sping her hands as if to steady herself; while
her eyes dilated and brightened into that wideopen, childish
expression of wondering delight, which always came back in her
happiest moments." George Eliot's novels contain many allusions
to the powerful emotional effects of music.

It is unnecessary to refer to Tolstoy's _Kreutzer Sonata_, in
which music is regarded as the Galeotto to bring lovers
together--"the connecting bond of music, the most refined lust of
the senses."

In primitive human courtship music very frequently plays a considerable
part, though not usually the sole part, being generally found as the
accompaniment of the song and the dance at erotic festivals.[125] The
Gilas, of New Mexico, among whom courtship consists in a prolonged
serenade day after day with the flute, furnish a somewhat exceptional
case. Savage women are evidently very attentive to music; Backhouse (as
quoted, by Ling Roth[126]) mentions how a woman belonging to the very
primitive and now extinct Tasmanian race, when shown a musical box,
listened "with intensity; her ears moved like those of a dog or horse, to
catch the sound."

I have found little evidence to show that music, except in occasional
cases, exerts even the slightest specifically sexual effect on men,
whether musical or unmusical. But I have ample evidence that it very
frequently exerts to a slight but definite extent such an influence on
women, even when quite normal. Judging from my own inquiries it would,
indeed, seem likely that the majority of normal educated women are liable
to experience some degree of definite sexual excitement from music; one
states that orchestral music generally tends to produce this effect;
another finds it chiefly from Wagner's music; another from military music,
etc. Others simply state--what, indeed, probably expresses the experience
of most persons of either sex--that it heightens one's mood. One lady
mentions that some of her friends, whose erotic feelings are aroused by
music, are especially affected in this way by the choral singing in Roman
Catholic churches.[127]

In the typical cases just mentioned, all fairly normal and healthy women,
the sexual effects of music though definite were usually quite slight. In
neuropathic subjects they may occasionally be more pronounced. Thus, a
medical correspondent has communicated to me the case of a married lady
with one child, a refined, very beautiful, but highly