entimentality. In love, these individuals resemble
two-edged swords; the intensity of their emotional reactions and
sentiments drives them from one extreme to another, from foolish
happiness to despair or fury. The situation becomes still more grave
when such storms burst among impulsive persons of weak will and
limited intelligence. Under such circumstances ill-assorted alliances
are formed which lead to violent quarrels, and sometimes even to
crime. When jealousy comes on the scene the man often kills the woman
and commits suicide.

It would seem that such crime can only arise from egoism; this is
often the case, but not always. Despair may often lead to such acts,
without any motive of vengeance, or even of jealousy. The storm of
passion drives weak-minded persons to impulsive actions, the motives
of which are very difficult to analyze. After these tragedies of
murder preceding suicide, when the murderer survives, he often
expresses himself as follows: "I was in such a state of despair and
excitement that I saw no other issue than death for both of us."

=Prudery. Modesty.=--The sentiment of modesty originates in the fear
of everything which is novel and unusual, and is complicated by
natural timidity. This sentiment is especially strong in children. The
sentiment of sexual modesty in man thus rests on timidity and on the
fear of not doing as others do. It betrays itself toward women by
awkwardness and bashfulness behind which eroticism is often ill
concealed. The timid and bashful man carefully endeavors to hide his
sexual feelings from others. The object of modesty is in itself
immaterial to the psychology of this sentiment, and shame is sometimes
inspired not only by very different things but even by opposite
things. One youth is ashamed of appearing erotic, another of appearing
too little erotic, according to the opinion of his neighbors.

Modesty depends on the custom of covering or exposing certain parts of
the body, and people who live in a state of nature are as much ashamed
of clothes as we are ashamed of nudity. Moreover, man soon becomes
accustomed to fashion, and the same English girl who blushes at the
sight of a few inches of bare skin in her own country, finds it quite
natural to see naked negroes in the tropics.

The artificial and systematic cultivation of an exaggerated sentiment
of modesty produces _prudery_, the bad results of which are, however,
less than those of pornography. There are young