by nature women used rouge. The mouth must be small; the lips full and red. The teeth must be small, white, and even. The chin must be white, rounded, lovable, dimpled; the ears small and beautiful; the neck of medium size, soft, white, and spotless; the arm small; the hands and fingers long; the joints small, the nails white and bright and well cared for. The bosom must be white and large; the breasts high and rounded, like apples or pears, small and soft. The body generally must be slender and active. The lower parts of the body are very seldom mentioned, and many poets are even too modest to mention the breasts. The buttocks must be rounded, one poet, indeed, mentions, and the thighs soft and white, the meinel (mons) brown. The legs must be straight and narrow, the calves full, the feet small and narrow, with high instep. The color of the skin generally must be clear and of a tempered rosiness. (A. Schultz, Quid de Perfecta Corporis Humani Pulchritudine Germani Sœculi XII et XIII Senserint , 1866.) A somewhat similar, but shorter, account is given by K. Weinhold ( Die Deutschen Frauen im Mittelalter , 1882, bd. 1, pp. 219 et seq. ). Weinhold considers that, like the French, the Germans admired the mixed eye, vair or gray.

Adam de la Halle, the Artois trouvère of the thirteenth century, in a piece ("Li Jus Adan ou de la feuillie") in which he brings himself forward, thus describes his mistress: "Her hair had the brilliance of gold, and was twisted into rebellious curls. Her forehead was very regular, white, and smooth; her eyebrows, delicate and even, were two brown arches, which seemed traced with a brush. Her eyes, bright and well cut, seemed to me vairs and full of caresses; they were large beneath, and their lids like little sickles, adorned by twin folds, veiled or revealed at her will her loving gaze. Between her eyes descended the pipe of her nose, straight and beautiful, mobile when she was gay; on either side were her rounded, white cheeks, on which laughter impressed two dimples, and which one could see blushing beneath her veil. Beneath the nose opened a mouth with blossoming lips; this mouth, fresh and vermilion as a rose, revealed the white teeth, in regular array; beneath the chin sprang the white neck, descending full and round to the shoulder. The powerful nape, white and without any little wandering hairs, protruded a little over the dress. To her sloping shoulders were attached long arms, large or slender where they so should be. What shall I say of her white hands, with their long fingers, and knuckles without knots, delicately ending in rosy nails attached to the flesh by a clear and single line? I come to her bosom with its firm breasts, but short and high pointed, revealing the valley of love between them, to her round belly, her arched flanks. Her hips were flat, her legs round, her calf large; she had a slender ankle, a lean and arched foot. Such she was as I saw her, and that which her chemise hid was not of less worth." (Houdoy, La Beauté des Femmes , p. 125, who quotes the original of this passage, considers it the ideal model of the mediæval woman.)

In the twelfth century story of Aucassin et Nicolette , "Nicolette had fair hair, delicate and curling; her eyes were gray ( vairs ) and smiling; her face admirably modeled. Her nose was high and well placed; her lips small and more vermilion than the cherry or the rose in summer; her teeth were small and white; her firm little breasts raised her dress as would two walnuts. Her figure was so slender that you could inclose it with your two hands, and the flowers of the marguerite, which her toes broke as she walked with naked feet, seemed black in comparison with her feet and legs, so white was she."

"Her hair was divided into a double tress," says Alain of Lille in the twelfth century, "which was long enough to kiss the ground; the parting, white as the lily and obliquely traced, separated the hair, and this want of symmetry, far from hurting her face, was one of the elements of her beauty. A golden comb maintained that abundant hair whose brilliance rivaled it, so that the fascinated eye could scarce distinguish the gold of the hair from the gold of the comb. The expanded forehead had the whiteness of milk, and rivaled the lily; her bright eyebrows shone like gold, not standing up in a brush, and, without being too scanty, orderly arranged. The eyes, serene and brilliant in their friendly light, seemed twin stars, her nostrils embalsamed with the odor of honey, neither too depressed in shape nor too prominent, were of distinguished form; the nard of her mouth offered to the smell a treat of sweet odors, and her half-open lips invited a kiss. The teeth seemed cut in ivory; her cheeks, like the carnation of the rose, gently illuminated her face and were tempered by the transparent whiteness of her veil. Her chin, more polished than crystal, showed silver reflections, and her slender neck fitly separated her head from the shoulders. The firm rotundity of her breasts attested the full expansion of youth; her charming arms, advancing toward you, seemed to call for caresses; the regular curve of her flanks, justly proportioned, completed her beauty. All the visible traits of her face and form thus sufficiently told what those charms must be that the bed alone knew." (The Latin text is given by Houdoy, La Beauté des Femmes du XIIe au XVIe Siècle , p. 119. Robert de Flagy's portrait of Blanchefleur in Sarin-le-Loherain , written in same century, reveals very similar traits.)

"The young woman appeared with twenty brightly polished daggers and swords," we read in the Irish Tain Bo Cuailgne of the Badhbh or Banshee who appeared to Meidhbh, "together with seven braids for the dead, of bright gold, in her right hand; a speckled garment of green ground, fastened by a bodkin at the breast under her fair, ruddy countenance, enveloped her form; her teeth were so new and bright that they appeared like pearls artistically set in her gums; like the ripe berry of the mountain ash were her lips; sweeter was her voice than the notes of the gentle harp-strings when touched by the most skillful fingers, and emitting the most enchanting melody; whiter than the snow of one night was her skin, and beautiful to behold were her garments, which reached to her well molded, bright-nailed feet; copious tresses of her tendriled, glossy, golden hair hung before, while others dangled behind and reached the calf of her leg." ( Ossianio Transactions , vol. ii, p. 107.)

An ancient Irish hero is thus described: "They saw a great hero approaching them; fairest of the heroes of the world; larger and taller than any man; bluer than ice his eye; redder than the fresh rowan berries his lips; whiter than showers of pearl his teeth; fairer than the snow of one night his skin; a protecting shield with a golden border was upon him, two battle-lances in his hands; a sword with knobs of ivory [teeth of the sea-horse], and ornamented with gold, at his side; he had no other accoutrements of a hero besides these; he had golden hair on his head, and had a fair, ruddy countenance." ( The Banquet of Dun na n-gedh , translated by O'Donovan, Irish Archæological Society , 1842.)

The feminine ideal of the Italian poets closely resembles that of those north of the Alps. Petrarch's Laura, as described in the Canzoniere , is white as snow; her eyes, indeed, are black, but the fairness of her hair is constantly emphasized; her lips are rosy; her teeth white; her cheeks rosy; her breast youthful; her hands white and slender. Other poets insist on the tall, white, delicate body; the golden or blonde hair; the bright or starry eyes (without mention of color), the brown or black arched eyebrows, the straight nose, the small mouth, the thin vermilion lips, the small and firm breasts. (Renier, Il Tipo Estetico , pp. 87 et seq. )

Marie de France, a French mediæval writer of the twelfth century, who spent a large part of her life in England, in the Lai of Lanval thus described a beautiful woman: "Her body was beautiful, her hips low, the neck whiter than snow, the eyes gray ( vairs ), the face white, the mouth beautiful, the nose well placed, the eyebrows brown, the forehead beautiful, the head curly and blonde; the gleam of gold thread was less bright than her hair beneath the sun."

The traits of Boccaccio's ideal of feminine beauty, a voluptuous ideal as compared with the ascetic mediæval ideal which had previously prevailed, together with the characteristics of the very beautiful and almost classic garments in which he arrayed women, have been brought together by Hortis ( Studi sulle opere Latine del Boccaccio , 1879, pp. 70 et seq. ). Boccaccio admired fair and abundant wavy hair, dark and delicate eyebrows, and brown or even black eyes. It was not until some centuries later, as Hortis remarks, that Boccaccio's ideal woman was embodied by the painter in the canvases of Titian.

The first precise description of a famous beautiful woman was written by Niphus in the sixteenth century in his De Pulchro et Amore , which is regarded as the first modern treatise on æsthetics. The lady described is Joan of Aragon, the greatest beauty of her time, whose portrait by Raphael (or more probably Giulio Romano) is in the Louvre. Niphus, who was the philosopher of the pontifical court and the friend of Leo X, thus describes this princess, whom, as a physician, he had opportunities of observing accurately: "She is of medium stature, straight, and elegant, and possesses the grace which can only be imparted by an assemblage of characteristics which are individually faultless. She is neither fat nor bony, but succulent; her complexion is not pale, but white tinged with rose; her long hair is golden; her ears are small and in proportion with the size of her mouth. Her brown eyebrows are semicircular, not too bushy, and the individual hairs short. Her eyes are blue ( oæsius ), brighter than stars, radiant with grace and gaiety beneath the dark-brown eyelashes, which are well spaced and not too long. The nose, symmetrical and of medium size, descends perpendicularly from between the eyebrows. The little valley separating the nose from the upper lip is divinely proportioned. The mouth, inclined to be rather small, is always stirred by a sweet smile; the rather thick lips are made of honey and coral. The teeth are small, polished as ivory, and symmetrically ranged, and the breath has the odor of the sweetest perfumes. Her voice is that of a goddess. The chin is divided by a dimple; the whole face approximates to a virile rotundity. The straight long neck, white and full, rises gracefully from the shoulders. On the ample bosom, revealing no indication of the bones, arise the rounded breasts, of equal and fitting size, and exhaling the perfume of the peaches they resemble. The rather plump hands, on the back like snow, on the palm like ivory, are exactly the length of the face; the full and rounded fingers are long and terminating in round, curved nails of soft color. The chest as a whole has the form of a pear, reversed, but a little compressed, and the base attached to the neck in a delightfully well-proportioned manner. The belly, the flanks, and the secret parts are worthy of the chest; the hips are large and rounded; the thighs, the legs, and the arms are in just proportion. The breadth of the shoulders is also in the most perfect relation to the dimensions of the other parts of the body; the feet, of medium length, terminate in beautifully arranged toes." (Houdoy reproduces this passage in La Beauté des Femmes ; cf. also Stratz, Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers , Chapter III.)

Gabriel de Minut, who published in 1587 a treatise of no very great importance, De la Beauté , also wrote under the title of La Paulegraphie a very elaborate description, covering sixty pages, of Paule de Viguier, a Gascon lady of good family and virtuous life living at Toulouse. Minut was her devoted admirer and addressed an affectionate poem to her just before his death. She was seventy years of age when he wrote the elaborate account of her beauty. She had blue eyes and fair hair, though belonging to one of the darkest parts of France.

Ploss and Bartels ( Das Weib , bd. 1, sec. 3) have independently brought together a number of passages from the writers of many countries describing their ideals of beauty. On this collection I have not drawn.

Even among so primitive and remote a people as the Australians beauty in the European sense is sometimes found. "I have on two occasions," Lumholtz states, "seen what might be called beauties among the women of western Queensland. Their hands were small, their feet neat and well shaped, with so high an instep that one asked oneself involuntarily where in the world they had acquired this aristocratic mark of beauty. Their figure was above criticism, and their skin, as is usually the case among the young women, was as soft as velvet. When these black daughters of Eve smiled and showed their beautiful white teeth, and when their eyes peeped coquettishly from beneath the curly hair which hung in quite the modern fashion down their foreheads," Lumholtz realized that even here women could exert the influence ascribed by Goethe to women generally. (C. Lumholtz, Among Cannibals , p. 132.) Much has, again, been written about the beauty of the American Indians. See, e.g. , an article by Dr. Shufeldt, "Beauty from an Indian's Point of View," Cosmopolitan Magazine , April, 1895. Among the Seminole Indians, especially, it is said that types of handsome and comely women are not uncommon. ( Clay MacCauley, "Seminole Indians of Florida," Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology , 1883-1884, pp. 493 et seq. )

There is much even in the negress which appeals to the European as beautiful. "I have met many negresses," remarks Castellani ( Les Femmes au Congo , p. 2), "who could say proudly in the words of the Song of Songs, 'I am black, but comely.' Many of our peasant women have neither the same grace nor the same delicate skin as some natives of Cassai or Songha. As to color, I have seen on the African continent creatures of pale gold or even red copper whose fine and satiny skin rivals the most delicate white skins; one may, indeed, find beauties among women of the darkest ebony." He adds that, on the whole, there is no comparison with white women, and that the negress soon becomes hideous.

The very numerous quotations from travelers concerning the women of all lands quoted by Ploss and Bartels ( Das Weib , seventh edition, bd. i, pp. 88-106) amply suffice to show how frequently some degree of beauty is found even among the lowest human races. Cf. , also, Mantegazza's survey of the women of different races from this point of view, Fisiologia della Donna , Cap. IV.

"Mr. Winwood Reade," stated Darwin, "who has had ample opportunities for observation, not only with the negroes of the West Coast of Africa, but with those of the interior who have never associated with Europeans, is convinced that their ideas of beauty are, on the whole , the same as ours; and Dr. Rohlfs writes to me to the same effect with respect to Bornu and the countries inhabited by the Pullo tribes. Mr. Reade found that he agreed with the negroes in their estimation of the beauty of the native girls; and that their appreciation of the beauty of European women corresponded with ours.... The Fuegians, as I have been informed by a missionary who long resided with them, considered European women as extremely beautiful ... I should add that a most experienced observer, Captain [Sir R.] Burton, believes that a woman whom we consider beautiful is admired throughout the world." (Darwin, Descent of Man , Chapter XIX.)

Mantegazza quotes a conversation between a South American chief and an Argentine who had asked him which he preferred, the women of his own people or Christian women; the chief replied that he admired Christian women most, and when asked the reason said that they were whiter and taller, had finer hair and smoother skin. (Mantegazza, Fisiologia della Donna , Appendix to Cap. VIII.)

Nordenskjöld, as quoted by Ploss and Bartels, states that the Eskimo regard their own type as more ugly than that produced by crossing with white persons, and, according to Kropf, the Nosa Kaffers admire and seek the fairer half-castes in preference to their own women of pure race (Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib , seventh edition, bd. 1, p. 78). There is a widespread admiration for fairness, it may be added, among dark peoples. Fair men are admired by the Papuans at Torres Straits ( Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition , vol. v, p. 327). The common use of powder among the women of dark-skinned peoples bears witness to the existence of the same ideal.

Stratz, in his books Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers and Die Rassenschönheit des Weibes , argues that the ideal of beauty is fundamentally the same throughout the world, and that the finest persons among the lower races admire and struggle to attain the type which is found commonly and in perfection among the white peoples of Europe. When in Japan he found that among the numerous photographs of Japanese beauties everywhere to be seen, his dragoman, a Japanese of low birth, selected as the most beautiful those which displayed markedly the Japanese type with narrow-slitted eyes and broad nose. When he sought the opinion of a Japanese photographer, who called himself an artist and had some claim to be so considered, the latter selected as most beautiful three Japanese girls who in Europe also would have been considered pretty. In Java, also, when selecting from a large number of Javanese girls a few suitable for photographing, Stratz was surprised to find that a Javanese doctor pointed out as most beautiful those which most closely corresponded to the European type. (Stratz, Die Rassenschönheit des Weibes , fourth edition, 1903, p. 3; id. , Die Körperformen der Japaner , 1904, p. 78.)

Stratz reproduces (Rassenschönheit, pp. 36 et seq. ) a representation of Kwan-yin, the Chinese goddess of divine love, and quotes some remarks of Borel's concerning the wide deviation of the representations of the goddess, a type of gracious beauty, from the Chinese racial type. Stratz further reproduces the figure of a Buddhistic goddess from Java (now in the Archæological Museum of Leyden) which represents a type of loveliness corresponding to the most refined and classic European ideal.

Beauty to Some Extent Consists Primitively in an Exaggeration of the Sexual Characters—The Sexual Organs—Mutilations, Adornments, and Garments—Sexual Allurement the Original Object of Such Devices—The Religious Element—Unæsthetic Character of the Sexual Organs—Importance of the Secondary Sexual Characters—The Pelvis and Hips—Steatopygia—Obesity—Gait—The Pregnant Woman as a Mediæval Type of Beauty—The Ideals of the Renaissance—The Breasts—The Corset—Its Object—Its History—Hair—The Beard—The Element of National or Racial Type in Beauty—The Relative Beauty of Blondes and Brunettes—The General European Admiration for Blondes—The Individual Factors in the Constitution of the Idea of Beauty—The Love of the Exotic.

Sir Andrew Smith informed Darwin that the elongated nymphæ (or "Hottentot apron") found among the women of some South African tribes was formerly greatly admired by the men ( Descent of Man , Chapter XIX). This formation is probably a natural peculiarity of the women of these races which is very much exaggerated by intentional manipulation due to the admiration it arouses. The missionary Merensky reported the prevalence of the practice of artificial elongation among the Basuto and other peoples, and the anatomical evidence is in favor of its partly artificial character. (The Hottentot apron is fully discussed by Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib , bd. I, sec. vi.)

In the Jaboo country on the Bight of Benin in West Africa, Daniell stated, it was considered ornamental to elongate the labia and the clitoris artificially; small weights were appended to the clitoris and gradually increased. (W. F. Daniell, Topography of Gulf of Guinea , 1849, pp. 24, 53.)

Among the Bawenda of the northern Transvaal, the missionary Wessmann states, it is customary for young girls from the age of 8 to spend a certain amount of time every day in pulling the labia majora in order to elongate them; in selecting a wife the young men attach much importance to this elongation, and the girl whose labia stand out most is most attractive. ( Zeitschrift für Ethnologie , 1894, ht. 4, p. 363.)

It may be added that in various parts of the world mutilations of the sexual organs of men and women, or operations upon them, are practiced, for reasons which are imperfectly known, since it usually happens that the people who practice them are unable to give the reason for this practice, or they assign a reason which is manifestly not that which originally prompted the practice. Thus, the excision of the clitoris, practiced in many parts of East Africa and frequently supposed to be for the sake of dulling sexual feeling (J. S. King Journal of the Anthropological Society , Bombay, 1890, p. 2), seems very doubtfully accounted for thus, for the women have it done of their own accord; "all Sobo women [Niger coast] have their clitoris cut off; unless they have this done they are looked down upon, as slave women who do not get cut; as soon, therefore, as a Sobo woman has collected enough money, she goes to an operating woman and pays her to do the cutting." ( Journal of the Anthropological Institute , August-November, 1898, p. 117.) The Comte de Cardi investigated this matter in the Niger Delta: "I have questioned both native men and women," he states, "to try and get the natives' reason for this rite, but the almost universal answer to my queries was, 'it is our country's fashion.'" One old man told him it was practiced because favorable to continence, and several old women said that once the women of the land used to suffer from a peculiar kind of madness which this rite reduced. ( Journal of the Anthropological Institute , August-November, 1899, p. 59.) In the same way the subincision of the urethra (mika operation of Australia) is frequently supposed to be for the purpose of preventing conception (See, e.g. , the description of the operation by J. G. Garson, Medical Press , February 21, 1894), but this is very doubtful, and E. C. Stirling found that subincised natives often had large families. ( Intercolonial Quarterly Journal of Medicine and Surgery , 1894.)

A passage in the Mainz Chronicle for 1367 (as quoted by Schultz, Das Höfische Leben , p. 297) shows that at that time the tunics of the men were so made that it was always possible for the sexual organs to be seen in walking or sitting.

"Hardly any other object," remarks Dr. Richard Andree, "has been with such great unanimity represented by nearly all peoples as the phallus, the symbol of procreative force in the religions of the East and an object of veneration at public festivals. In the Moabitic Baal Peor, in the cult of Dionysos, everywhere, indeed, except in Persia, we meet with Priapic representations and the veneration accorded to the generative organ. It is needless to refer to the great significance of the Linga puja , the procreative organ of the god Siva, in India, a god to whom more temples were erected than to any other Indian deity. Our museums amply show how common phallic representations are in Africa, East Asia, the Pacific, frequently in connection with religious worship." (R. Andree, "Amerikansche Phallus-Darstellungen," Zeitschrift für Ethnologie , 1895, ht. 6, p. 678.)

Women have no external generative organ like the phallus to play a large part in life as a sacred symbol. There is, however, some reason to believe that the triangle is to some extent such a symbol. Lejeune ("La Representation Sexuelle en Religion, Art, et Pédagogie," Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie , Paris, October 3, 1901) brings forward reasons in favor of the view that the triangular hair-covered region of the mons veneris has had considerable significance in this respect, and he presents various primitive figures in illustration.

The following communication from a correspondent well brings out the divergences of feeling in this matter:

"You write that the sex organs, in an excited condition, cannot be called æsthetic. But I believe that they are a source, not only of curiosity and wonder to many persons, but also objects of admiration. I happen to know of one man, extremely intellectual and refined, who delights in lying between his mistress's thighs and gazing long at the dilated vagina. Also another man, married, and not intellectual, who always tenderly gazes at his wife's organs, in a strong light, before intercourse, and kisses her there and upon the abdomen. The wife, though amative, confessed to another woman that she could not understand the attraction. On the other hand, two married men have told me that the sight of their wives' genital parts would disgust them, and that they have never seen them.

"If the sexual parts cannot be called æsthetic, they have still a strong charm for many passionate lovers, of both sexes, though not often, I believe, among the unimaginative and the uneducated, who are apt to ridicule the organs or to be repelled by them. Many women confess that they are revolted by the sight of even a husband's complete nudity, though they have no indifference for sexual embraces. I think that the stupid bungle of Nature in making the generative organs serve as means of relieving the bladder has much to do with this revulsion. But some women of erotic temperament find pleasure in looking at the penis of a husband or lover, in handling it, and kissing it. Prostitutes do this in the way of business; some chaste, passionate wives act thus voluntarily. This is scarcely morbid, as the mammalia of most species smell and lick each others' genitals. Probably primitive man did the same."

Brantôme ( Vie des Dames Galantes , Discours II) has some remarks to much the same effect concerning the difference between men, some of whom take no pleasure in seeing the private parts of their wives or mistresses, while others admire them and delight to kiss them.

I must add that, however natural or legitimate the attraction of the sexual parts may be to either sex, the question of their purely æsthetic beauty remains unaffected.

Remy de Gourmont, in a discussion of the æsthetic element in sexual beauty, considers that the invisibility of the sexual organs is the decisive fact in rendering women more beautiful than men. "Sex, which is sometimes an advantage, is always a burden and always a flaw; it exists for the race and not for the individual. In the human male, and precisely because of his erect attitude, sex is the predominantly striking and visible fact, the point of attack in a struggle at close quarters, the point aimed at from a distance, an obstacle for the eye, whether regarded as a rugosity on the surface or as breaking the middle of a line. The harmony of the feminine body is thus geometrically much more perfect, especially when we consider the male and the female at the moment of desire when they present the most intense and natural expression of life. Then the woman, whose movements are all interior, or only visible by the undulation of her curves, preserves her full æsthetic value, while the man, as it were, all at once receding toward the primitive state of animality, seems to throw off all beauty and become reduced to the simple and naked condition of a genital organism." (Remy de Gourmont, Physique de l'Amour , p. 69.) Remy de Gourmont proceeds, however, to point out that man has his revenge after a woman has become pregnant, and that, moreover, the proportions of the masculine body are more beautiful than those of the feminine body.

The main secondary sexual characters in woman and the type which they present in beautiful and well-developed persons are summarized as follows by Stratz, who in his book on the beauty of the body in woman sets forth the reasons for the characteristics here given:—

• Delicate bony structure.
• Rounded forms and breasts.
• Broad pelvis.
• Long and abundant hair.
• Low and narrow boundary of pubic hair.
• Sparse hair in armpit.
• No hair on body.
• Delicate skin.
• Rounded skull.
• Small face.
• Large orbits.
• High and slender eyebrows.
• Low and small lower jaw.
• Soft transition from cheek to neck.
• Rounded neck.
• Slender wrist.
• Small hand, with long index finger.
• Rounded shoulders.
• Straight, small clavicle.
• Small and long thorax.
• Slender waist.
• Hollow sacrum.
• Prominent and domed nates.
• Sacral dimples.
• Rounded and thick thighs.
• Low and obtuse pubic arch.
• Soft contour of knee.
• Rounded calves.
• Slender ankle.
• Small toes.
• Long second and short fifth toe.
• Broad middle incisor teeth.

(Stratz, Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers , fourteenth edition, 1903, p. 200. This statement agrees at most points with my own exposition of the secondary sexual characters: Man and Woman , fourth edition, revised and enlarged, 1904.)

In an elaborate discussion of beauty of movement Stratz summarizes the special characters of the gait in woman as follows: "A woman's walk is chiefly distinguished from a man's by shorter steps, the more marked forward movement of the hips, the greater length of the phase of rest in relation to the phase of motion, and by the fact that the compensatory movements of the upper parts of the body are less powerfully supported by the action of the arms and more by the revolution of the flanks. A man's walk has a more pushing and active character, a woman's a more rolling and passive character; while a man seems to seek to catch his fleeing equilibrium, a woman seems to seek to preserve the equilibrium she has reached.... A woman's walk is beautiful when it shows the definitely feminine and rolling character, with the greatest predominance of the moment of extension over that of flexion." (Stratz, Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers , fourteenth edition, p. 275.)

"Through all the middle ages down to Dürer and Cranach," quite truly remarks Laura Marholm (as quoted by I. Bloch, Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis , Teil I, p. 154), "we find a very peculiar type which has falsely been regarded as one of merely ascetic character. It represents quiet, peaceful, and cheerful faces, full of innocence; tall, slender, young figures; the shoulders still scanty; the breasts small, with slender legs beneath their garments; and round the upper part of the body clothing that is tight almost to the point of constriction. The waist comes just under the bosom, and from this point the broad skirts in folds give to the most feminine part of the feminine body full and absolutely unhampered power of movement and expansion. The womanly belly even in saints and virgins is very pronounced in the carriage of the body and clearly protuberant beneath the clothing. It is the maternal function, in sacred and profane figures alike, which marks the whole type—indeed, the whole conception—of woman." For a brief period this fashion reappeared in the eighteenth century, and women wore pads and other devices to increase the size of the abdomen.

The casual vision of a girl's breasts may, in the chastest youth, evoke a strange perturbation. ( Cf. , e.g. , a passage in an early chapter of Marcelle Tinayre's La Maison du Péché .) We need not regard this feeling as of purely sexual origin; and in addition even to the æsthetic element it is probably founded to some extent on a reminiscence of the earliest associations of life. This element of early association was very well set forth long ago by Erasmus Darwin:—

"When the babe, soon after it is born into this cold world, is applied to its mother's bosom, its sense of perceiving warmth is first agreeably affected; next its sense of smell is delighted with the odor of her milk; then its taste is gratified by the flavor of it; afterward the appetites of hunger and of thirst afford pleasure by the possession of their object, and by the subsequent digestion of the aliment; and, last, the sense of touch is delighted by the softness and smoothness of the milky fountain, the source of such variety of happiness.

"All these various kinds of pleasure at length become associated with the form of the mother's breast, which the infant embraces with its hands, presses with its lips, and watches with its eyes; and thus acquires more accurate ideas of the form of its mother's bosom than of the odor, flavor, and warmth which it perceives by its other senses. And hence at our maturer years, when any object of vision is presented to us which by its wavy or spiral lines bears any similitude to the form of the female bosom, whether it be found in a landscape with soft gradations of raising and descending surface, or in the forms of some antique vases, or in other works of the pencil or the chisel, we feel a general glow of delight which seems to influence all our senses; and if the object be not too large we experience an attraction to embrace it with our lips as we did in our early infancy the bosom of our mothers." (E. Darwin, Zoönomia , 1800, vol. i, p. 174.)

Several books have been written on the history of the corset. Léoty ( Le Corset à travers les Ages , 1893) accepts Bouvier's division of the phases through which the corset has passed: (1) the bands, or fasciæ, of Greek and Roman ladies; (2) period of transition during greater part of middle ages, classic traditions still subsisting; (3) end of middle ages and beginning of Renaissance, when tight bodices were worn; (4) the period of whalebone bodices, from middle of sixteenth to end of eighteenth centuries; (5) the period of the modern corset. We hear of embroidered girdles in Homer. Even in Rome, however, the fasciæ were not in general use, and were chiefly employed either to support the breasts or to compress their excessive development, and then called mamillare . The zona was a girdle, worn usually round the hips, especially by young girls. The modern corset is a combination of the fascia and the zona . It was at the end of the fourteenth century that Isabeau of Bavaria introduced the custom of showing the breasts uncovered, and the word "corset" was then used for the first time.

Stratz, in his Frauenkleidung (pp. 366 et seq. ), and in his Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers , Chapters VIII, X, and XVI, also deals with the corset, and illustrates the results of compression on the body. For a summary of the evidence concerning the difference of respiration in man and woman, its causes and results, see Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman , fourth edition, 1904, pp. 228-244. With reference to the probable influence of the corset and unsuitable clothing generally during early life in impeding the development of the mammary glands, causing inability to suckle properly, and thus increasing infant mortality, see especially a paper by Professor Bollinger ( Correspondenz-blatt Deutsch. Gesell. Anthropologie , October, 1899).

The compression caused by the corset, it must be added, is not usually realized or known by those who wear it. Thus, Rushton Parker and Hugh Smith found, in two independent series of measurements, that the waist measurement was, on the average, two inches less over the corset than round the naked waist; "the great majority seemed quite unaware of the fact." In one case the difference was as much as five inches. ( British Medical Journal , September 15 and 22, 1900.)

That even the Egyptians regarded the beard as a mark of beauty and an object of veneration is shown by the fact that the priests wore it long and cut it off in grief (Herodotus, Euterpe , Chapter XXXVI). The respect with which the beard was regarded among the ancient Hebrews is indicated in the narrative (II Samuel, Chapter X) which tells how, when David sent his servants to King Hanun the latter shaved off half their beards; they were too ashamed to return in this condition, and remained at Jericho until their beards had grown again. A passage in Ordericus Vitalis ( Ecclesiastical History , Book VIII, Chapter X) is interesting both as regards the fashions of the twelfth century in England and Normandy and the feeling that prompted Ordericus. Speaking of the men of his time, he wrote: "The forepart of their head is bare after the manner of thieves, while at the back they nourish long hair like harlots. In former times penitents, captives and pilgrims usually went unshaved and wore long beards, as an outward mark of their penance or captivity or pilgrimage. Now almost all the world wear crisped hair and beards, carrying on their faces the token of their filthy lust like stinking goats. Their locks are curled with hot irons, and instead of wearing caps they bind their heads with fillets. A knight seldom appears in public with his head uncovered, and properly shaved, according to the apostolic precept (I Corinthians, Chapter XI, verses 7 and 14)."

The African Baganda, the Rev. J. Roscoe states ( Journal of the Anthropological Institute , January-June, 1902, p. 72), admire hanging breasts to such an extent that their young women tie them down in order to hasten the arrival of this condition.

"The most remarkable trait of beauty in the East," wrote Sonnini, "is to have large black eyes, and nature has made this a characteristic sign of the women of these countries. But, not content with this, the women of Egypt wish their eyes to be still larger and blacker. To attain this Mussulmans, Jewesses, and Christians, rich and poor, all tint their eyelids with galena. They also blacken the lashes (as Juvenal tells us the Roman ladies did) and mark the angles of the eye so that the fissure appears larger." (Sonnini, Voyage dans la Haute et Basse Egypte , 1799, vol. i, p. 290.) Kohl is thus only used by the women who have what the Arabs call "natural kohl." As Flinders Petrie has found, the women of the so-called "New Race," between the sixth and tenth dynasties of ancient Egypt, used galena and malachite for painting their faces. Jewish women in the days of the prophets painted their eyes with kohl, as do some Hindu women to-day.

"The Ainu have a great affection for their beards. They regard them as a sign of manhood and strength and consider them as especially handsome. They look upon them, indeed, as a great and highly prized treasure." (J. Batchelor, The Ainu and their Folklore , p. 162.)

A great many theories have been put forward to explain the Chinese fashion of compressing and deforming the foot. The Chinese are great admirers of the feminine foot, and show extreme sexual sensitiveness in regard to it. Chinese women naturally possess very small feet, and the main reason for binding them is probably to be found in the desire to make them still smaller. (See, e.g. , Stratz, Die Frauenkleidung , 1904, p. 101.)

Beauty not the Sole Element in the Sexual Appeal of Vision—Movement—The Mirror—Narcissism—Pygmalionism—Mixoscopy—The Indifference of Women to Male Beauty—The Significance of Woman's Admiration of Strength—The Spectacle of Strength is a Tactile Quality made Visible.

It may be in place here to mention, in passing, the considerable place which vision occupies in normal and abnormal methods of heightening tumescence under circumstances which exclude definite selection by beauty. The action of mirrors belongs to this group of phenomena. Mirrors are present in profusion in high-class brothels—on the walls and also above the beds. Innocent youths and girls are also often impelled to contemplate themselves in mirrors and sometimes thus, produce the first traces of sexual excitement. I have referred to the developed forms of this kind of self-contemplation in the Study of Auto-erotism, and in this connection have alluded to the fable of Narcissus, whence Näcke has since devised the term Narcissism for this group of phenomena. It is only necessary to mention the enormous production of photographs, representing normal and abnormal sexual actions, specially prepared for the purpose of exciting or of gratifying sexual appetites, and the frequency with which even normal photographs of the nude appeal to the same lust of the eyes.

Pygmalionism, or falling in love with statues, is a rare form of erotomania founded on the sense of vision and closely related to the allurement of beauty. (I here use "pygmalionism" as a general term for the sexual love of statues; it is sometimes restricted to cases in which a man requires of a prostitute that she shall assume the part of a statue which gradually comes to life, and finds sexual gratification in this performance alone; Eulenburg quotes examples, Sexuale Neuropathie , p. 107.) An emotional interest in statues is by no means uncommon among young men during adolescence. Heine, in Florentine Nights , records the experiences of a boy who conceived a sentimental love for a statue, and, as this book appears to be largely autobiographical, the incident may have been founded on fact. Youths have sometimes masturbated before statues, and even before the image of the Virgin; such cases are known to priests and mentioned in manuals for confessors. Pygmalionism appears to have been not uncommon among the ancient Greeks, and this has been ascribed to their æsthetic sense; but the manifestation is due rather to the absence than to the presence of æsthetic feeling, and we may observe among ourselves that it is the ignorant and uncultured who feel the indecency of statues and thus betray their sense of the sexual appeal of such objects. We have to remember that in Greece statues played a very prominent part in life, and also that they were tinted, and thus more lifelike than with us. Lucian, Athenæus, Ælian, and others refer to cases of men who fell in love with statues. Tarnowsky ( Sexual Instinct , English edition, p. 85) mentions the case of a young man who was arrested in St. Petersburg for paying moonlight visits to the statue of a nymph on the terrace of a country house, and Krafft-Ebing quotes from a French newspaper the case which occurred in Paris during the spring of 1877 of a gardener who fell in love with a Venus in one of the parks. (I. Bloch, Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis , Teil II, pp. 297-305, brings together various facts bearing on this group of manifestations.)

Necrophily, or a sexual attraction for corpses, is sometimes regarded as related to pygmalionism. It is, however, a more profoundly morbid manifestation, and may perhaps he regarded as a kind of perverted sadism.

Founded on the sense of vision also we find a phenomenon, bordering on the abnormal, which is by Moll termed mixoscopy. This means the sexual pleasure derived from the spectacle of other persons engaged in natural or perverse sexual actions. (Moll, Konträre Sexualempfindung , third edition, p. 308. Moll considers that in some cases mixoscopy is related to masochism. There is, however, no necessary connection between the two phenomena.) Brothels are prepared to accommodate visitors who merely desire to look on, and for their convenience carefully contrived peepholes are provided; such visitors are in Paris termed " voyeurs ." It is said by Coffignon that persons hide at night in the bushes in the Champs Elysées in the hope of witnessing such scenes between servant girls and their lovers. In England during a country walk I have come across an elderly man carefully ensconced behind a bush and intently watching through his field-glass a couple of lovers reclining on a bank, though the actions of the latter were not apparently marked by any excess of indecorum. Such impulses are only slightly abnormal, whatever may be said of them from the point of view of good taste. They are not very far removed from the legitimate curiosity of the young woman who, believing herself unobserved, turns her glass on to a group of young men bathing naked. They only become truly perverse when the gratification thus derived is sought in preference to natural sexual gratification. They are also not normal when they involve, for instance, a man desiring to witness his wife in the act of coitus with another man. I have been told of the case of a scientific man who encouraged his wife to promote the advances of a young friend of his own, in his own drawing-room, he himself remaining present and apparently taking no notice; the younger man was astonished, but accepted the situation. In such a case, when the motives that led up to the episode are obscure, we must not too hastily assume that masochism or even mixoscopy is involved. For information on some of the points mentioned above see, e.g. , I. Bloch, Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis , Teil I, pp. 200 et seq. ; Teil II, pp. 195 et seq.

A correspondent writes: "Men are generally attracted in the first instance by a woman's beauty, either of face or figure. Frequently this is the highest form of love they are capable of. Personally, my own love is always prompted by this. In the case of my wife there was certainly a leaven of friendship and moral sympathies but these alone would never have been translated into love had she not been young and good-looking. Moreover, I have felt intense passion for other women, in my relations with whom the elements of moral or mental sympathy have not entered. And always, as youth and beauty went, I believe I should transfer my love to some one else.

"Now, in woman I fancy this element of beauty and youth does not enter so much. I have questioned a large number of women—some married, some unmarried, young and old ladies, shopgirls, servants, prostitutes, women whom I have known only as friends, others with whom I have had sexual relations—and I cannot recollect one instance when a woman said she had fallen in love with a man for his looks. The nearest approach to any sign of this was in the instance of one, who noticed a handsome man sitting near us in a hotel, and said to me: 'I should like him to kiss me.'

"I have also noticed that women do not like looking at my body, when naked, as I like looking at theirs. My wife has, on a few occasions, put her hand over my body, and expressed pleasure at the feeling of my skin. (I have very fair, soft skin.) But I have never seen women exhibit the excitement that is caused in me by the sight of their bodies, which I love to look at, to stroke, to kiss all over."

It is interesting to point out, in this connection, that the admiration of strength is not confined to the human female. It is by the spectacle of his force that the male among many of the lower animals sexually affects the female. Darwin duly allows for this fact, while some evolutionists, and notably Wallace, consider that it covers the whole field of sexual selection. When choice exists, Wallace states, "all the facts appear to be consistent with the choice depending on a variety of male characteristics, with some of which color is often correlated. Thus, it is the opinion of some of the best observers that vigor and liveliness are most attractive, and these are, no doubt, usually associated with some intensity of color, ... There is reason to believe that it is his [the male bird's] persistency and energy rather than his beauty which wins the day." (A. R. Wallace, Tropical Nature , 1898, p. 199.) In his later book, Darwinism (p. 295), Wallace reaffirms his position that sexual selection means that in the rivalry of males for the female the most vigorous secures the advantage; "ornament," he adds, "is the natural product and direct outcome of superabundant health and vigor." As regards woman's love of strength, see Westermarck, History of Marriage , p. 255.

Women are very sensitive to the quality of a man's touch, and appear to seek and enjoy contact and pressure to a greater extent than do men, although in early adolescence this impulse seems to be marked in both sexes. "There is something strangely winning to most women," remarks George Eliot, in The Mill on the Floss , "in that offer of the firm arm; the help is not wanted physically at that moment, but the sense of help—the presence of strength that is outside them and yet theirs—meets a continual want of the imagination."

Women are often very critical concerning a man's touch and his method of shaking hands. Stanley Hall ( Adolescence , vol. ii, p. 8) quotes a gifted lady as remarking: "I used to say that, however much I liked a man, I could never marry him if I did not like the touch of his hand, and I feel so yet."

Among the elements of sexual attractiveness which make a special appeal to women, extreme personal cleanliness would appear to take higher rank than it takes in the eyes of a man, some men, indeed, seeming to make surprisingly small demands of a woman in this respect. If this is so we may connect it with the fact that beauty in a woman's eye is to a much greater extent than in a man's a picture of energy, in other words, a translation of pressure contracts, with which the question of physical purity is necessarily more intimately associated than it is with the picture of purely visual beauty. It is noteworthy that Ovid ( Ars Amandi , lib. I) urges men who desire to please women to leave the arts of adornment and effeminacy to those whose loves are homosexual, and to practice a scrupulous attention to extreme neatness and cleanliness of body and garments in every detail, a sun-browned skin, and the absence of all odor. Some two thousand years later Brummell in an age when extravagance and effeminacy often marked the fashions of men, introduced a new ideal of unobtrusive simplicity, extreme cleanliness (with avoidance of perfumes), and exquisite good taste; he abhorred all eccentricity, and may be said to have constituted a tradition which Englishmen have ever since sought, more or less successfully to follow; he was idolized by women.

It may be added that the attentiveness of women to tactile contacts is indicated by the frequency with which in them it takes on morbid forms, as the délire du contact , the horror of contamination, the exaggerated fear of touching dirt. (See, e.g. , Raymond and Janet, Les Obsessions et la Psychasthénie .)

The Alleged Charm of Disparity in Sexual Attraction—The Admiration for High Stature—The Admiration for Dark Pigmentation—The Charm of Parity—Conjugal Mating—The Statistical Results of Observation as Regards General Appearance, Stature, and Pigmentation of Married Couples—Preferential Mating and Assortative Mating—The Nature of the Advantage Attained by the Fair in Sexual Selection—The Abhorrence of Incest and the Theories of its Cause—The Explanation in Reality Simple—The Abhorrence of Incest in Relation to Sexual Selection—The Limits to the Charm of Parity in Conjugal Mating—The Charm of Disparity in Secondary Sexual Characters.

It is noteworthy as an indication of the direction of the sexual ideal in this matter that the heroines of male novelists are rarely short and the heroes of female novelists almost invariably tall. A reviewer of novels addressing to lady novelists in the Speaker (July 26, 1890) "A Plea for Shorter Heroes," publishes statistics on this point. "Heroes," he states, "are longer this year than ever. Of the 192 of whom I have had my word to say since October of last year, 27 were merely tall, and 11 were only slightly above the middle height. No less than 85 stood exactly six feet in their stocking soles, and the remainder were considerably over the two yards. I take the average to be six feet three."

As a slight test alike of the supposed "charm of disparity" as well as of the general degree in which tall and short persons are sought as mates by those of the opposite sex I have examined a series of entries in the Round-About , a publication issued by a club, of which the president is Mr. W. T. Stead, having for its object the purpose of promoting correspondence, friendship, and marriage between its members. There are two classes, of entries, one inserted with a view to "intellectual friendship," the other with a view to marriage. I have not thought it necessary to recognize this distinction here; if a man describes his own physical characteristics and those of the lady he would like as a friend, I assume that, from the point of view of the present inquiry, he is much on the same footing as the man who seeks a wife. In the series of entries which I have examined 35 men and women state approximately the height of the man or woman they seek to know; 30 state in addition their own height. The results are expressed in the table on the following page.

Although the cases are few, the results are, in two main respects, sufficiently clear without multiplication of data. In the first place, those who seek parity, whether men or women, are in a majority over those who seek disparity. In the second place, the existence of any disparity at all is due only to the universal desire to find a tall person. Not one man or woman sets down shortness as his or her ideal. The very fact that no man in these initial announcements ventures to set himself down as short (although a considerable proportion describe themselves as tall) indicates a consciousness that shortness is undesirable, as also does the fact that the women very frequently describe themselves as tall.

From the same number of the Round-About from which I have extracted the data on stature, I have obtained corresponding data on pigmentation, and have embodied them in the following table. They are likewise very scanty, but they probably furnish as good a general indication of the drift of ideals in this matter as we should obtain from more extensive data of the same character.

It will be seen that in the case of pigmentation there is not as in the case of stature a decided charm of parity in the formation of sexual ideals. The phenomenon, however, remains essentially analogous. Just as in regard to stature there is without exception an abstract admiration for tall persons, so here, though to a less marked extent, there is a general admiration for dark persons. As many as 6 out of 8 women and 14 out of 21 men seek a dark partner. This tendency ranges itself with the considerations already brought forward (p. 182), leading us to believe that, in England at all events, the admiration of fairness is not efficacious to promote any sexual selection, and that if there is actually any such selection it must be put down to other causes. No doubt, even in England the abstract æsthetic admiration of fairness is justifiable and may influence the artist. Probably also it influences the poet, who is affected by a long-established convention in favor of fairness, and perhaps also by a general tendency on the part of our poets to be themselves fair and to yield to the charm of parity,—the tendency to prefer the women of one's own stock,—which we have already found to be a real force. ^[175] But, as a matter of fact, our famous English beauties are not very fair; probably our handsomest men are not very fair, and the abstract sexual ideals of both our men and our women thus go out toward the dark.

Summary of the Conclusions at Present Attainable in Regard to the Nature of Beauty and its Relation to Sexual Selection.

HISTORY I.— C. D., clergyman, age, 34. Height about 5 ft. 8 in. Weight, 8st. 8lb. Complexion, fair. Physical infirmities, very myopic, tendency to consumption.

"My family is of old lineage on both sides. My parents were normal and fairly healthy; but I consider that heredity, though not vitiated, is somewhat overrefined, and there is a neuropathic tendency, which has appeared in myself and in one or two other members of the family. As a child, I suffered, though not very frequently, from nocturnal enuresis. My sexual nature, though normal, has been keenly alive and sensitive as far back as I can remember; and as I look back I discern within myself in early childhood what I now understand to be a decided masochistic or passively algolagnic tendency. So far as I remember, this manifested itself in me in two aspects; one psychic or sentimental and free from carnality, expressing itself in imaginative visions such as the following: I used, to imagine myself kneeling before a young and beautiful woman and being sentenced by her to some punishment, and even threatened with death. At other times I would picture myself as a wounded soldier watched over on his sickbed by queenly women. These visions always included an imagination of something heroic in my own personality. No doubt they were the same kind of dreamings as are present in multitudes of imaginative children; they are only of interest in so far as a sexual element was present; and that was algolagnic in character.

"I had a small fund of natural common sense; and my surroundings were not favorable to sentimental imaginings; consequently I believe I began to throw them off at an early age, though the temperament which produced them is still a part of my nature.

"On the carnal side, the sexual instinct was decidedly algolagnic. Masturbation is one of my earliest recollections; indeed, it was not at first, so far as I remember, associated with any sexual ideas at all; but began as a reflex animal act. I do not remember its first occurrence. It soon, however, became associated in my mind with algolagnic excitement, giving rise to reveries which took the ordinary form of imagining oneself stripped and whipped, etc., by persons of the opposite sex. The dramatis personæ in my own algolagnic reveries were elderly women; somewhat strangely, I did not associate physical sexuality at this period with young and attractive women. If scientific light on these matters were generally available in the practical bringing up of children, persons in charge of young children might refrain from exciting an algolagnic tendency or doing anything calculated to awake sexual emotions prematurely. In my own case, I recollect acts performed by older persons in ignorance and thoughtlessness which undoubtedly tended to foster and strengthen my algolagnic instinct.

"Little or nothing was done to prevent, discover, or remedy the pernicious habit into which I was falling unknowingly. Circumcision was perhaps little thought of in those days as a preventive of juvenile masturbation; at any rate, it was not resorted to in my case. I remember, indeed, that a nurse discovered that I was practicing masturbation, and I think she made a few half-hearted attempts to stop it. It was probably these attempts which gave me a growing feeling that there was something wrong about masturbation, and that it must be practiced secretly. But they were unsuccessful in their main object. The practice continued.

"I went to school at the age of 10. There I came in contact almost without warning, with the ordinary lewdness and grossness of school conversation, and took to it readily. I soon became conversant with the theory of sexual relations; but never got the opportunity of sexual intercourse, and probably should have felt some moral restraint even had such opportunity presented itself, for coitus, however interesting it might be to talk about, was a bigger thing to practice than masturbation. I masturbated fairly frequently, occasionally producing two orgasms in quick succession. I seldom masturbated with the hand; my method was to lie face downward. There was probably little or no homosexuality at my first school. I never heard of it till later, and it was always repugnant to me, though surrounded with a certain morbid interest. Masturbation was discountenanced openly at the school, but was, I believe, extensively practiced, both at that school and at the two others I afterward attended. The boys often talked about the hygiene of it; and the general theory was that it was somehow physically detrimental; but I heard no arguments advanced sufficiently cogent to make me see the necessity for a real moral effort against the habit, though, as I neared puberty, I was indulging more moderately and with greater misgivings.

"The fact of becoming acquainted with the theory of sexual intercourse tended to diminish the algolagnia, and to impel my sexual instinct into an ordinary channel. On one occasion circumstances brought me into close contact with a woman for about three or four weeks, I being a mere boy and she very much my senior. I felt sexually attracted by this woman, and allowed myself a degree of familiarity with her which I have since recognized as undue and have deeply regretted. It did not, however, go to the length of seduction, and I trust may have passed away without leaving any permanent harm. It should, indeed, be remarked here that I never knew a woman sexually till my marriage; and with the one exception mentioned I do not recall any instance of conduct on my part toward a woman which could be described as giving her an impulse downhill.

"On the psychic side my sexual emotions awoke in early childhood; and though my love affairs as a boy were not frequent and were kept to myself, they attained a considerable degree of emotional power. Leaving out of account the precocious movements of the sexual instinct to which I have already referred as colored by psychic algolagnia, I may say that somewhat later, from the age of puberty and onward, I had three or four love affairs, devoid of any algolagnic tendency, and considerably more developed on the psychic and emotional, than on the physical, side. In fact, my experience has been that when deeply in love, when the mind is full of the love ecstasy, the physical element of sexuality is kept—doubtless only temporarily—in abeyance.

"To return now to the subject of masturbation. Here befell the chief moral struggle of my early life; and no terms that I have at command will adequately describe the stress of it.

"A casual remark heard one day as I was arriving at puberty convinced me that there must be truth in the vague schoolboy theory that masturbation was weakening . It was to the effect that the evil results of masturbation practiced in boyhood would manifest themselves in later life. I then realized that I must relinquish masturbation, and I set myself to fight it; but with grave misgivings that, owing to the early age at which I had formed the habit, I had already done myself serious harm.

"Before many weeks had passed, I had formed a resolution to abstain, which I kept thereafter without—so far as I remember—more than one conscious lapse into my former habit. Here it must be said at once that, so far as touches my own experience of a struggle of this kind, the religious factor is of primary importance as strengthening and sustaining the moral effort which has to be made. I am writing an account of my sexual, not my spiritual, experiences; but I should not only be untrue to my convictions, but unable to give an accurate and penetrating survey of the development of my sex life, unless I were clearly to state that it was to a large extent on that life that my strongest and most valuable religious experiences arose. ^[219] It is to the endeavor to discipline the sexual instinct, and to grapple with the difficulties and anxieties of the sex life, that I owe what I possess of spiritual religion, of the consciousness that my life has been brought into contact with Divine love and power.

"My early habits, after they were broken off, left me none the less a legacy of sexual neurasthenia and a slight varicocele. My nocturnal pollutions were overfrequent; and I brooded over them, being too reticent and too much afraid of exposure at school and possible expulsion to confide in a doctor. Far better for me had I done so, for a few years later I received the truest kindness and sympathy in regard to sexual matters at the hands of more than one medical man. But while at school I was afraid to speak of the trouble which so unnerved and depressed me; and as a consequence my morbid fears grew stronger, being intensified by generalities which I met with from time to time in my reading on the subject of the punishment which nature metes out to impurity.

"On leaving school my sex life continued for some years on the same lines: a struggle for chastity, morbid fears and regrets about the past, efforts to cope with the neurasthenia, and a haunting dread of coming insanity. These troubles were increased by my sedentary life. However I obtained medical aid, and put as good a face on matters as possible.

"But the most trying thing of all has yet to be mentioned—the discovery that I had not yet got fully clear of the habit of masturbation. I had, indeed, repudiated it as far as my conscious waking moments were concerned, even though strongly impelled by sexual desire; but one night, about a year after I had relinquished the practice, I found myself again giving way to it in those moments between sleeping and waking when the will is only semiconscious. It was as if a race took place for wakefulness between my physical instinct, on the one side, and my moral sense and inhibitory nerves on the other; and very frequently the physical instinct won. This, perhaps, is not an uncommon experience, but it distressed me greatly; and I never felt safe from it until marriage. I resorted to various expedients to combat this tendency, at length having to tie myself in a certain position every night with a cord round my legs, so as to render it impossible to turn over upon my face.

"In my early manhood the strain on my constitution was considerable from causes other than the sexual neurasthenia, which, indeed, I am now well aware I exaggerated in importance. Medical advisers whom I consulted in that period assured me that this was so; and, though at the time I often thought that they were concealing the real facts from me out of kindness, my own reading has since convinced me that they spoke nothing but scientific truth.

"The years went on. I went through a university course, and in spite of my poor health took a good degree. The agony of my struggle for chastity seemed to come to a climax about four years later when for a long period, partly owing to overstudy and partly to the sexual strain, I fell into a condition of severe nervous exhaustion, one of the most distressing symptoms of which was insomnia. The dreaded cloud of insanity seemed to come closer. I had to use alcohol freely at nights; and might by now have become a drunkard, had I not been casually—or I must say, Providentially—directed to the common sense plan of measuring my whisky in a dram glass; so that the alcohol could not steal a march upon me.

"This period was one of acute mental suffering. One cause of the nervous tension was—as I have now no doubt—the need of healthy sexual intercourse. I proved this eventually. My circumstances, which had long been adverse to marriage, at length were shaped in that direction. I renewed acquaintance with a lady whom I had known well some years before; and our friendship ripened until, after much perplexity on my side, owing to the uncertainty of my health and prospects, I decided that it was right to speak. We were married after a few months; and I realized that I had gained an excellent wife. We did not come together sexually for some nights after marriage; but, having once tasted the pleasure of the marriage bed, I have to admit that, partly owing to ignorance of the hygiene of marriage, I was for some time rather unrestrained in conjugal relations, requiring intercourse as often as eight or nine times a month. This was not unnatural when one considers that I had now for the first time free access to a woman, after a long and weary struggle to preserve chastity. Married life, however, tends naturally—or did so in my case—to regulate desire; and when I began to understand the ethics and hygiene of sex, as I did a year or two after marriage, I was enabled to exercise increasing self-restraint. We are now sparing in our enjoyment of conjugal pleasure. We have had no children; and I attribute this chiefly to the remaining sexual weakness in myself. ^[220] But I may say that not only my sexual power, but my nerve-power and general health, were greatly improved by marriage; and though I have fallen back, the last year or two, into a poor state of health, the cause of this is probably overwork rather than anything to do with sex. Not but what it must be said that, had it not been for the juvenile masturbation superadded to a neuropathic temperament, my constitution would no doubt have endured the general strain of life better than it has done. The algolagnia, being one of the congenital conditions of my sexual instinct, must be considered fundamental, and certainly has not been eliminated. If I were to allow myself indulgence in algolagnic reveries they would even now excite me without difficulty; but I have systematically discouraged them, so that they give me little or no practical trouble. My erotic dreams, which years ago were (to the best of my remembrance) frequently algolagnic, are now almost invariably normal.

"My conjugal relations have always been on the lines of strictly normal sexuality. I have a deep sense of the obligations of monogamous marriage, besides a sincere affection for my wife; consequently I repress as far as possible all sexual inclinations, such as will come involuntarily sometimes, toward other women.

"From what I have disclosed, it will be seen that I am but a frail man; but for many years I have striven honestly and hard to discipline sexuality within myself, and to regulate it according to right reason, pure hygiene, and the moral law; and I can but hope and believe that the Divine Power in which I have endeavored to trust will in the future, as it has done in the past, working by natural methods and through the current events of my life, amend and control my sex life and conduct it to safe and honorable issues."

HISTORY II.— A. B., married, good general health, dark hair, fair complexion, short-sighted, and below medium height. Parents both belong to healthy families, but the mother suffered from nerves during early years of married life, and the father, a very energetic and ambitious man, was cold, passionless, and unscrupulous. A. B. is the oldest child; two of the brothers and sisters are slightly abnormal, nervously. But, so far as is known, none of the family has ever been sexually abnormal.

A. B. was a bright, intelligent child, though inclined to be melancholy (and in later years prone to self-analysis). At preparatory school was fairly forward in studies, at public school somewhat backward, at University suddenly took a liking to intellectual pursuits. Throughout he was slack at games. Has never been able to learn to swim from nervousness. Can whistle well. Has always been fond of reading, and would like to have been an author by profession. He married at 24, and has had two children, both of whom showed congenital physical abnormalities.

Before the age of 7 or 8 A. B. can remember various trifling incidents. "One of the games I used to play with my sister," he writes, "consisted in pretending we were 'father and mother' and were relieving ourselves at the w.c. We would squat down in various parts of the room, prolong the simulated act, and talk. I do not remember what our conversation was about, nor whether I had an erection. I used also to make water from a balcony into the garden, and in other unusual places.

"The first occasion on which I can recollect experiencing sensations or emotions similar in character to later and more developed feelings of desire was at the age of about 7 or 8, when I was a dayboy at a large school in a country town and absolutely innocent as to deed, thought, or knowledge. I fell in love with a boy with whom I was brought in contact in my class, about my own age. I remember thinking him pretty. He paid me no attention. I had no distinct desire, except a wish to be near him, to touch him, and to kiss him. I blushed if I suddenly saw him, and thought of him when absent and speculated on my chances of seeing him again. I was put into a state of high ecstasy when he invited me to join him and some friends one summer evening in a game of rounders.

"At the age of 8 I was told by my father's groom where babies came from and how they were produced. (I already knew the difference in sexual organs, as my sister and I were bathed in the same room.) He told me no details about erection, semen, etc. Nor did he take any liberties with me. I used to notice him urinating; he used to push back the foreskin and I thought his penis large.

"When about 8 years old the nursemaid told me that the boy at her last place had intercourse with his sister. I thought it disgusting. About a year later I told the nurse I thought the story of Adam and Eve was not true and that when Eve gave Adam the apple he had intercourse with her and she was punished by having children. I don't know if I had thought this out, or if it had been suggested to me by others. This nurse used often to talk about my 'tassel.'

"A family of several brothers went to the same school with me, and we used to indulge in dirty stories, chiefly, however, of the w.c. type rather than sexual.

"When I was about 10 I learned much from my father's coachman. He used to talk about the girls he had had intercourse with, and how he would have liked this with my nursemaid.

"A year later I went to a large day school. I think most of the boys, if not nearly all, were very ignorant and innocent in sexual matters. The only incident in this connection I can recollect is asking a boy to let me see his penis; he did so.

"During the summer holidays, at a watering place I attended a theatrical performance and fell in love with a girl of about 12 who acted a part. I bought a photograph of her, which I kept and kissed for several years after. About the same time I thought rather tenderly of a girl of my own age whose parents knew mine. I remember feeling that I should like to kiss her. Once I furtively touched her hair.

"When I was 12 I was sent to a small preparatory boarding school, in the country. During the holidays I used to talk about sexual things with my father's footman. He must have told me a good deal. I used to have erections. One evening, when I was in bed and everyone else out (my mother and the children in the country) he came up to my room and tried to put his hand on my penis. I had been thinking of sexual matters and had an erection. I resisted, but he persisted, and when he succeeded in touching me I gave in. He then proceeded to masturbate me. I sank back, overcome by the pleasant sensation. He then stopped and I went on myself. In the meantime he had taken out his penis and masturbated himself before me until the orgasm occurred. I was disgusted at the sight of his large organ and the semen. He then left me. I could hardly sleep from excitement. I felt I had been initiated into a great and delightful mystery.

"I at once fell into the habit of masturbation. It was some months before I could produce the orgasm; at about 13 a slight froth came; at about 14 a little semen. I do not know how frequently I did it—perhaps once or twice a week. I used to feel ashamed of myself afterward. I told the man I was doing it and he expressed surprise I had not known about it before he told me. He warned me to stop doing it or it would injure my health. I pretended later that I had stopped doing it.

"I practiced solitary masturbation for some months. At first the semen was small in amount and watery.

"I had not at this time ever succeeded in drawing the foreskin below the 'corona.' After masturbation I would sometimes feel local pain in the penis, sometimes pains in the testicles, and generally a feeling of shame, but not, I think, any lassitude. The shame was a vague sense of discomfort at having done what I knew others would regard as dirty. I also experienced fears that I was injuring my health.

"It was not long before I found other boys at the preparatory school with whom I talked of sexual things and in some cases proceeded to acts. The boys were between the ages of 9 and 14; they left at 14 or 15 for the public schools. We slept in bedrooms—several in one room.

"There was no general conversation on sexual matters. Few of the boys knew anything about things—perhaps 7 or 8 out of 40. Before describing my experiences at the school I may mention that I cannot remember having at this period any wish to experience heterosexual intercourse; I knew as yet nothing of homosexual practices; and I did not have, except in one case, any love or affection for any of the boys.

"One night, in my bedroom—there were about six of us—we were talking till rather late. My recollection commences with being aware that all the boys were asleep except myself and one other, P. (the son of a clergyman), who was in a bed at exactly the opposite end of the room. I suppose we must have been talking about this sort of thing, for I vividly remember having an erection, and suddenly—as if by premonition—getting out of my bed, and, with heart beating, going softly over to P.'s bed. He exhibited no surprise at my presence; a few whispered words took place; I placed my hand on his penis, and found he had an erection. I started masturbating him, but he said he had just finished. I then suggested, getting into bed with him. (I had never heard at that time of such a thing being done, the idea arose spontaneously.) He said it was not safe, and placed his hand on my penis, I think with the object of satisfying and getting rid of me. He masturbated me till the orgasm occurred.

"I had no further relations with him, except on one occasion, shortly afterward, when one day, in the w.c. he asked me to masturbate him. I did so. He did not offer to do the same to me.

"He was a delicate, feeble boy; not good at work; womanish in his ways; inclined to go in for petty bullying, until a boy showed fight, when he discovered himself to be an arrant coward. Four or five years later I met him at the university. His greeting was cool. My next affair was with a boy who was about my age (13), strong, full-blooded, coarse, always in 'hot water.' He was the son of the headmaster of one of the best-known public schools. It was reported that two brothers had been expelled from this public school for what we called 'beastliness.' He told me his older brother used to have intercrural intercourse with him. This was the first I had heard of this. We used to masturbate mutually. I had, however, no affection or desire for him.

"With E., another boy, I had no relations, but I remember him as the first person of the same sex for whom I experienced love. He was a small, fair, thin, and little boy, some two years younger than myself, so my inferior in the social hierarchy of a school.

"At the end of my last term I had two disappointments. I was beaten by a younger and clever boy for the first place in the school, and also beaten by one point in the competition for the Athletic Cup by a stronger boy who had only come to the school that very term. However, as a consolation prize, and as I was leaving, the headmaster gave me a second prize. This soothed my hurt feelings, and I remember, just after the 'head' had read out the prizes, on the last day of term, E., coming up to me, putting his arm on my shoulder, looking at me rather pensively, and in a voice that thrilled me and made me wish to kiss and hug him, tell me he was so glad I had got a prize and that it was a shame that other chap had beaten me for the cup.

"I was three years (aged 12 to 15) at the preparatory school. I started in the bottom form and ended second in the school. My reports were generally good, and I was keen to do well in work. I was considerably influenced by the 'head.' He was a clergyman, but a man of wide reading, broad opinion, great scholarship, and great enthusiasm. We became very friendly.

"During the holidays I now first practiced intercrural intercourse with a younger brother. I started touching his penis, and causing erections, when he was about 5. Afterward I got him to masturbate me and I masturbated him; I used to get him into bed with me. On one occasion I spontaneously (never having heard of such a thing) made him take my penis in his mouth.

"This went on for several years. When I was about 16 and he about 10, the old family nurse spoke to me about it. She told me he had complained of my doing it. I was in great fear that my parents might hear of it. I went to him; told him I was sorry, but I had not understood he disliked it, but that I would not do it again.

"About a year later (having persisted in this promise) I made overtures to him, but he refused. I then commended his conduct, and said I knew he was quite right, and begged him to refuse again if I should ever suggest it. I did not ever suggest it again. For many years I bitterly reproached myself for having corrupted him. However, I do not think any harm has been done him. But my self-reproaches have caused me to feel I owe some reparation to him. I also have more affection for him than for my other brothers and sisters.

"At the age of 15 I went to one of the large public schools. I was fairly forward for my age, and entered high. But I made small progress. I had bad reports; I was 'slack in games,' and not popular among the boys. In fact, I stood still, so that when I left I was backward in comparison with other boys of even less natural intelligence.

"The teaching was certainly bad. Moreover, I had not any friends, and this made me very sensitive. It was to a great extent my fault. When I first went there I was taken up by a set above me—boys who were 'senior' to me in standing. When they left I found myself alone.

"My unpopularity was increased by my being considered to put on 'side'; also because I paid attention to my dress.

"At the public school I had homosexual relations with various boys, usually without any passion. With one boy, however, I was deeply in love for over a year; I thought of him, dreamed of him, would have been content only to kiss him. But my courtship met with no success.

"When carrying on with other boys the desire to reach the crisis was not always strong, perhaps out of shyness or modesty. Occasionally I had intercrural connection, which gave me the first intimation of what intercourse with a woman was like. When I masturbated in solitude I used to continue till the orgasm.

"My housemaster one day sent for me and said he had walked through my cubicle and noticed a stain on the sheet. At this time I used to have nocturnal emissions. I cannot remember whether on this occasion the stain was due to one, or to masturbation. But I imagined that one did not have 'wet dreams' unless one masturbated. So when he went on to say that this was a proof that I was immoral I acknowledged I masturbated. He then told me I would injure my health—possibly 'weaken my heart,' or 'send myself mad'; he said that he would ask me to promise never to do it again.

"I promised. I left humiliated and ashamed of myself; also generally frightened. He used to send for me every now and then, and ask me if I had kept my promise. For some months I did. Then I relapsed, and told him when he asked me. Ultimately he ceased sending for me—apparently convinced either that I was cured or that I was incorrigible.

"A year or so afterward he discovered in my study (for I was now in the upper school and had a study) a French photograph that a boy had given me, entitled ' Qui est dans ma chambre? ' It represented a man going by mistake into the wrong bedroom; inside the room was a woman, in nightdress, in an attitude that suggested she had just been relieving herself. My housemaster told me the picture was terribly indecent, and that, taken with what he knew of my habits, it showed I was not a safe boy to be in the school. He added that he did not wish to make trouble at home, but that he advised me to get my parents to remove me at the end of that term, instead of the following term, when, in the ordinary course of things, I should have left.

"I wrote to my people to say I was miserable at school, and I was removed at the end of that term.

"My first case of true heterosexual passion was with a girl called D., whom I first knew when she was about 16. My family and hers were friendly. My attraction to her soon became a matter of common knowledge and joking to members of my family. She was a dark, passionate-looking child, with large eyes that—to me—seemed full of an inner knowledge of sexual mysteries. Precocious, vain, jealous, untruthful—those were qualities in her that I myself soon recognized. But the very fact that she was not conventionally 'goody-goody' proved an attraction to me.

"I never openly made love to her, but I delighted to be near her. Our ages were sufficiently separated for this to be noticeable. I dreamed of her, and my highest ideal of blessedness was to kiss her and tell her I loved her. I heard that she had been discovered talking indecently in a w.c. to some little boys, sons of a friend of my family's. The knowledge of this precocity on her part intensified my fascination for her.

"When I left home to return to school I kissed her—the only time. Absence did nothing to diminish my affection. I thought of her all day long, at work or at play. I wrote her a letter—not openly passionate, but my real feelings toward her must have been apparent. I found out afterward that her mother opened the letter.

"When I returned home for the holidays her mother asked me not; to write her any letters and not to pay attentions to her, as I might 'spoil her.' I promised. I was, of course, greatly distressed.

"D. used to come to our house to see my younger sister. She had clearly been warned by her mother not to allow me to speak to her. I was too nervous to make any advances; besides, I had promised. As I grew older, my passion died out. I have hardly ever seen her since. She married some years ago. I still retain sentimental feelings toward her.

"I was now 18; I had stopped growing and was fairly broad and healthy. Intellectually I was rather precocious, though not ambitious. But I was no good at games, had no tastes for physical exercises, and no hobbies.

"During the holidays, in my last year at school, I had gone to the Royal Aquarium with a school companion. This was followed by one or two visits to the Empire Theatre. It was then that I first discovered that sexual intercourse took place outside the limits of married life. On one occasion my friend talked to one of the women who were walking about. This same friend spoke to a prostitute at Oxford. (At this time I went up to the university.) Once or twice I met this girl. She used to ask about my friend. My feelings toward her were a combination of admiration for her physical beauty, a sense of the 'mystery' of her life, and pity for her isolated position.

"On the whole, my first university term produced considerable improvement in me. I began to be interested in my work and to read a fair amount of general literature. I learned to bicycle and to row. I also made one intimate friend.

"In my first holiday I went to the Empire and made the acquaintance of a girl there, W. H. She attracted me by her quiet appearance. I eventually made arrangements to pay her a visit. My apprehensions consisted of: 1. Fear of catching venereal disease. This I decided to safeguard by using a 'French letter.' 2. Fear that she might have a 'bully.'

"The girl showed no sexual desire; but at that time this did not attract my attention.

"I got very much 'gone' on her, paid her several visits, gave her some presents I could ill afford, and felt very distressed when she informed me she was to be married and therefore could not see me any more.

"My experiences with prostitutes cover a period of twelve years. During three years of this period I was continually in their company. I have had intercourse with some two dozen; in some cases only once; in others on numerous occasions. They have usually been of the class that frequent Piccadilly, St. James Restaurant, the Continental Hotel, and the Dancing Clubs. Usual fee, £2 for the night; in one case, £5.

"1. Not one of them, as far as I knew, was a drunkard.

"2. As a rule, they were not mercenary or dishonest.

"3. In their language and general behavior they compared favorably with respectable women.

"4. I never caught venereal disease.

"5. I twice caught pediculi.

"6. I did not find them, as a rule, very sensual or fond of indecent talk. As a rule, they objected to stripping naked; they did not touch my organs; they did not suggest masturbation, sodomy, or fellatio . They seldom exhibited transports, but the better among them seemed sentimental and affectionate.

"7. Their accounts of their first fall were nearly always the same. They got to know a 'gentleman,' often by his addressing them in the street; he took them about to dinners and theatres; they were quite innocent and even ignorant; on one occasion they drank too much; and before they knew what was happening they were no longer virgins. They do not, however, apparently round on the man or expose him or refuse to have anything more to do with him.

"8. They state—in common with the outwardly 'respectable' women whom I have had a chance of catechising—that before the first intercourse they did not feel any conscious desire for intercourse and hardly devoted any thought to it, that it was very painful the first time, and that some time elapsed before they commenced to derive pleasure from it or to experience the orgasm.

"E. B. was the second woman I had intercourse with. She was a prostitute, but very young (about 18) and had only been in London a few months. I met her first in the St. James Restaurant. I spoke a few words to her. The next day I saw her in the Burlington Arcade. I was not much attracted to her; she was pretty, in a coarse, buxom style; vulgar in manners, voice, and dress. She asked me to go home with her; I refused. She pressed me; I said I had no money. She still urged me, just to drive home with her and talk to her while she dressed for the evening. I consented. We drove to lodgings in Albany Street. We went in. She proceeded to kiss me. I remained cold, and told her again I had no money. She then said: 'That does not matter. You remind me of a boy I love. I want you to be my fancy boy.' I was flattered by this. I saw a good deal of her. She was sentimental. I never gave her any money. When I had some, she refused to take it, but allowed me to spend a little in buying her a present. On the night before I left London she wept. She wrote me illiterate, but affectionate letters. One day she wrote to me that she was to be kept by a man, but that she had made it a condition with him that she should be allowed to have me. I had never been in love with her, because of her vulgarity. I therefore took the earliest opportunity of letting matters cool, by not writing often, etc. The next thing I remember was my fascination, a few months later, for S. H.

"She was not a regular prostitute. She had taken a very minor part in light opera. She was American by birth, young, slim, and spoke like a lady. Her hair was dyed; her breasts padded. She acted sentiment, but was less affectionate than E. B. I met her when she was out of a job. I gave her £2 whenever I met her. She was not mercenary. She was sensual. I became very much in love with her. I discovered her, however, writing letters to a fellow whom I had met one day when I was walking with her. He was only an acquaintance, but the brother of my most intimate friend. What I objected to was that in this letter to him she protested she did not care for me, but could not afford to give me up. She had to plead guilty, but I was so fascinated by her I still kept in with her, for a time, until she was kept by a man, and I had found other women to interest me.

"Owing to the strict regulations made by the university authorities, prostitutes find it hard to make a living there, and I never had anything to do with one. My adventures were among the shopgirl class, and were of a comparatively innocent nature. One of them, however, M. S., a very undemonstrative shopgirl, was the only girl not a prostitute with whom I had so far had intercourse.

"About this time I made the acquaintance of three other prostitutes, who, however, were nice, gentle, quiet girls, neither vulgar nor mercenary. A night passed with them always meant to me much more than mere intercourse. They were—especially two of them—of a sentimental nature, and would go to sleep in my arms. There was, on my part, not any passion, but a certain sympathy with them, and pity and affection. I remained faithful to the first, J. H., until she was kept by a man, and gave up her gentlemen friends. Then came D. V. She got in the family way and left London. Last, M. P. She was not pretty, but a good figure, well dressed, a bright conversationalist, and an intelligent mind. Her regular price for the night was £5, but when she got to know one she would take one for less and take one 'on tick.' She was very sensual. On one occasion, between 11 P. M. and about midday the following day I experienced the orgasm eleven or twelve times.

"During term time I was often prevented from having women by want of money and absence from London. I considered myself lucky if I could have a woman once or twice a month. My allowance was not large enough to admit of such luxuries; and I was only able to do what I did by being economical in my general expenditure and living, and by running up bills for whatever I could get on credit. I lived in the hopes of picking up 'amateurs' who would give me what I wanted for the love of it and without payment. My efforts were not very successful at present, except in the case of M. S. I considered myself very lucky in having discovered her, and I should have stuck to her for longer but for the rival attraction of another. There was, however, no deep sentiment on either side.

"But in order to preserve a continuity in my account of the women, I have left out two cases of temporary reversion to homosexual practices. During the periods when I could not get a woman I had recourse once more to masturbation. At times I had 'wet dreams' in which boys figured; and my thoughts, in waking hours, sometimes reverted to memories of my school experiences. I think, however, that I should have preferred a woman."

The homosexual reversions were as follows:—

"1. I had arranged to meet a shopgirl one evening, outside the town. She did not turn up. The meeting place was a railway bridge. Waiting there too, a few feet from me, was a boy of about 15. He was employed (I afterward found) by a gardener, and was waiting to meet his brother, who was engaged on the line. I got into casual conversation with him, and suddenly found myself wondering whether he ever masturbated. With a feeling, that I can only describe by calling it an intuition, I moved nearer him, and asked: 'Do you ever play with yourself?' He did not seem surprised at the abruptness of my question, and answered 'yes.' I thereupon touched his penis, and found he had an erection ! I suggested retiring to a bench that was near. We sat down. I masturbated him till he experienced the orgasm; then intercrurally. I gave him a shilling, and said good night.

"2. During my last summer at the university I took to gardening. There was a small piece of garden behind the house in which I had lodgings. My landlady suggested getting a cousin of hers, employed by a nurseryman, to supply me with plants, etc. He was a youth of about 16 or 17, tall, dark, not bad favored in looks. I forget how many times I saw him—not many, perhaps twice or thrice; but one day, when he came to see me in my room, about something connected with the garden, I gave him some old clothes of mine. He was a great deal taller than myself, and I suggested his trying on the trousers to see if they would fit. I do not know whether I made this suggestion with any ulterior motive or whether I had ever before thought of him in connection with any sexual relations. I only know that once more, as if guided by instinct, I felt he would not rebuff me, although certainly no indecent talk had ever taken place between us. I pretended to help him to pull up the trousers, and let my hand touch his penis. He did not resist; and I felt his penis for a few seconds. I then proposed he should come upstairs to my bedroom. No one was in the house. We went up. He did not at first have an erection. I asked why. He said 'because you are strange to me.' He then felt my penis. Eventually we mutually masturbated one another. I gave him half a crown.

"Some short time afterward he came again to the house. On this occasion I attempted fellatio . I don't think I had at that time ever heard of such a practice. He said, however, he did not like it. He masturbated intercrurally. He said he had never done this before, although he had had girls. (The other boy also told me he had had girls.)

"3. On another occasion I was out bicycling. A boy, of about 10 years of age, offered me a bunch of violets for a penny. I told him I would give him a shilling to pick me a large bunch. I am not sure if I had any ulterior motive. He proceeded into a wood on the side of the road; I dismounted from my machine and followed him. He was a pretty, dark boy. He made water. I went up to him and asked him to let me feel his penis. He at once jumped away, and ran off shrieking. I was frightened, mounted my bicycle, and rode as fast as I could home.

"There was no sentiment in the above cases. It is also to be noted that in neither instance did I make any arrangements to see the person again. As far as I can remember, when once I was satisfied I felt disgust for my act. In the case of women this was never so.

"Two of the women described in the foregoing pages stand out above the others. Perhaps I have not sufficiently shown that in the cases of W. H. and S. H. I felt a considerable degree of passion . W. H. was the first woman with whom I had had intercourse; this invested her in my heart, with a peculiar sentiment. In neither case can I be accused of fickleness. Indeed, I may say that up to this time I had had no opportunity of being fickle. I never saw enough, or had enough, of a woman to get a surfeit of her.

"The case I now come to presents the features of the cases of W. H. and S. H. in a stronger form. I was then 20; I have since then married; I am a father; my experiences have been many and varied; but still I must confess that no other woman has ever stirred my emotions more than—I doubt if as much as—D. C. Up to date, if there has been any grand passion in my life, it is my love for her. D. C., when I got to know her—by talking to her in the street—was a girl of about 20. She was short and plump; dark hair; dark, mischievous eyes; a fair complexion; small features; quiet manners, and a sensual ensemble . I do not know what her father was. He was dead, her mother kept a university lodging house. She spoke and behaved like a lady. She dressed quietly; was absolutely unmercenary; her intelligence— i.e. , her intellectual calibre—was not great. Her master-passion was one thing. The first evening I walked out with her she put her hand down on my penis, before I had even kissed her, and proposed intercourse. I was surprised, almost embarrassed; she herself led me to a wall, and standing up made me do it.

"Next day we went away for the day together. I may say she was always ready and never satisfied. She was sensual rather than sentimental. She was ready to shower her favors anywhere and to anyone. My feelings toward her soon became affectionate and sentimental, and then passionate. I thought of nothing else all day long; wrote her long letters daily; simply lived to see her.

"I found she was engaged to be married. Her fiancé , a schoolmaster, himself used to have intercourse with her, but he had taken a religious turn and thought it was wicked to do it until they married. I had intercourse with her on every possible occasion: in private rooms at hotels, in railway carriages, in a field, against a wall, and—when the holidays came—she stayed a night with me in London. She had apparently no fear of getting in the family way, and never used any precaution. Sensual as she was, she did not show her feelings by outward demonstration.

"On one occasion she proposed fellatio . She said she had done it to her fiancé and liked it. This is the only case I have known of a woman wishing to do it for the love of it.

"The emotional tension on my nerves—the continual jealousy I was in, the knowledge that before long she would marry and we must part—eventually caused me to get ill. She never told me she loved me more than any other man; yet, owing to my importunity, she saw much more of me than anyone else. It came to the ears of her fiancé that she was in my company a great deal; there was a meeting of the three of us—convened at his wish—at which she had formally, before him, to say 'good-bye' to me. Yet we still continued to meet and to have intercourse.

"Then the date of her marriage drew near. She wrote me saying that she could not see me any more. I forced myself, however, on her, and our relations still continued. Her elder sister interviewed me and said she would inform the authorities unless I gave her up; a brother, too, came to see me and made a row.

"I had what I seriously intended to be a last meeting with her. But after that she came up to London to see me, we went to a hotel together. We arranged to see one another again, but she did not write. I had now left the university. I heard she was married.

"It was now four years since I had first had intercourse with a woman. During this time I was almost continually under the influence, either of a definite love affair or of a general lasciviousness and desire for intercourse with women. My character and life were naturally affected by this. My studies were interfered with; I had become extravagant and had run into debt. It is worthy of note that I had never up to this time considered the desirability of marriage. This was perhaps chiefly because I had no means to marry. But even in the midst of my affairs I always retained sufficient sense to criticise the moral and intellectual calibre of the women I loved, and I held strong views on the advisability of mental and moral sympathies and congenital tastes existing between people who married. In my amours I had hitherto found no intellectual equality or sympathies. My passion for D. C. was prompted by (1) the bond that sexual intercourse with a woman has nearly always produced in my feelings, (2) her physical beauty, (3) that she was sensual, (4) that she was a lady, (5) that she was young, (6) that she was not mercenary. It was kept alive by the obstacles in the way of my seeing her enough and by her engagement to another.

"The D. C. affair left me worn out emotionally. I reviewed my life of the last four years. It seemed to show much more heartache, anxiety, and suffering than pleasure. I concluded that this unsatisfactory result was inseparable from the pursuit of illegitimate amours. I saw that my work had been interfered with, and that I was in debt, owing to the same cause. Yet I felt that I could never do without a woman. In this quandary I found myself thinking that marriage was the only salvation for me. Then I should always have a woman by me. I was sufficiently sensible to know that unless there were congenial tastes and sympathies, a marriage could not turn out happily, especially as my chief interests in life (after woman) were literature, history, and philosophy. But I imagined that if I could find a girl who would satisfy the condition of being an intellectual companion to me, all my troubles would be over; my sexual desire would be satisfied, and I could devote myself to work.

"In this frame of mind I turned my thoughts more seriously in the direction of a girl whom I had known for some two years. Her age was nearly the same as mine. My family and hers were acquainted with one another. I had established a platonic friendship with her. Undoubtedly the prime attraction was that she was young and pretty. But she was also a girl of considerable character. Without being as well educated as I was, she was above the average girl in general intelligence. She was fond of reading; books formed our chief subject of conversation and common interest. She was, in fact, a girl of more intelligence than I had yet encountered. On her side, as I afterward discovered, the interest in me was less purely platonic. Our relations toward one another were absolutely correct. Yet we were intimate, informal, and talked on subjects that would be considered forbidden topics between two young persons by most people. I felt she was a true friend. She, too, confided to me her troubles.

"We corresponded with one another frequently. Sometimes it occurred, to me that it was rather strange she should be so keen to write to me, to hear from me, and to see me; but I had never thought of her, consciously, except as a friend; I never for a moment imagined she thought of me except as an interesting and intelligent friend. Nor did the idea of illicit love ever suggest itself to me. She was one of those women whose face and expression put aside any such thought. I was, indeed, inclined to regard her as a good influence on me, but as passionless. I confided to her the affair of D. C., which took place during our acquaintance. She was distressed, but sympathetic and not prudish. I did not suspect the cause of her distress; I thought it was owing to her disappointment in the ideals she had formed of me. She invited me to join her and her family for a part of the summer (I had now left the university, having obtained my degree in low honors) and I decided to join them. At this stage there began to impress itself on my mind the possibility that she cared for me; also the desirability, if that were so, of becoming engaged to her. I found my feelings became warmer. On several occasions we found ourselves alone. Then, one day, our talk became more personal, more tender; and I kissed her. I do recollect distinctly the thought flashing through my mind, as she allowed me to kiss her, that she was not after all the passionless and 'straight' girl I had thought. But the idea must have been a very temporary one; it did not return; she declared her love for me; and without any express 'proposal' on my part we walked home that afternoon mutually taking it for granted that we were engaged. I was happy, and calmly happy; proud and elated.

"Circumstances now made it necessary for me to make money for myself and I was forced to enter a profession for which I had never felt any attraction; indeed, I had never considered the possibility of it, until I became engaged, and saw I must support myself if I were ever to marry. I worked hard, and rapidly improved my position.

"I think I am correct in stating that from the day I became engaged my sexual troubles seemed to have ceased. My thoughts and passions were centred on one woman. We wrote to one another twice every week, and as far as I was concerned every thought and feeling I had I told her, and the receipt of her letters was for me the event of my life for nearly three years. My anxiety in connection with my work used up a great deal of my energy, and, although I looked forward to the time when I should have a woman at my side every night, my sexual desires were in abeyance. Nor did I feel any desire or temptation for other women.

"I masturbated, but not frequently. Generally I did it to the accompaniment of images or scenes associated with my betrothed, sometimes the act was purely auto-erotic. My leisure time was devoted to reading.

"On only one occasion did I have intercourse with a woman during my engagement (three years); it was with a girl whose acquaintance I had made at the university and who asked me to come to see her.

"I married at the age of 24. Looking back on the early days of my married life it is now a matter of surprise to me that I was so far from exhibiting the transports of passion which since then have accompanied any intercourse with a new woman. Partly I was frightened of shocking her; partly my three years of comparative abstinence had chastened me. It was some weeks before I ever saw my wife entirely naked; I never touched her parts with my hand for many months; and after the first few weeks I did not have intercourse with her frequently.

"Perhaps this was to be expected. The basis of my affection for her had always been a moral or mental one rather than physical, although she was a handsome, well-made girl. Besides, money and other worries kept my thoughts busy, as well as struggles to make both ends meet.

"Indeed, I may say my sexual nature seemed to be dying out. When I had been married less than six months I discovered that sexual intercourse with my wife no longer meant what sexual intercourse used to mean—no excitement or exaltation or ecstasy. My wife perhaps contributed to this by her attitude. She confessed afterward to me that for the first week or so she positively dreaded bedtime, so physically painful was intercourse to her; that it was many weeks, if not months, before she experienced the orgasm. For the first year and more of marriage she could not endure touching my penis. This at first disappointed me; then annoyed and finally almost disgusted me.

"Later on, she learned to experience the orgasm. But she was very undemonstrative during the act, and it was seldom that the orgasm occurred simultaneously; she took a much longer time.

"I ceased to think about sexual matters. When I had been married about three years I was aware that, in my case, marriage meant the loss of all mad ecstasy in the act. I knew that if I had no work to do, and plenty of money, and temptation came my way, I should like to have another woman. But there was no particular woman to enchain my fancy and I did not have time or money or inclination to hunt for one.

"At times I masturbated. Sometimes I did this to the accompaniment of homosexual desires or memories of the past. Then I got my wife to masturbate me.

"About four years after marriage I got a woman from Piccadilly Circus to do fellatio . I had never had this done before. She did not do it genuinely, but used her fingers.

"As stated above various anxieties, the fact that I could always satisfy my physical desires, all served to calm me. I was also interested in my work and had become ambitious to improve my position and was very energetic.

"On the whole, notwithstanding money worries, the first four or five years of my married life were the happiest in my life. Certainly I was very free from sexual desires; and the general effect of marriage was to make me economical, energetic, ambitious, and unselfish. I was certainly overworked. I seldom got to bed before 1 or 2; my meals were irregular; and I became worried and nervous. At the beginning of my fifth year of married life I got run down, and had a severe illness, and at one time my life was in danger, but I had a fairly rapid convalescence.

"My illness was critical, in more senses than one. My convalescence was accompanied by a remarkable recrudescence of my sexual feelings. I will trace this in detail: 1. As I got well—but while still in bed—I found myself experiencing, almost continually, violent erections. These were at first of an auto-erotic character, and I masturbated myself, thus gaining relief to my nerves. 2. I also found my thoughts tending toward sexual images, and I felt a desire toward my nurse. I first became conscious of this when I noticed that I experienced an erection during the time that she was washing me. I mentioned the matter to my doctor, who told me not to worry, and said the symptoms were usual in the circumstances. 3. When I got up and about I found myself desiring very keenly to have intercourse with my wife. I can almost say that I felt more sexually excited than I had done for four or five years. As soon, however, as I had had intercourse with my wife a few times I felt my desire toward her cease. 4. My thoughts now centered on having a woman to do fellatio , and as soon as I was well enough to go out I got a prostitute to do this.

"Just before I was ill my wife had a child, which was born with more than one abnormality. No doubt the shock and worry caused by this got me into a low state and predisposed me to my illness. But the consequences were farther reaching still. The child underwent an operation, and my wife had to take her away into the country for nearly six weeks, so as to give her better air. I was left alone in London, for the first time since my marriage. The worry in connection with the child, and the heavy expense, served to keep me nervously upset after I had apparently recovered physically from the illness. Once more I found myself thinking about women. As an additional factor in the situation I became friendly with an old college-chum whom I had not seen much of for many years. He lived the life of a fashionable young bachelor and was at the time keeping a woman. The only common interest between us was women. I found myself reverting to the old condition of rampant lust that had been such a curse to me in my university days. Some books he lent me had a decided effect. They gave me erections; and it was on top of the excitement thus engendered that one day I got a woman to do fellatio , as already mentioned. Moreover, since my illness, I found all my previous energy and ambition had gone.

"I have stated that I was in London alone with two servants. The housemaid was a young girl; nice looking, with beautiful eyes and a sensual expression. She had been with us for about a year. I cannot remember when I first thought of her in a sexual way. But one evening I suddenly felt a desire for her. I talked to her; I found my voice trembling; I let my hand, as if by accident, touch hers; she did not withdraw it; and in a second I had kissed her. She did not resist. I took her on my knee, and tried to take liberties, which she resisted, and I desisted.

"Next day I kissed her again, and put my hand inside her breasts. The same evening I took her to an exhibition. On the way home, in a hansom cab, I made her masturbate me. This was followed by a feeling of great relief, elation, and pride .

"Next morning, when she came up to my bedroom to call me, I kissed and embraced her; she allowed me to take liberties, and, reassuring her by saying I would use a preventive, I had intercourse with her. She flinched somewhat. She then told me she was at her period and that she had never had intercourse with a man before.

"During the next few weeks I found her an adept pupil, though always shy and undemonstrative. I took her to a hotel, and experienced the intensest pleasure I had ever had in undressing her. I had lately heard about cunnilingus . I now did it to her. I soon found I experienced very great pleasure in this, as did she. (I had attempted it with my wife, but found it disgusted me.) I also had intercourse per anum . (This again was an act I had heard about, but had never been able to regard as pleasurable. But books I had been reading stated it was most pleasant both to man and woman.) She resisted at first, finding it hurt her much; it excited me greatly; and when I had done it in this way several times she herself seemed to like it, especially if I kept my hand on her clitoris at the same time.

"My relations with the housemaid, with whom I cannot pretend that I was in love, were only put an end to by satiety, and when I went away for my holidays I was utterly exhausted. This was, however, only the first of a series of relationships, at least one of which deeply stirred my emotional nature. These experiences, however, it is unnecessary to detail. There have also been occasional homosexual episodes.

"I think I am now in a much healthier condition than I have been for some years. (I assume that it is not healthy for all one's thoughts to be always occupied on sexual subjects.) The conclusion I come to is that I can live a normal, healthy life, devoting my thoughts to my work, and finding pleasure in friendship, in my children, in reading, and in other sources of amusement, as long as I can have occasional relations with a young girl— i.e. , about once a week. But if this outlet for my sexual emotions is stopped sexual thoughts obsess my brain; I become both useless and miserable.

"I have never regretted my marriage. Not only do I feel that life without a wife and home and children would be miserable, but I entertain feelings of great affection toward my wife. We are well suited to one another; she is a woman of character and intelligence; she looks after my home well, is a sensible and devoted mother, and understands me. I have never met a woman I would have sooner married. We have many tastes and likings in common, and—what is not possible with most women—I can, as a rule, speak to her about my feelings and find a listener who understands.

"On the other hand, all passion and sentiment have died out. It seems to me that this is inevitable. Perhaps it is a good thing this should be so. If men and women remained in the state of erotic excitement they are in when they marry, the business and work of the world would go hang. Unfortunately, in my case this very erotic excitement is the chief thing in life that appeals to me!

"The factors that in my case have produced this death of passion and sentiment are as follows:—

"1. Familiarity. When one is continually in the company of a person all novelty dies out. In the case of husband and wife, the husband sees his wife every day; at all times and seasons; dressed, undressed; ill; good tempered, bad tempered. He sees her wash and perform other functions; he sees her naked whenever he likes; he can have intercourse with her whenever he feels inclined. How can love (as I use the expression— i.e. , sexual passion) continue?

"2. Satiety. I am of a 'hot,' sensual disposition, inclined to excess, as far as my health and nerves are concerned. The appetite gets jaded.

"3. Absence of strong sexual reciprocity on the part of my wife. I have referred to this above. She likes intercourse, but she is never outwardly demonstrative. She has naturally a chaste mind. She never is guilty of those little indecencies which affect some men a great deal. She does not like talking of these things; and she tells me that if I died, she would never want to have intercourse again with anyone. At times, especially recently, she has even asked me to have intercourse with her, or to masturbate her; but it is seldom that the orgasm occurs contemporaneously. In this respect she is different from other women I knew, in whom the mere fact that the orgasm was occurring in me at once produced it in them. At the same time I doubt whether even strong sexual reciprocity would have retained my passion for long.

"4. During the early years of our married life money worries caused at times disagreements, reproaches and quarrels. Passion and sentiment are fragile and cannot stand these things.

"5. The fact that I had already had other women diminished the feeling of awe with which many regard the sexual act and the violation of sexual conventions.

"6. Loss of beauty. Loss of figure is, I fear, inseparable from childbearing especially if the woman works hard. We have always had servants, still my wife has always worked hard, at sewing, etc.

"I have stated that I entertain feelings of respect and admiration for my wife. But I almost loathe the idea of intercourse with her. I would sooner masturbate, and think of another woman than have intercourse with her. It causes nausea in me to touch her private parts. Yet with other women it affords me mad pleasure to kiss them, every part of their bodies. But my wife still feels for me the love she had when we first married. There lies the tragedy."

HISTORY III.— I had become good looking. For a time I knew what it was to have loving looks from every woman I met, and being saner and healthier I would seem to be moving in a divine atmosphere of color and fragrance, pearly teeth and bright eyes. Even the old women with daughters looked at me amiably—married women with challenge and maidens with Paradise in their eyes.

"I was standing one morning at St. Peter's corner, with two young friends, when a girl went by, coming over from the Roman Catholic cathedral. When she had passed she looked back, with that imperious swing that is almost a command, at me, as my friends distinctly admitted. They advised me to follow her; I did so, and she turned a pretty, blushing face and pair of dark gray eyes, with just the kind of eyebrows I liked: brown, very level, rather thick, but long. Her teeth and mouth were perfect, and she spoke with a slight Irish brogue. She let me do all the talking while she took my measure. God knows what she saw in me! I spoke in an affected manner, I remember, imitating some swell character I had seen on the stage a night or two before, but I was wise enough not to talk too much and to behave myself. She promised to meet me again and made the appointment. She was a school-teacher and engaged to be married to some one else. She meant to amuse herself her own way before she married. The second night I met her she allowed me to kiss her as much as I liked and promised all her favors for the third night. We took a long walk, and in the dark she gave herself to me, but I hurt her so much I had to stop two or three times. She had had connection only once, years before, when at school herself. She was inclined to be sensual, but she was young, fresh, and pretty, and her kisses turned my head. I fell genuinely in love with her and told her so, one night when she was particularly fascinating, with the tears in my eyes; and her face met mine with equal love. The first night or two I had felt no pleasure—whether through years of self-abuse or not I do not know,—but this night my whole being was excited. I met her once and sometimes twice a week and was always thinking of her. My sister saw me looking love-sick one day and I heard her say 'He's in love,' which rather flattered me, and I looked more love-sick and idiotic than ever. It was all wrong and perverted. She continued to meet her fiancé , and intended to marry him. We both spoke of 'him' as an adultress speaks of her husband. That high level of tears and childlike joy in our youth and love was never reached again. But I realized her sex , her kisses, her presence—after all those years of horror (if she had only known)—more even than the sexual act itself; while she, as time went on, commenced to show a curiosity which I thought desecrating; she liked to examine—to 'let her hand stray,' were her words. Even her beauty seemed impaired some nights and I caught a gleam in her eye and a curve of her lip I thought vulgar. But perhaps the next night I met her she would be as bright as ever.

"I introduced her to my friends, who knew our relations, for I blabbed everything. But she did not mind their knowing and if we met would give them all a kiss, so that I felt I had been rather too profuse in my hospitality, though I still would say: 'Have another one, Bert; I don't mind.' But whatever ass I made of myself she forgave me anything, and was fonder of me every time we met, while I, although I did not know it for a long time, was less fond of her. She knew how to revive my love, however. Some nights she would not meet me, and I would be like a madman. Other nights she would meet me, but not let me raise her dress. She would lie on me, on a moonlit night, and her young face in shadow like a siren's in its frame of hair, merely to kiss me. But what kisses! Slow, cold kisses changing to clinging, passionate ones. She would leave my mouth to look around, as if frightened, and come back, open-mouthed, with a side-contact of lips that brought out unexpected felicities.

"One night her fiancé saw us together, and followed me after I left her, but on turning a corner I ran. I ridiculed him to her and despised him. I should have found it difficult to say why. Another night her brother attacked me, and it would have gone hard with me, but Annie pulled me in and banged the door. We were in a friend's house, but her father came around soon and laid a stick about her shoulders, in my presence. I tried to talk big, and said something idiotic about being as good a man as her betrothed, as though my intentions were honorable, which for one brief moment made Anne look at me, paler faced and changed, such a strange glance. But he beat her home, enjoying my rage, and she went away, crying in her hands. I was allowed to go unmolested.

"I soon received a letter from her asking me not to mind and making an appointment, at which she turned up cheerful and unconcerned. She went to confession, and would meet me afterwards; and her faith in that, and the difference of our religions (if I had any religion) would make her seem strange and alien to me at times, even banal. At last our meetings became a mere habit of sensuality, with all charm, and suggestion of better things eliminated....

"I went with my friend George (who shared my room) one afternoon and called at Annie's school; she kept an infants' school of her own. She came to the door herself. It was the first time I had seen her in daylight, and I thought her cheek-bones bigger; she certainly was not so pretty as on the first evening I met her. George had told me he would sleep away if I wanted the room, and when next I met her she promised to come and sleep with me. Before I had always met her on the grass, under trees. She came, and the sight of her young limbs and breasts revived something of my love for her, my better love. But she was insatiable and more sensual every day. One day she came when I was not well, and would not go away disappointed. I had met a very pretty girl about this time, and now resolved to give Annie up, which I did in the cruelest manner, cutting her dead, and refusing to answer her letters and touching messages. I heard that she would cry for hours, but I was harder than adamant....

"I thought myself very much in love with the very pretty girl for whom I had thrown up Annie. She lived with her mother and two sisters, one older than herself, the other a mere child. The eldest sister, a handsome, dark girl like a Spaniard, was not virtuous. She was good natured; too much so, and took her pleasure with several of us, dying, not long after, of consumption. I thought her sister, my girl, was virtuous, and I meant to marry her—some day. At any rate, I saw her mother, who lived in a well-furnished house and was a superior woman. This did not prevent my trying to seduce her daughter. I did not succeed for a long time, though she did not cease meeting me. The sisters came to see us. I knew, one night, her sister was upstairs with D. and I guessed what they were at, so I suggested to her she should creep up on them for fun. She did so, came back, excited and pale—and gave herself to me. But she was not a virgin and in time I had a glimpse of her unhappy fate and her mother's position. Her father was dead or divorced, and her mother, I believe, was mistress to some wealthy bookmaker. I am not sure, there was always a mystery hanging over the mother, nor am I certain that she connived at her daughter's seduction, but the girl's account was that after some successful Cup day there had been too much champagne drunk all around, and that a man she looked on as a friend came into her bedroom that night when she was tête montée and seduced or violated her—whichever word you like to choose. Since then his visits had been frequent until she met me, she said, and if I would be true to her she would be a true wife to me, and I believed her and still believe she meant what she said. But I left Melbourne shortly after this, our letters got few and far between, and ultimately I heard she was married to a young man who had always been in love with her....

"Among the inmates of the boarding house was a 'married' couple who stayed for some time; he was an insignificant, ugly, little, crosseyed commercial traveler; she was a pretty, little creature who looked as innocent and was as merry as a child; we all vied in paying her attentions and waiting on her like slaves, the husband always smiling a cryptic smile. After they had left it was hinted they were not married at all; the oldest hands had been taken in.... One afternoon I met Dolly, the commercial traveler's wife, and she stopped and spoke to me. I remembered what I had heard and ventured on some pleasantry at which she laughed, and on my proposing that we should go for a walk she consented. She had left the commercial traveler, it came out in conversation, and we went on talking and walking, one idea only in my mind now; could I detain her till dark? Dolly, who was very pretty indeed, amused herself with me for hours, playing hot and cold, snubbing me one minute, encouraging me with her eyed another. Hour after hour went and she found this game so entertaining that she accompanied me to the park behind the Botanical Gardens, and it was not until it was too late for me to catch a train home that she gave herself to me. In fact, we stayed out the whole of that warm summer night. As the hours went by she told me of her home in London and how she first went wrong. She had been a good girl till one day on an excursion she drank some rum or gin, which seemingly revived some dormant taint of heritage; when she went home that night she fell flat at her mother's feet. Her parents, well-to-do shopkeepers, who had forgiven her several times before, turned her out. She became one man's mistress and then another's. She began early, and was scarcely 19 now. She would leave off the drink for a time and try to be respectable. She loved her father and mother, but she could not help drinking at times. She spoke cheerfully and laughingly about it all; she was young, strong, good natured, and careless. We went to sleep for a little while and then wandered in the early morning down toward the cemetery, when she tried to tidy her hair, asking me how I had enjoyed myself and not waiting for an answer. She was thirsty, she said, and when the public houses opened we went and had a drink. It was the first time I had seen her drink alcohol,—at the boarding house she had always been the picture of health and sweetness,—and I saw a change come over her at once, so that I understood all that she had told me. The sleepless night may have made it worse, but the look that came into her eyes, and the looseness of the fibres not only of her tell-tale wet mouth, but of every muscle of her face was startling and piteous to see. She saw my look and laughed, but her laugh was equally piteous to hear, and when she spoke again her voice had changed too, and was equally piteous. She asked for another. 'No, don't,' I begged, for the pretty girl I had flattered myself I had passed a summer's night with that most young men would envy, showed signs of changing, like some siren, into a flabby, blear-eyed boozer. That hurt my vanity.

"I met her another night and she took, me to her lodgings, and I slept with her all night. I no longer tried to stop her drinking, but drank with her. I ceased to treat her with courtesy and gallantry; she noticed it, but only drank the more, drank till she became dirty in her ways, till her good looks vanished. I left her, too drunk to stand, as some friend, a woman, called on her.

"She came to see me once more, like her old self, so well dressed and well behaved, and chatted so cheerfully to my landlady that the latter afterward congratulated me on having such a friend. Dolly carried a parcel of underclothing she had made, with a few toys, for the children of a poor man in the suburbs, and I accompanied her to the house. There was great excitement among the ragged children; in fact, the atmosphere became so dangerously full of love and charity that I commenced to feel uncomfortable,—the shower of roses again,—and was glad to find myself in the open air. We went for a walk and had several drinks, which made the usual change in Dolly. I got tired of her, determined I would leave her, spoke cruelly, and finally—after having connection with her on the dry seaweed—rose and left her brutally, walked away faster and faster, deaf to her remonstrances, and careless whether or how she reached the station....

"I had gone to lodge with a family whom I had been accustomed to visit as a friend; there were two daughters; the elder, engaged to a young German who was away with a survey party, had a rather plain face, but a strong one and was herself a strong character, and I came to like her in spite of myself; the second girl had light golden hair, a fresh complexion, a short nose, and rather large mouth, which contained beautiful teeth; they were both good, obedient, innocent church-going daughters. As there was plenty of amusement there of an evening, singing and dancing, I did not go out, got into better ways, and gradually gave up drinking to excess. I was so improved in appearance that an old acquaintance did not recognize me. My anecdotes and fun amused Mrs. S., the mother of the girls. She could be very violent on occasions, I found, and I learned that there had been terrible scenes at times, and that from time to time it had been necessary to place her in an asylum. I went for drives with the girls and to theatres, and ought to have been happy and glad to find myself in such good quarters. The mother trusted me so entirely that she left me for hours with the girls, the younger one of whom I would kiss sometimes. She was engaged to a young fellow whom I spoke to patronizingly, but whose shoes I was not worthy to fasten. I was the cause of quarrels between them. They made it up again but I think he noticed the change that was taking place in Alice. For from kissing her I had gone on—all larking at first. We formed the habit of sitting down on the sofa when alone and kissing steadily for ten minutes or more at a time. She was excited without knowing what was the matter with her—but I knew. And one day when our mouths were together I drew her to me and commenced to stroke her legs gently down. She trembled like a string bow, and allowed my hand to go farther. And then she was frightened and ashamed and commenced to laugh and cry together. She had these hysterical attacks several times and they always frightened me. It ended in my seducing her. She broke off her engagement, and then was sorry; but soon she thought only of me.... One day Alice and I were nearly caught. I had just left her on the sofa and had commenced drawing at a table with my back to her when suddenly her mother came in without her shoes, while Alice had one hand up her clothes arranging her underclothing. The mother stopped dead and shot me one glance I shall never forget. 'Why, Alice, you frighten me!' she said. I feigned surprise and asked 'What is the matter?' Alice, although she was frightened out of her wits, managed to stammer: 'He couldn't see me—you couldn't see me, could you?' appealing to me. But I had managed to collect my senses a bit and although still under that maternal eye I asked,—at last turning slowly around to Alice: 'See? What do you mean? See what?' And I looked so mystified that the mother was deceived, and contented herself with scolding Alice and telling her to run no risks of that sort. I breathed again.

"But I was near the end of my tether. Alice and I talked about everything now. She told me about her life at boarding school and the strange ideas some of the girls had about men and marriage. After leaving school she had been sent to a large millinery or drapery establishment to learn sewing and dressmaking. Here, she said, the talk was awful at times, and one girl had a book with pictures of men's organs of generation, which was passed around and excited their curiosity to the highest pitch.

"I had days of tenderness and contrition, and even told her I would get on and marry her. Then the tears would come into her eyes and she would say: 'I seem to feel as if you were my husband now.' ...

"I had to see a man on business and went to his cottage. The door was opened by his wife, a handsome, dark-eyed young woman, who looked as if butter would not melt in her mouth. After leaving a message I went on talking to her on other subjects. She piqued my vanity in some way, and made me feel curious and restless. I found myself thinking of her after I left and looking back I saw she was still looking at me.

"To make a long story short, she encouraged me. It ended by my leaving the S. family and going to board with them. T. D., the husband, was glad of my company and my money. They had a little boy—whose father T. was not. I soon understood her inviting looks at me. For she was a general lover, and an old man, in a good government billet, visited her often when T. D. was away: I will call him Silenus. There was also a dark, handsome man who built organs. The latter came one day and sent for some beer. I was working in my room, and it so happened that before he knocked she had been going further than usual in her talk with me; in fact, as good as giving me the word. When her friend was admitted he had to pass my open door and he gave me a look with his black eyes and I gave him a look which told each what the other's game was. It is wonderful what a lot can be learned from a single glance of the eyes. When I saw the little boy bringing in the beer I felt that he had bested me. But she brought me in a glass first, and putting her down on the sofa I scored first. It was done so suddenly, so brutally, that, accustomed as she must have been to such scenes she turned red and bit her under lip. But she sent the other man away in a few minutes. After that she was insatiable; it was every day and sometimes twice in one day. I commenced to be gloomy and miserable again. And there was not even a pretense of love. There was no deception about her; she even introduced me to Silenus and we made excursions together, for which he paid, as he had plenty of money. We were always drinking, until at last I could eat nothing unless I had two or three whiskies. I became very thin, my horizon seemed black and all things at an end. (But T. D. enjoyed his meals and was really fond of his wife and her boy and his work; life was pleasant to him.) She would go up to town with me and to a certain hotel; after drinking she would leave me waiting while she retired with the handsome young landlord for a short time. She told me when she came back that he was a great favorite with married women.

"She told me that Silenus visited a woman who practiced fellatio on him. Mrs. D. thought such practices abominable and could not imagine how a woman could like doing such a thing.

"When she was out walking with me one day T. D.'s name came up and she said in a slightly altered voice: 'He told me he loved me!' It was a word seldom used by her except in jest. I threw a startled look at her and caught an inquisitive and apologetic look in return, such a strange and touching glance that I saw I had not yet understood her,—there was an enigma somewhere. When, bit by bit, she told me her life, I understood, or thought I understood, that strange childlike glance in this young woman steeped to her eyes in sin. No one had ever made love to her or spoken to her of love in her life.

"It had commenced at school. She must have been a particularly fine and handsome girl, judging from her photographs. She had seen boys playing with girls' privates under the form and felt jealous that they did not play with her's. She had no mother to look after her and she soon found plenty of boys to play with her, and young men, too, as she grew older. She took it as she took her meals. She had been really fond of her child's father, but as he had shown no tenderness for her, nothing but a craving for sensual gratification, she would rather have died than let him know. She soon tired of her attachments, she told me. She did not like T. D. He was not the complacent husband; he was spirited enough, but he believed everything she told him. One day he came home unexpectedly when we were together on the bare palliass in her room. It was a critical moment when his knocks were heard, and in the hurry and excitement some moisture was left on the bed. The knocks became louder, but she was calmer than I, and bade me run down to the closet. I could hear her cheerful and chaffing voice greeting him. When I walked in back to my own room she called out: 'Here's T. home!' I learned afterward that he had been surly and suspicious, and had seen the moisture on the bed, and asked about it, whereupon she had turned the tables upon him completely; he ought to be ashamed of himself; she knew what he meant by his insinuations; if he must know how that moisture come on the bed, why she put the soap there in a hurry to catch a flea. He believed her and brought her a present next day in atonement for his suspicions.

"During her monthly periods, when I could not touch her, she would come in and play with me until emissions occurred, and my feelings had become so perverted that I even preferred this to coitus. The orgasm would occur twice in her to once in me, and though her eyes were rather hard and her mouth too, she always looked well and cheerful, while I was gloomy and depressed. In her side, however, was a hard lump, which pained her at times, and which, doubtless, was waiting its time....

"One day I felt so low in health that I proposed to T. D. that we should take a boat and sail out in the bay for a day or two. The sea, the change, the open air revived me, and I even made sketches of the black sailor as he steered the boat. One day when I was left alone in charge of the boat, as I felt the time hanging on my hands, for the sea, the blue sky, the lovely day gave me no real pleasure, I remember abusing myself, the old habit reasserting itself as soon as I was alone and idle. When T. D. came back he brought Mrs. D. with him, laughing and jolly as usual. She was surprised when lying next to me under the deck on our return I did not respond to her advances. It would have pleased her, with her husband only a few feet away. After that I spent a night with her, but she was getting tired of me. I did not care for her, but it hurt my vanity and I made a few attempts to be impertinent. She looked at me coldly and threatened to complain to T....

"I want to relate an impression I received one night about this time when with several friends we called at a brothel. I forget my companion, but I remember two faces. It was winter, and great depression prevailed in Adelaide. We had been talking to the mistress as we drank some beer and were pretending to be jolly fellows, although we were wet, cold, and had not enjoyed ourselves (at least, I had not), and she was speaking harshly and jeeringly about two girls she had now who had not earned a penny for the past week. Just then we heard footsteps and she said in a lower tone: 'Here they are,' They came in, unattended, having ascertained which the brothel-keeper snorted and turned her back to them. The faces of the girls, who were quite young, looked so miserable that even I pitied them. The look on the face of one of those girls as she stood by the hearth drawing off her gloves lives in my memory. Too deep for tears was its sorrow, shame, and hopelessness....

"I had given up drink and was living in the bush. To anyone with normal nerves it would have been a happy time of quiet, rustic peace, beauty, and relief from city life. With me it was restless vanity amounting to madness. In every relation, action, or possible event in which I figured or might figure in the future, I always instantaneously called up an imaginary audience. And then this imaginary audience admired everything I did or might do, and put the most heroic, gallant, and romantic construction on my acts, appearance, lineage, and breeding. Suppose I saw a pretty girl on a bush road. Instead of thinking 'There is a pretty girl; I should like to know her or kiss her,' as I suppose a healthy, normal young man would think, I thought after this fashion: 'There is a pretty girl; now, as I pass her she will think I am a handsome and aristocratic-looking stranger, and, as I carry a sketch-book, an artist—"A landscape painter! How romantic!" she will say, and then she will fall in love with me,' etc. This preoccupation with what other people might think or would think so engrossed all my time that I had no means of enjoying the presence, thought, or favor of the divine creatures I met, and I must have appeared 'cracked' to them with my reticence, pride, and silly airs.

"I met girls as foolish as myself sometimes. Once at a table d'hôte I met a young girl who went for a walk with me and let me know her carnally although she was little more than a schoolgirl. She was going down to town soon, she said, and would meet me at a certain hotel (belonging to relations of hers) in Adelaide on a certain date, some time ahead; if I took a room there she would come into it during the night. In the meanwhile I had given way to drink again and abused myself at intervals. I came down to town, drunk, in the coach, and kept my appointment with the young girl at the hotel, expecting a night of pleasure; but she merely stared at me coldly as if she had never seen me before. I abused myself twice in my solitary room....

"I met a middle-aged schoolteacher (who had once been an officer in the army) down for his holidays. As he spoke well, and was a 'gentleman,' I cultivated him. One night he asked me to meet a girl he had an appointment with and tell her he was not well enough to meet her. He foolishly told me the purpose of their intended meeting. I went to the trysting-place, at the back of the hotel, and met the girl. On delivering my message she smiled, made some joke about her friend, and looked at me as much as to say: 'You will do as well.' I had been drinking, and in the most brutal manner I took her into a closet. By some strange chance or state of nerves she gave me exquisite pleasure, but the orgasm came with me before it did with her, and in spite of her disappointment and protests I stood up and pulled her out of the place for fear some one should find us there. Still protesting she followed me, but her foot slipped on the paved court, and she fell down on her face. When she rose I saw that her front teeth were broken. I looked at her without pity, with impatience, and abruptly leaving her I went into the hotel to 'the colonel.' I commenced to tell him lies, when he asked me with a weak laugh what had been keeping me. I smiled with low cunning and drunken vanity, evading the question. Then he accused me directly. I only laughed; but, drunk as I was, I remember the look of the ageing bachelor as he saw he had been betrayed by a younger man. He had known her for years....

"I was now living in the home of a woman who was separated from her husband and kept lodgers. She had a daughter, with whom I walked out, a pretty girl who drank like a fish, as her mother also did. There were other lodgers coming and going. I would lie down all day and keep myself saturated with beer. I commenced to get fat and bloated, with the ways of a brothel bully. A broken-down, drunken old woman who visited the house and had been a beautiful lady in her youth told me I should end my days on the gallows trap. The same woman when drunk would lift up her dress, sardonically, exposing herself. Other old women would congregate in the neglected and dirty bedrooms and tell fortunes with the cards. One little woman, an onanist, was like a character out of Dickens, exaggerated, affected, unnatural, with remains of gentility and society manners. Amidst all this drunkenness and abandonment May, the landlady's daughter, preserved her virginity. Young lodgers would take liberties with her, but at a certain stage would receive a stinger on the face. The girl liked me and would kiss me, but nothing else. And then—out of this home of drunkenness and shame—May fell in love with some pretty boy she met by chance, whom she never asked to her home. She began to neglect me, even to neglect drink, and to dream, preoccupied. I felt a restless jealousy, but she would look at me, without resentment, without recognition, without seeing me, look me straight in the eyes as I was talking to her, and dream and dream. This same pretty boy seduced her, I believe. When next I met her she was 'on the town,' her one dream of spring over....

"About this time I had one of those salutary turns that have marked epochs in my life, and as a result I left that house and resolutely abstained from drink.... I was now in a small up-country town. I commenced to play croquet and to ride out. Sometimes I was invited to dinner by a young man at the bank, whose house was kept by his sister. She had a small figure, a pretty but rather narrow face, and well-bred manners; but there was a look in her asymmetrical eyes, in the shape of her thin hands, even in the stoop of her shoulders, that seemed passionate. One day—when her brother, a fine, sweet-blooded manly young athlete, was absent—I commenced to pull her about. She gave me one passionate kiss, but said: 'No! Do you know what keeps me straight? It is the thought of my brother.' I refrained from molesting her further. I met other girls, some pretty and arrogant, others plain and hungry-eyed; it was a country town where there were four or five females to every male. But I could not speak frankly and candidly to a young woman as the young banker did....

"I remember that one night, when I was living at the Port, I slept all night with a prostitute who had taken a fancy to me and who used to cry on my shoulder, much to my impatience and annoyance. In the same bed with us, lying beside me, was a girl aged about 12. On my expressing surprise I was told she was used to it and noticed nothing. But in the morning I turned my head and looked at her, and even in the dim light of that dirty bedroom I could see that her eyes had noticed and understood. She pressed herself against me and smiled; it was not the smile of an infant. I could record many instances I have observed of the precocity of children.

"At one time I made the acquaintance of three young men, two in the customs, the other in a surveyor's office. At the first glance you would have said they were ordinary nice young clerks, but on becoming better acquainted you would notice certain peculiarities, a looseness of mouth, a restless, nervous inquietude of manner, an indescribable gleam of the eye. They were very fond of performing and singing at amateur minstrel shows and developed a certain comic vein they thought original, though it reminded me of professional corner-men. However, I enjoyed their singing and drinking habits and went to their lodgings several nights to play cards, drink beer, and tell funny stories. One night they asked me to stay all night and on going to a room with two beds I was told to have one. Presently one of the young men came in and commenced to undress. But before going to his bed he made a remark which, though I had been drinking, opened my eyes. I told him to shut up and go to bed, speaking firmly and rather coldly, and he went reluctantly to his own bed. But another night when they had shifted their lodgings and were all sleeping in the same room I was drunk and went to bed with the same fair-haired young man. On waking up in the night I found my bedmate tampering with me. The old force came over me and I abused him, but refused to commit the crime he wanted me to. His penis was small and pointed. I rose early in the morning, sobered, suffering, and covered with shame, and went hastily away, refusing to stay for breakfast. I thought I caught an amazed and evil smile on the faces of the other two. Meeting the three the same evening in the street, I passed them blushing, and my bedmate of the previous night blushed also....

"I now took cheap lodgings in North Adelaide. Here I had slight recurrences of the strangeness and fear of going mad which I had experienced once before. I led such a solitary life and fell into such a queer state that I turned to religion and attended church regularly. It was approaching the time for those young men and women who wished to be confirmed to prepare themselves, and a struggle now ensued between my pride and my wish to gain rest and peace of mind in Jesus. I was self-conscious to an incredible degree, and dreaded exposure or making an exhibition of myself, but still went to church, hoping the grace of God would descend on me. I had no other resources. I had no pleasure in life, and was so shattered and in such misery of dread that I welcomed the only refuge that seemed open to me. At last, one Sunday, I had what I thought was a call; I shed a few tears, and although tingling all down my spine I went up in the cathedral and joined those who were going to be confirmed. I attended special meetings and shocked the good bishop very much by telling him I had never been baptized. I had to be baptized first and went one day to the cathedral and he baptized me. When the critical awful moment came the bishop, whose faith even then surprised me somehow, held my hand in his cold palm, and gave it a pressure, eyeing me, expectantly, inquisitively, to see any change for the better. But, it so happened, that morning I was in a horrible temper and black mood, hard and dry-eyed, and no change came. Still, I tried to believe there was a change.

"I was confirmed with others, had a prayer-book given me with prayers for nearly every hour in the day, and was always kneeling and praying. I procured a long, white surplice, and assisted at suburban services, even conducting small ones myself, reading the sermons out of books. But my mood of rage increased, and one Sunday I had to walk a long way in a new pair of boots. I shall never forget that hot Sunday afternoon. My feet commenced to ache and a murderous humor seized me. I swore and blasphemed one moment and prayed to God to forgive me the next. When I reached the chapel where I had to assist the chaplain I was exhausted with rage, pain, fear, and religious mania. I thought it probable I had offended the Holy Ghost. When, next Sunday, I went to try my hand at Sunday-school teaching I wore a pair of boots so old that the little boys laughed. I was always talking of my conversion and the spirit of our Saviour. I do not know what the clergymen I met thought of me. I thought I should like to be a minister myself, and questioned a Church of England parson as to the amount of study necessary. He received my question rather coldly, I thought, which discouraged me. As my dread gradually diminished, though I still felt strange, I made excuses for not conducting services, although I continued to read my Bible and prayer-book, and really believed I had been 'born again.'

"Surely now, I thought, that I had Christ's aid, I shall be able to break off my habit of self-abuse that had been the curse of my youth. What was my horror and dismay to find that, when the mood came on me next, I went down the same as ever. And after all my suffering and dread and fear of fits! What could I do? Was I mad, or what? I was really frightened at my helplessness in the matter and decided on a course of conduct that ultimately brought me past this danger to better health and comparative happiness. I said to myself that there is always a certain amount of preliminary thought and dalliance before I do this deed; doubtless this it is that renders me incapable of resisting. I decided, therefore, never to let my thoughts commence to dwell on lustful things, but to think of something else on the first intimation of their appearance in my mind. I rigorously followed this rule; and it proved successful, and I recommend it to others in the same predicament as myself. After suffering weeks and months of dread and illness once more, falling away in flesh and turning yellow, I gradually mended a little. I had a better color and tone, and was something like other young men, barring a strange alternate exaltation and depression. Even this gradually became less noticeable, and my moods more even and reliable."