om Ovid (_Ars Amatoria_ end of Bk. II)
onwards. Eulenburg (_Die Sexuale Neuropathie_, p. 79) considers
that titillation is sometimes necessary, and Adler, likewise
insisting on the preliminaries of psychic and physical courtship
(_Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, p. 188),
observes that the man who is gifted with insight and skill in
these matters possesses a charm which will draw sparks of
sensibility from the coldest feminine heart. The advice of the
physician is at one in this matter with the maxims of the erotic
artist and with the needs of the loving woman. In making love
there must be no haste, wrote Ovid:--

"Crede mihi, non est Veneris properanda voluptas,
Sed sensim tarda prolicienda mora."

"Husbands, like spoiled children," a woman has written, "too
often miss the pleasure which might otherwise be theirs, by
clamoring for it at the wrong time. The man who thinks this
prolonged courtship previous to the act of sex union wearisome,
has never given it a trial. It is the approach to the marital
embrace, as well as the embrace itself, which constitutes the
charm of the relation between the sexes."

It not seldom happens, remarks Adler (op. cit., p. 186), that the
insensibility of the wife must be treated--in the husband. And
Guyot, bringing forward the same point, writes (op. cit., p.
130): "If by a delay of tender study the husband has understood
his young bride, if he is able to realize for her the ineffable
happiness and dreams of youth, he will be beloved forever; he
will be her master and sovereign lord. If he has failed to
understand her he will fatigue and exhaust himself in vain
efforts, and finally class her among the indifferent and cold
women. She will be his wife by duty, the mother of his children.
He will take his pleasure elsewhere, for man is ever in pursuit
of the woman who experiences the genesic spasm. Thus the vague
and unintelligent search for a half who can unite in that
delirious finale is the chief cause of all conjugal dissolutions.
In such a case a man resembles a bad musician who changes his
violin in the hope that a new instrument will bring the melody he
is unable to play."

The fact that there is thus an art in love, and that sexual intercourse is
not a mere physical act to be executed by force of muscles, may h