pain and exhaustion at the back of my head, the spinal column,
the back of my eyes, and a general feeling of languor, etc.

"I could not bear to be the slave of a habit, and after much
suffering and efforts, which only led to falls to lower depths of
conscious failure, my better self rebelled, until, by a great
effort and much prayer, I kept myself pure for a whole week. This
partial recovery gave me hope, but then I again fell a victim to
the habit, much to my chagrin, and became hopeless of ever
retracing my steps toward my ideal of virtue. For some days I
lost energy, spirit, and hope; my nervous system appeared to be
ruined, but I did not really despair of victory in the end. I
thought of all the drunkards chained by their intemperate habits,
of inveterate smokers who could not exist without tobacco, and of
all the various methods by which men were slaves, and the longing
to be freed of what had, in my case, proved to be a painful and
unnecessary habit, increased daily until, after one night when I
struggled with myself for hours, I believed I had finally
succeeded.

"At times, when I reached a high degree of sexual excitement, I
felt that I was at least one step removed from those of morbid
and repressed sex, who had not the slightest suspicion of the
latent joys of womanhood within them. For a little while the
habit took the shape of an exalted passion, but I rapidly tired
it out by rough, thoughtless, and too impatient handling.
Revulsion set in with the pain of an exhausted and badly used
nervous system, and finding myself the slave of a passion, I
determined to endeavor to be its master.

"In conclusion, I should say that masturbation has proved itself
to be to me one of the blind turnings of my life's history, from
which I have gained much valuable experience."

The practice was, however, by no means thus dismissed. Some time
later the subject writes: "I have again restarted masturbation
for the relief of localized feelings. One morning I was engaged
in reading a very heavy volume which, for convenience sake, I
held in my lap, leaning back on my chair. I had become deep in
my study for an hour or so when I became aware of certain
feelings roused by the weight of the book. Being tempted to see
what would happen by such conduct, I shifted so that the edge of