[89]

At the age of twenty-five, when he had already produced much fine work, Mozart wrote in his letters that he had never touched a woman, though he longed for love and marriage. He could not afford to marry, he would not seduce an innocent girl, a venial relation was repulsive to him.

[90]

Reibmayr, Die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Talentes und Genies., Bd. i, p. 437.

[91]

We may exclude altogether, it is scarcely necessary to repeat, the quality of virginity—that is to say, the possession of an intact hymen—since this is a merely physical quality with no necessary ethical relationships. The demand for virginity in women is, for the most part, either the demand for a better marketable article, or for a more powerful stimulant to masculine desire. Virginity involves no moral qualities in its possessor. Chastity and asceticism, on the other hand, are meaningless terms, except as demands made by the spirit on itself or on the body it controls.