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