circumstance in connection with these experiences is the fact that I often found myself trying to analyze my emotions with a purely psychological interest while playing the part of the intoxicated lover in his mistress’s arms.

There is but little left to say on the subject of my sexual development.  During the last two or three years my knowledge of the facts of the sexual life has been very greatly increased, and I have become acquainted with phases of human nature which were wholly unknown to me before.  The part played by things sexual in my life is still, I suppose, abnormally large; it is undoubtedly the largest single interest, though my outer life is determined almost wholly by other considerations.

Of course I know nothing of the effect which long-continued masturbation may have had on my ability to perform normal coitus.  I do not think I am subject to any kind of sexual perversion, for all my indulgence has been faute de mieux and, at least since I began masturbation, all my desires and erotic day-dreams have had to do only with normal coitus.  The mystery which surrounds the sexual act seems at times to be regaining its former influence and power of fascination.  I have no doubt, however, but that I should be greatly disillusioned should I ever perform coitus; and I greatly regret that I have not been able to test this conviction and so round out and complete this “history.”

It may be worth while to say a word about my religious experiences, as, in many cases, they are closely bound up with the sexual impulse.  I was never “converted,” but on a dozen or more occasions approached the crisis more or less closely.  The dominant emotion in these experiences was always fear, sometimes with anger and despair intermixed in varying proportions.  A complete analysis of these experiences is, of course, impossible, but the various pleasurable feelings of which converts spoke in the revivals which I attended were a closed book to me.  Following my revival-meeting experiences came a few days spent in a sort of moral exaltation during which I eschewed all my habits of which conventional morality disapproved, save masturbation, and felt no small satisfaction with my moral conditions.  I became a first-rate Pharisee.  Toward the women who had figured in my day dreams I suddenly conceived the chastest affection, resolutely smothering every sensual thought and fancy when thinking of them, and putting in place of these elements ideal love, self-sacrifice, knightly devotion—­Sunday-school Garden-of-Eden pictures with a mediaeval, romantic coloring.  These day-dreams were always sexual, involving situations of extreme complexity and monumental silliness.  Masturbation was always continued and usually with increased frequency.  The end of these periods was always abrupt and much like awaking from a dream in which the dreamer has been behaving in a manner to arouse his own disgust.