of the structure of woman’s sexual organs and of the intercourse between man and woman.  In the meantime I cultivated my fancies of intercourse with animals, often still perversely imagining myself taking the part of the female; and the notion of such relationships gradually became so familiar as to seem possible and desirable.  This is especially significant in view of later developments.

Up to my eleventh or twelfth year the erotic element in my daydreaming varied with the seasons.  In the summer it played a dominant part, while in the winter it was almost entirely absent, owing, it may be, to the fact that most of my time was spent indoors or on long, tiresome tramps to and from school, and the further fact that during the winter I saw but little of the animals which had acted as a stimulus to sexual excitement.  So little was I troubled in winter and so ignorant was I of normal intercourse that sleeping with a cousin, a girl of about my own age (7 or 8 years), resulted in no addition to my knowledge of things sexual.

It was early in my ninth year that I first learned something of the anatomical difference between man and woman and of the functions of the sexual organs in coitus.  These were explained to me by a young male servant, who, however, told me nothing of conception or pregnancy.  At first I was very little interested, as it did not immediately occur to me to associate my own erotic experiences with the matter of these revelations; but under the faithful tuition of my new instructor I soon began to desire normal coitus, and my interest in the sexual affairs of animals weakened accordingly.  His teachings went still further, for he masturbated before me, then persuaded me to masturbate him, and finally practiced coitus inter femora upon me.  He also tried to masturbate me, but was unable to produce an orgasm, though I found the experiment mildly pleasurable.

Early in my eleventh year we left the farm and lived in the city for several months.  In the meantime there had been no developments in my sexual life beyond what has already been indicated.  In the city I found so much to interest and amuse me that I almost entirely forgot my erotic day-dreams and desires.  Though my chief playmates were two girls of about my own age I never thought of attempting sexual intercourse with them, as I might easily have done, for they were much wiser and more experienced in these things than myself.  Shortly before the end of our stay in town an older schoolmate explained to me as much of the process of reproduction as is usually known by a precocious youngster of 12 years, but I firmly refused to credit his statements.  He adduced the fact of lactation in proof of the correctness of his views, but I had been too thoroughly steeped in supernaturalism to be very amenable to naturalistic evidence of this sort and remained obdurate.  But the suggestion stayed with me and perplexed me not a little;