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a mood of erotism. Such an object calls out a whole series of wanton
imaginations, which it could not do in one who, by his environment, was
already armed against any tendencies to erotic fetichism. The attraction
exerted by that which we see but seldom, and around which fancy
assiduously plays, the attraction of forbidden fruit, produces tendencies
and habits which could scarcely develop in freedom. Curiosity is acute,
and is augmented by the obstacles which stand in the way of its
satisfaction. "Flame" attraction is the beginning of such a morbid
fetichism. A sentiment which under other conditions would never have gone
beyond ordinary friendship may thus become a "flame," and even a "flame"
of markedly sexual character. Under these influences boys and girls feel
the purest and simplest sentiments in a hyperesthetic manner. The girls
here studied have lost an exact conception of the simple manifestations of
friendship, and think they are giving evidence of exquisite sensibility
and true friendship by loving a companion to madness; friendship in them
has become a passion. That this intense desire to love a companion
passionately is the result of the college environments may be seen by the
following extract from a letter: "You know, dear, much better than I do
how acutely girls living away from their own homes, and far from all those
who are dearest to them on earth, feel the need of loving and being loved.
You can understand how hard it is to be obliged to live without anyone to
surround you with affection;" and the writer goes on to say how all her
love turns to her correspondent.

While there is an unquestionable sexual element in the "flame"
relationship, this cannot be regarded as an absolute expression of real
congenital perversion of the sex-instinct. The frequency of the phenomena,
as well as the fact that, on leaving college to enter social life, the
girl usually ceases to feel these emotions, are sufficient to show the
absence of congenital abnormality. The estimate of the frequency of
"flames" in Normal schools, given to Obici and Marchesini by several lady
collaborators, was about 60 per cent., but there is no reason to suppose
that women teachers furnish a larger contingent of perverted individuals
than other women. The root is organic, but the manifestations are ideal
and Platonic, in contrast with some other manifestations found in
college-life. No inquiry was made as to the details of solitary sexual
ma