He began to read love-stories and think much about girls. At the same time he learned the nature of "the sin of fornication," and wondered why it should be considered so heinous. Parts of the Bible condemning intercourse between the unmarried alarmed him. Being of a serious as well as emotional and amorous nature, he became converted to evangelic belief. His mother warned him to beware of unclean companions at school. He tried to act as a Christian and think only pure thoughts about women. The talk, however, was always of girls and of being in love. His mind was often engrossed with amatory ideas of a poetic, sensuous nature, his sexual experiences having a firm hold on his imagination, while they gave him gratifying assurance of actual knowledge concerning things merely imagined by most of his companions.
His health was vigorous and he keenly enjoyed all outdoor games and excelled in daring and schoolboy mischief.
At 12 he fell deeply in love with a girl of corresponding age. He never felt any powerful sexual desire for his sweetheart, and never attempted anything but kissing and decorous caresses. He liked to walk and sit with the girl, to hold her hand, and stroke her soft hair. He felt real grief when separated from her. His thoughts of her were seldom sensual. A year or so afterward he had a temporary passion for a woman of 30, who used to flirt with him and allow kissing. T. thought her queen-like and very lovely, and wished to be her knight.
One day he saw, for a moment, in a friend's house, a dark, earnest-looking girl of 13, who made a very deep impression upon him, and, though he did not exchange a word with her, he often thought about her afterward. Five years later he met the dark girl again, and the pair were mutually drawn to one another. He proposed marriage and avowed a most desperate passion. A refusal on the plea of youth caused him the deepest misery. About eight years thereafter T. married the girl, and the marriage proved a very happy one for both.
When he was 15 T. made the acquaintance of a pretty blonde of the same age. She was a high-spirited hoiden. They were soon close friends and later lovers. They wrote a number of letters to each other and exchanged locks of hair and presents. Their talk about love was unreserved. One day she told T. that she had been sexually embraced by a former lover, a boy of 16, hinting very plainly that she would like T. to embrace her. This amour lasted for about six months. The lovers had many opportunities for clandestine intercourse. They used to consummate their passion in a part of a wood they called "the bower." Now and then one or the other would experience a pricking of conscience, but they were too passionately attached to each other to sever the intimacy. At length the girl began to dread the risk of conception and the intercourse ceased. Looking back upon this episode T. avers that the attachment and its physical expression seemed quite natural, poetic, and beautiful, though at times his religious principles condemned his conduct. He now thinks that the experience is by no means to be regretted either by the girl or himself. It was a wholesome youthful passion, as innocent as the mating of birds, and the insight which it gave to both of the hidden emotions of human nature was morally advantageous in after-life.
T. believes that his amative precocity was due to the early awakening of sex feeling by the servant-girl. But he also believes that the love passion would have asserted itself early in any case, since he inherits a warm temperament, had erectile power long before puberty, and has considerable seminal capacity. Having closely watched the effects of suppressed normal emotions and desires in youth at the time of pubescence, he maintains that such suppression is disastrous, causing unhealthy thoughts and leading to the formation of a habit of masturbation which may persist throughout life. He believes that temporary sexual intimacies between boys and girls under 20 from the period of puberty would be far less harmful than separation of the sexes until marriage, with its resultants: masturbation, hysteria, repressed and disordered functions in young women, seduction, prostitution, venereal affections, and many other evils.
HISTORY II.—The following narrative was written by a married lady: "My mother (herself a very passionate and attractive woman) recognized the difficulty for English girls of getting satisfactorily married, and determined, if possible, to shield us from disappointment by turning our thoughts in a different direction. Theoretically the idea was perhaps good, but in practice it proved useless. The natural desires were there. Disappointment and disillusion followed their repression none the less surely for having altered their natural shape. I think the love I had for my mother was almost sexual, as to be with her was a keen pleasure, and to be long away from her an almost unendurable pain. She used to talk to us a good deal on all sorts of subjects, but she never troubled about education in the ordinary sense. When 9 years old I had been taught nothing except to read and write. She never forbade us to read anything, but if by accident we got hold of a book of which she did not approve she used to say: 'I think that is rather a silly story, don't you?' We were so eager to come up to her standard of taste that we at once imagined we thought it silly, too. In the same way she discouraged ideas about love or marriage, not by suggesting there was anything wrong or improper about them, but by implying great contempt for girls who thought about lovers, etc. Up to the age of about 20 I had a vague general impression that love was very well for ordinary women, but far beneath the dignity of a somewhat superior person like myself. To show how little it entered my thoughts I may add that, up to 17, I fancied a woman got a child by being kissed on the lips by a man. Hence all the fuss in novels about the kiss on the mouth.
"When I was 9 years old I began to feel a great craving for scientific knowledge. A Child's Guide to Science, which I discovered at a second-hand book-stall (and which, by the way, informed me that heat is due to a substance called caloric), became a constant companion. In order to learn about light and gravitation, I saved up my money and ordered (of all books) Newton's Principia, shedding bitter tears when I found I could not understand a word of it. At the same time I was horribly ashamed of this desire for knowledge. I got such books as I could surreptitiously and hid them in odd corners. Why, I cannot imagine, as no one would have objected, but, on the contrary, I should have been helped to suitable books.
"My sisters and I were all violently argumentative, but our quarrels were all on abstract subjects. We saw little of other children and made no friendships, preferring each other's society to that of outsiders. When I was about 10 a girl of the same age came to stay with us for a few days. When we went to bed the first night she asked me if I ever played with myself, whereupon I took a great dislike to her. No sexual ideas or feelings were excited. When still quite a child, however, I had feelings of excitement which I now recognize as sexual. Such feelings always came to me in bed (at least I cannot remember them at any other time) and were generally accompanied by a gradually increasing desire to make water. For a long time I would not dare to get out of bed for fear of being scolded for staying awake, and only did so at last when actually compelled. In the mean time the sexual excitement increased also, and I believe I thought the latter was the result of the former, or, perhaps, rather, that both were the same thing. (This was when I was about 7 or 8 years old.) So far as I can recollect, the excitement did not recur when the desire to make water had been gratified. I seemed to remember wondering why thinking of certain things (I can't remember what these were) should make one want to urinate. (In later life I have found that, if the bladder is not emptied before coitus, pleasure is often more intense.) There were also feelings, which I now recognize as sexual, in connection with ideas of whipping.
"As a child and girl I had very strong religious feelings (I should have now if I could believe in the reality of religion), which were absent in my sisters. These feelings were much the same as I experienced later sexually; I felt toward God what I imagined I should like to feel to my husband if I married. This, I fancy, is what usually occurs. At 14 I went to a boarding-school where there were seventy girls between 7 and 19. I think it goes to show that there is but very little sexual precocity among English girls that during the three years I stayed there I never heard a word the strictest mother would have objected to. One or two of the older girls were occasionally a little sentimental, but on no occasion did I hear the physical side of things touched upon. I think this is partly due to the amount of exercise we took. When picturing my childhood I always see myself racing about, jumping walls, climbing trees. In France and Italy I have been struck by the greater sedateness of Continental children. Our idea of naughtiness consisted chiefly in having suppers in our bedrooms and sliding down the banisters after being sent to bed. The first gratified our natural appetite, while the second supplied the necessary thrill in the fear of being caught.