HISTORY V.—S. W., aged 64, English, musical journalist. The communication which follows (somewhat abbreviated) was written before S. W. had heard or read anything about sexual inversion, and when he still believed that his own case was absolutely unique.
"I am the son of a clergyman, and lived for the first thirteen years of my life in the country town where I was born. Then my father became the vicar of a country village, where I lived until I went out into the world at the age of 18. As during the whole of this time my father had a few pupils, I was educated with them, and never went to school. I was born, I fancy, with sexual passions about as strong as can well be imagined, and at the same time was very precocious in my entry into the stage of puberty. Semen began to form a little before my twelfth birthday; hair soon followed, and in a year I was in that respect the equal of an average boy of 15 or 16. I conversed freely with my companions on the relations of the sexes, but, unlike them, had no personal feeling toward girls. In time I became conscious that I was different, as I then believed, and believe now, from all other men. My sexual organs were quite perfect. But in the frame of a man I had the sexual mind of a female. I distinctly disclaim the faintest inclination to perform unnatural acts; the idea of committing sodomy would be most disgusting.
"To come to my actual condition of mind: While totally indifferent to the person of woman (I always enjoyed their friendship and companionship, and many of my best friends have been ladies), I had a burning desire to have carnal intercourse with a male, and had the capacity for falling in love, as it is called, to the utmost extent. In imagination, I possessed the female organ, and felt toward man exactly as an amorous female would. At the time when I became fully conscious of my condition, I attached little importance to it; I had not a notion of its terrible import, nor of the future misery it would entail. All that I had to learn by bitter experience.
"I did once think of forcing myself to have connection with a prostitute in order to see whether the actual sensual enjoyment might bring a change, and so have the power to marry. But when it came to thinking over ways and means, my repugnance to the act became so strong that it was quite out of the question. In the case of any male to whom I became attached, I wanted to feel ourselves together, skin to skin, and to be privileged to take such liberties as an amorous female would take if that were all permitted. I sought no purely sensual gratification of any kind; my love was far too genuine for that.
"During the rather more than half a century which has elapsed since my twelfth birthday, I have been genuinely in love about thirteen times. I despair attempting to give an idea of the depth and reality of my feelings. I have alluded to my precocity. I was in love when 12 years old, the object being a man of 24, a well-known analytical chemist. He came to my father's house very frequently; and my heart beat almost at the mention of his name.
"The next serious time I was about 15. It was a farmer's son, about two years older. I don't think that I was ever alone with him, and really only knew him as a member of his family, yet for a time he was my chief interest in life.
"When 21 I had a 'chum,' a youth of 17, who entertained for me, at any rate, a brotherly affection. We were under the same roof, and early one summer morning he got out of bed and came direct to my room to talk about some matter or other. In order to talk more comfortably he got into bed with me and we lay there just as two school-girls might have done. This proximity was more than I could stand, and my heart began to beat so that it was impossible that he should not notice it. As, of course, he could not have the slightest notion of the reason, he said in all innocence, 'Why, how your heart beats. I can hear it quite plainly.'
"So far my details are purely innocent. Up to 18, familiarities passed at intervals between me and the son of the village doctor, a youth about two years older than myself, and precociously immoral. I did not really care for him much, but he was my chief companion. Then I became a school-assistant, and for about six years managed to control myself, only, alas, to fall again. Another resolution I kept for eight years, one long fight with my nature. Again I sinned in three instances, extending over three or four years. I now come to a very painful and eventful episode in my unhappy life which I would gladly pass over were it possible. It was a case, in middle life, of sin, discovery, and great folly in addition.
"Before going into details, so far as may be necessary, I cannot help asking you to consider calmly and dispassionately my exact condition compared with that of my fellow-creatures as a whole. In my struggles to resist in the past, I have at times felt as if wrestling in the folds of a python. I again sinned, then, with a youth and his friend. Oddly enough, discovery followed through a man who was actuated by a feeling of revenge for a strictly right act on my part. The lads refused to state more than the truth, and this did not satisfy the man, and a third lad was introduced, who was prepared to say anything. This was not all; some twelve or fifteen more boys made similar accusations! The general belief, in consequence, was that I had committed 'nameless' crimes in all directions, ad lib. If you were to ask me for an explanation of the action of all these boys beyond the third, who, of course, had some special inducements, I can offer none. They may have thought that the original trio were regarded rather in the light of heroes; why should they not be heroes, too?
"I might well feel crushed under such a load of accusations, but that does not excuse the incredible folly of my conduct. I denied alike the modicum of truth and the mass of lying, and went off to America. However, as time passed on and my mind got into a proper state, I felt that the truth must be told some time or other. I accordingly wrote from America to the proper quarter a full confession of my sin with regard to the two youths who had told merely the truth, at the same time pointing out the falsehood of all the rest of the accusations.