fully to be in bed together.  One night, however, when she had had a cruelly trying day and I wanted to find all ways of comforting her, I bared by breast for her to lie on.  Afterward it was clear that neither of us could be satisfied without this.  She groped for it like a child, and it excited me much more to feel that than to uncover my breast and arms altogether at once.

“Much of this excitement was sexually localized, and I was haunted in the daytime by images of holding this woman in my arms.  I noticed also that my inclination to caress my other women friends was not diminished, but increased.  All this disturbed me a good deal.  The homosexual practices of which I had read lately struck me as merely nasty; I could not imagines myself tempted to them;—­at the same time the whole matter was new to me, for I had never wanted anyone even to share my bed before; I had read that sex instinct was mysterious and unexpected, and I felt that I did not know what might come next.

“I knew only one elder person whom (for wide-mindedness, gentleness, and saintliness) I could bear to consult; and to this person, a middle-aged man, I wrote for advice.  He replied by a long letter of the most tender warning.  I had better not weaken my influence with my friend, he wrote, by going back suddenly or without her consent, but I was to be very wary of going further; there was fire about.  I tried to put this into practice by restraining myself constantly in our intercourse, by refraining from caressing her, for instance, when I wanted to caress her and knew that she wanted it.  The only result seemed to be that the desire was more tormenting and constant than ever.

“If at this point my friend had happened to die or go away, and the incident had come to an end, I should probably have been left nervous in these matters for years to come.  I should have faltered in the opinion I had always held, that bodily expressions of love between women were as innocent as they were natural; and I might have come nearer than I ever expected to the doctrine of those convent teachers who forbid their girls to embrace one another for fear an incalculable instinct should carry them to the edge of an abyss.

“As it was, after a while I said a little on the subject to my friend herself.  I had been inclined to think that she might share my anxiety, but she did not share it at all.  She said to me that she did not like these thoughts, that she cared for me more than She had ever done for any person except one (now causing most of her unhappiness), and wanted me in all possible ways, and that it would make her sad to feel that I was trying not to want her in one way because I thought it was wrong.

“On my part, I knew very well how much she did need and want me.  I knew that in relations with others she was spending the greatest effort in following a course that I urged