air and water.  One person usually served as the object of my ideal attachment, another as the center round which I grouped my sensual dreams and desires.

At school I found more congenial companions than I had fallen in with elsewhere, and the necessary contact with people of both sexes gradually wore off some of the rougher corners and brought a measure of self-confidence.  I had two or three incipient love affairs which my backwardness kept from growing serious.  Out of this change of environment came a sense of expansion, of escape from self, which was distinctly pleasant.  I still masturbated regularly, but no longer experienced the former depression except when at home during vacation.  Relatively to the past, life was now so varied and interesting that I had less and less time for melancholy; and the discovery that I could lead my classes and hold my own in athletic sports seemed to indicate that my past fears had been exaggerated.  Nevertheless I was never reconciled to the habit and often rebelled at the weakness that kept me its slave.

When I entered the university the effects of my useless struggle with the practice of masturbation were pretty well developed.  I could no longer fix my attention steadily upon my work and found that only by “cribbing” and “bluffing” could I keep my place at the head of my classes.  I was troubled not a little by the shoddiness of my work, and tried again and again during the course of the two years spent at this college to shake off the habit.  At the university I was introduced gradually to a wider social circle and so far outgrew my bashfulness that I began to seek the society of the opposite sex assiduously.  As I gained self-confidence I became reckless, getting at one time into serious trouble with the authorities which came near resulting in my expulsion.  I became one of the more popular members of the clique to which I belonged—­much to my surprise and even more to that of my acquaintances.  The physical culture craze attacked me at this time and my pet ambition was the attainment of strength and agility.  My bump of vanity also grew apace, but an unmeasured hatred of all kinds of foppishness kept me on the safe side of moderation in my dress and behavior.

During my second year of university life I had two love affairs in the course of which I found that my interest in any particular member of the fair sex disappeared as soon as it was returned.  The pursuit was fascinating enough, but I cared nothing at all for the prize when once it was within reach.  I may add that the interest I had in the girls was purely ideal.  While at this school I do not think I masturbated half as often as while at the preparatory school.

When I left this college for ——­ University I took with me a formidable catalogue of good resolutions, first among which was the determination to abandon all kinds of “self-abuse.”  I think I kept this one about a month.  As