man or woman, but an unconscious feeling directs our
emotions, and this feeling (having a germ that was placed in
modern men by Christianity, and perhaps by still older religions)
says that woman _ought_ to be an absolutely pure being, with
ethereal sensations, and that in her sexual enjoyment is out of
place, improper, scandalous. To arouse sexual emotions in a
woman, if not to profane a sacred host, is, at all events, the
staining of an immaculate peplos; if not sacrilege, it is, at
least, irreverence or impertinence. For all men, the chaster a
woman is, the more agreeable it is to bring her to the orgasm.
That is felt as a triumph of the body over the soul, of sin over
virtue, of earth over heaven. There is something diabolic in such
pleasure, especially when it is felt by a man intoxicated with
love, and full of religious respect for the virgin of his
election. This feeling is, from a rational point of view, absurd,
and in its tendencies, immoral; but it is delicious in its
sacredly voluptuous subtlety. Defloration thus has its powerful
fascination in the respect consciously or unconsciously felt for
woman's chastity. In marriage, the feeling is yet more
complicated: in deflowering his bride, the Christian (that is,
any man brought up in a Christian civilization) has the feeling
of committing a sort of sin (for the 'flesh' is, for him, always
connected with sin) which, by a special privilege, has for him
become legitimate. He has received a special permit to corrupt
innocence. Hence, the peculiar prestige for civilized Christians,
of the wedding night, sung by Shelley, in ecstatic verses:--

"'Oh, joy! Oh, fear! What will be done
In the absence of the sun!'"

This feeling has, however, its normal range, and is not, _per
se_, a perversity, though it may doubtless become so when unduly
heightened by Christian sentiment, and especially if it leads, as
to some extent it has led in my Russian correspondent, to an
abnormal feeling of the sexual attraction of girls who have only
or scarcely reached the age of puberty. The sexual charm of this
period of girlhood is well illustrated in many of the poems of
Thomas Ashe, and it is worthy of note, as perhaps supporting the
contention that this attraction is based on Christian feeling,
that Ashe had been a clergyman. An at