ng been replaced by vaguely imagined incidents which are
usually broken off before they reach a satisfactory climax. They
are always interrupted by the intrusion of other matters, usually
of more practical interest; and the long-continued habit of
satisfying myself by masturbation has made erotic dreams rather
tantalizing than pleasurable. I dream very seldom at night--at
least I can scarcely ever remember any dreams upon waking--and
practically never of sexual relations. I have not had a nocturnal
emission for over three years, and probably not more than
twenty-five in my life.

In my "love passages" with girls there has been no serious
thought of coitus on my part, and I have never had intercourse
with a woman--unless my early experiences with the servant girl
be called such. Like all masturbators I always idealized "love"
to the utter exclusion of all sensual cravings; and the notion
that the physical act of coitus was something degrading and
destructive of real love rather than its consummation was, of all
prejudices I have ever formed, the most difficult to escape--a
circumstance due, I suppose, to the fact that all I had ever been
taught on the subject tended to the complete divorce of what was
called "love" from what was stigmatized as a "base sensual
desire." Judging from my own experience and observation I should
say that "ideal love" is a mere surface feeling, bound to
disappear as soon as it has gained its object by arousing a
reciprocal interest on the part of the one to whom it is
directed. So little did I "materialize" the objects of my "love"
that I have never cared for kissing or the warm embraces in which
lovers usually indulge. I have never kissed but one girl, and her
with far too little enthusiasm to satisfy her. My last sweetheart
was a very passionate girl, the warmth of whose embraces was
somewhat torrid and, to me, both puzzling and annoying. The
intensity of feeling which demanded such strenuous expression was
beyond my knowledge of human nature. A somewhat peculiar
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