must not believe, however, that this is
by any means the method of workers who deserve to be accepted seriously;
it would be felt, to say the least, as unworthy. It is indeed a method
that would only appeal to a person of feeble or failing mental power. What
more usually happens is that the auto-erotic excitement develops, _pari
passu_ and spontaneously, with the mental activity and at the climax of
the latter the auto-erotic excitement also culminates, almost or even
quite spontaneously, in an explosion of detumescence which relieves the
mental tension. I am acquainted with such cases in both young men and
women of intellectual ability, and they probably occur much more
frequently than we usually suspect.

In illustration of the foregoing observations, I may quote the
following narrative, written by a man of letters: "From puberty
to the age of 30 (when I married), I lived in virgin continence,
in accord with my principle. During these years I worked
exceedingly hard--chiefly at art (music and poetry). My days
being spent earning my livelihood, these art studies fell into my
evening time. I noticed that productive power came in
periods--periods of irregular length, and which certainly, to a
partial extent, could be controlled by the will. Such a period of
vital power began usually with a sensation of melancholy, and it
quickened my normal revolt against the narrowness of conventional
life into a red-hot detestation of the paltriness and pettiness
with which so many mortals seem to content themselves. As the
mood grew in intensity, this scorn of the lower things mixed with
and gave place to a vivid insight into higher truths. The
oppression began to give place to a realization of the eternity
of the heroic things; the fatuities were seen as mere fashions;
love was seen as the true lord of life; the eternal romance was
evident in its glory; the naked strength and beauty of men were
known despite their clothes. In such mood my work was produced;
bitter protest and keen-sighted passion mingled in its building.
The arising vitality had certainly deep relation to the
periodicity of the sex-force of manhood. At the height of the
power of the art-creative mood would come those natural emissions
with which Nature calmly disposes of the unused force of the
male. Such emissions were natural and healthy, and not exhaustive