to manage it.  The vulva stripped back the foreskin, which was a voluptuous feeling; then we were alarmed by something and separated.  I never saw her again.  She too liked to ‘punish’ her vulva.  She put whole pepper in it, and advised me to use the same.  I continued greatly excited when she had gone; the hand flew to the phallus and worried it, and orgasm came on at once—­the childish orgasm consisting of well-spaced spasms of the ejaculators, without the poignant preliminary nisus of the adult orgasm.  There was no reaction or depression, except that the phallus—­which did not subside at once—­was painful to touch.  A week or so later I tried again, but failed.  A month later, being more excited, I succeeded.  I found that I could only compass it about once in three weeks.  There were no emissions.  I used to have a spontaneous mental image of a small Grecian temple in a sunny park, which charmed me, and I had no scruples.

    “Age 12-13.  Masturbated once or twice a month.

“Age 13-14.  Was sent to a small public school, where it happened that a very good tone prevailed.  I learned that masturbation was bad form and unmanly.  The proper thing was to save one’s self up for women—­at about 18.  I dropped the practice easily, in spite of indulging my imagination about coitus.  I thought of the initiation with prostitutes at 18, with the mixed feelings that even the most combative soldier must regard the fray.  The hypogastric feeling above referred to would come on—­which I liked and disliked at the same time.  The first occasion on which I remember this feeling was when I got my first braces.  Anything that harped on my sex produced it.  Every time I received the sacrament, which I was forced to do very young, I repented of my intention of whoring at 18—­as a man ‘must’ do—­and afterward I relapsed to the expectation.  Religion was a great reality to me, but it did not produce the radical effect that the development of the romantic sentiment did later on.  (Both my wife and I became free-thinkers at about 30.)

“Age 15-17.  Read poetry and romance.  Conceived a high ideal of faithfulness and constancy.  What a mockery all this loyalty is, I said to myself, if a man has stultified it beforehand.  That was no mere castle-building.  I had not understood what I was about in expecting to whore.  The critical feelings were now awakening, and what they produced was revulsion against the abuse of sex, which got stronger every year.  It became plain that there would be no whoring or the like for me; I was far too proud and fastidious.  I neglected my tasks, which were uncongenial, and read a great deal of anatomy and physiology, which stood me in good stead later.  As I rose in the school I was surprised to find the tone worse, but quite at the top it was better again, and with my latest companions sex was never even mentioned.  At 14 I had a friend who importuned me to come into his bed, but I never would get under