ed the orgasm, I could
keep it off, and go to sleep without 'wrong doing.' Of course,
when I fell asleep, my control ended. All this gave me a good
deal of physical worry, and kept my attention unwillingly fixed
upon the matter. I do not think my body was readily irritable,
but I had unquestionably very strong sexual impulses.

"After a year or two, when I was working hard, I could not afford
the attention the control cost me, or the prolonged mitigated
sexual excitement it caused. I took drugs for a time, but they
lost effect, produced lassitude, and agreed with me badly. I
therefore put away my scruples and determined to try the effect
of giving myself an instant and business-like relief. Instead of
allowing my feelings to gather strength, I satisfied them out of
hand. Instead of five hours of heat and discomfort, I did not
allow myself five minutes, if I could help it.

"The effect was marvelous. I practically had no more trouble. The
thing rarely came to me at all by day, and though it continued at
times by night, it became less frequent and less strong; often it
did not wake me. The erotic images and speculations that had
begun to come to me died down. I left off being afraid of my
feelings, or, indeed, thinking about them. I may say that I had
decided that I should be obliged to lead a single life, and that
the less I thought about matters of sex, the more easy I should
find life. Later on I had religious ideas which helped me
considerably in my ideals of a decent, orderly, self-contained
life. I do not lay stress on these; they were not at all
emotional, and my physical and psychical development do not
appear to have run much on parallel lines. I had a strong moral
sense before I had a religious one, and a 'common-sense' which I
perhaps trusted more than either.

"When I was about 28 I thought I might perhaps leave off the
habit of regular relief I had got into. (It was not regular as
regards time, being anything from one day to six weeks.) The
change was probably made easier by a severe illness I had had. I
gave this abstinence a fair trial for several years (until I was
about 34), but my nocturnal manifestations certainly gathered
strength, especially when I got much better in health, and,
finally, as at puberty, began to worry my waking life. I reasoned
tha