The Development of the Sexual Instinct
by Havelock Ellis

Case histories from the classic text, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volumes II through V
E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

Volume III, Appendix B, History XII

Second Edition (1913), Revised and Enlarged, 1927 Full text from Project Gutenberg

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     Mrs. B., aged 32. Father's family normal; mother's family clever, eccentric, somewhat neuropathic. She is herself normal, good-looking, usually healthy, highly intelligent, and with much practical ability, though at some periods of life, and especially in childhood, she has shared to some extent in the high-strung and supersensitive temperament of her mother's family. As a child she was sometimes spoiled and sometimes cuffed, and suffered tortures from nervousness. She has, however, acquired a large measure of self-control.

     The first sensations which she now recognizes as sexual were experienced at the age of 3, when her mother gave her an injection; afterward she declared herself unable to relieve her bowels naturally in order to obtain a repetition of this experience, which was several times repeated. At the age of 7 a man pursued her with attentions and attempted to take liberties, but she rejected his advances in terror; four years later another man attempted to assault her, but she resisted vigorously, struck him, and escaped by running. Neither of these sexual attempts appears to have left any serious permanent impression on the child's mind.

     At the age of 11, when her mother was giving her a bath, the sensation of her mother's fingers touching her private parts gave her what she now knows to be sexual feelings, and a year later when taking her bath she would pour hot water on to the sexual region in order to cause these sensations; this did not lead to masturbation, but she had a vague idea that it was "wrong."

     At the age of 12 menstruation began; she suffered very severely from dysmenorrhea, the period sometimes lasting for ten days, and the pain being often extreme. She was not treated for this condition, her mother being of opinion that she would outgrow it. From the age of 14 or 15 until 23, or about the period of her marriage, she suffered from anemia.

     She had little curiosity about sexual matters; her mother wished that she should always come to her for information about things she became acquainted with as to the general facts of sex; she did not, however, know definitely the facts of copulation until her marriage. She knew nothing of erection or semen, and thought that when a man and woman placed their organs together a child resulted. She hated talking about these subjects indecently, and would not listen to the sexual conversation of her schoolfellows. She never felt any homosexual attraction. Once another girl was much in love with her, but she despised and disliked her attentions; again, when a girl much older than herself, a friend of her mother's, slept with her and made advances, she repelled her and refused to sleep with her again.

     She always got on well with men, and men were attracted to her. She was direct and sincere, without undue modesty. But she never allowed men to touch her or kiss her. She was a good dancer, and fond of dancing, but denies that it ever led to sexual feelings. She never felt any sexual attraction for a man until, at the age of 20, she fell in love with her future husband five years or more before marriage.

     At this period she began to feel vague discomfort, which she knew to be localized near her sexual organs. She was aware, in a dim way, that it was connected with her love, and was of a sexual nature. But there was no definite idea of sexual intercourse. She felt nervous and depressed. If she had been asked to state what would relieve her, she could only have said B.'s presence and tenderness. A few days before he declared his love she experienced the nearest approach to sexual feeling she had ever had. It was summer and, with B. and some of her family, she had gone on a little expedition. One evening, in the train after a day's excursion, B. took her hand (unperceived by the others) and held it for some time. This aroused the strongest emotions in her; she closed her eyes, and, though she was not at the time aware that her sensations were localized in her sexual organs, she thinks, in the light of subsequent knowledge, that she then experienced the orgasm.

     During the engagement, which lasted between two and three years, circumstances prevented frequent meetings. B. would kiss her, suck her nipples, which became erect, and lie on her. She allowed him to take these liberties, feeling that if she refused him all satisfaction he might have relations with other women. She still felt no definite desire for contact of the sexual organs. She longed rather to be embraced and kissed, and to lie in her lover's arms all night. A few months before marriage, however, she masturbated occasionally, just before or just after menstruation, imagining, while doing it, that she was in her lover's arms. The act was usually followed by a sick feeling. Just before marriage she underwent an operation for the relief of the dysmenorrhea. She was somewhat shocked and sickened by the experiences of the wedding night. It seemed to her that her husband approached her with the violence of an animal, and there was some difficulty in effecting entrance. Coitus, though incomplete, took place some seven times on this first night. The bleeding from rupture of the hymen continued, so that for two days she had to wear a towel. For two months subsequently there was great pain during intercourse, although she suppressed the indications of this.

     There were several children born of the marriage and for some years she lived happily, on the whole, with her husband, notwithstanding various hardships and difficulties and some incompatibility of temper.

     As regards her sexual feelings she considers, from what other women have told her, that her feelings are, if anything, stronger than the average. The orgasm, however, was not fully developed until about five years after marriage. Sexual feeling is most pronounced before, during, and after the menstrual period, more especially before and about the third day (the period usually lasts from five to seven days). There is more sexual desire during pregnancy, especially toward the end, than at any other time. She never refused normal intercourse to her husband, but any abnormal or perverted method of sexual gratification is repellent. She was awakened one night about the third month of pregnancy by her husband inserting his penis in ore; the child was born with palate defect and she is herself inclined to believe that this incident was the cause of the defect. Though she desires normal intercourse, she has seldom obtained complete gratification. For a long time she disliked seeing or touching the penis, and the feel, and especially the smell, of the semen produced nausea and even vomiting. (She has a very delicate sense of smell as well as of taste; though fond of the scent of flowers, no sexual feelings are thus aroused.) Withdrawal and the use of condoms are unsatisfactory to her, and mutual masturbation gives no relief and produces headache. Feelings of friendship for her husband have been most potent in arousing the sexual emotions, and she has had most pleasure in intercourse after a day spent in bicycling together. She has been for many months at a time without sexual intercourse, and during such periods has suffered much from pain in the head; this, however, she has now completely surmounted. She eventually discovered that her husband's abstinence from marital intercourse was due to infidelity. This led to a definite separation. She still occasionally experiences sexual desire, but has no inclination to masturbate. Her life is full and busy, affording ample scope for her energies and intelligence; moreover, she has her children to train and educate. She herself believes that her sexual life is at an end.

     I had become good looking. For a time I knew what it was to have loving looks from every woman I met, and being saner and healthier I would seem to be moving in a divine atmosphere of color and fragrance, pearly teeth and bright eyes. Even the old women with daughters looked at me amiably—married women with challenge and maidens with Paradise in their eyes.

     "I was standing one morning at St. Peter's corner, with two young friends, when a girl went by, coming over from the Roman Catholic cathedral. When she had passed she looked back, with that imperious swing that is almost a command, at me, as my friends distinctly admitted. They advised me to follow her; I did so, and she turned a pretty, blushing face and pair of dark gray eyes, with just the kind of eyebrows I liked: brown, very level, rather thick, but long. Her teeth and mouth were perfect, and she spoke with a slight Irish brogue. She let me do all the talking while she took my measure. God knows what she saw in me! I spoke in an affected manner, I remember, imitating some swell character I had seen on the stage a night or two before, but I was wise enough not to talk too much and to behave myself. She promised to meet me again and made the appointment. She was a school-teacher and engaged to be married to some one else. She meant to amuse herself her own way before she married. The second night I met her she allowed me to kiss her as much as I liked and promised all her favors for the third night. We took a long walk, and in the dark she gave herself to me, but I hurt her so much I had to stop two or three times. She had had connection only once, years before, when at school herself. She was inclined to be sensual, but she was young, fresh, and pretty, and her kisses turned my head. I fell genuinely in love with her and told her so, one night when she was particularly fascinating, with the tears in my eyes; and her face met mine with equal love. The first night or two I had felt no pleasure—whether through years of self-abuse or not I do not know,—but this night my whole being was excited. I met her once and sometimes twice a week and was always thinking of her. My sister saw me looking love-sick one day and I heard her say 'He's in love,' which rather flattered me, and I looked more love-sick and idiotic than ever. It was all wrong and perverted. She continued to meet her fiancé, and intended to marry him. We both spoke of 'him' as an adultress speaks of her husband. That high level of tears and childlike joy in our youth and love was never reached again. But I realized her sex, her kisses, her presence—after all those years of horror (if she had only known)—more even than the sexual act itself; while she, as time went on, commenced to show a curiosity which I thought desecrating; she liked to examine—to 'let her hand stray,' were her words. Even her beauty seemed impaired some nights and I caught a gleam in her eye and a curve of her lip I thought vulgar. But perhaps the next night I met her she would be as bright as ever.

     "I introduced her to my friends, who knew our relations, for I blabbed everything. But she did not mind their knowing and if we met would give them all a kiss, so that I felt I had been rather too profuse in my hospitality, though I still would say: 'Have another one, Bert; I don't mind.' But whatever ass I made of myself she forgave me anything, and was fonder of me every time we met, while I, although I did not know it for a long time, was less fond of her. She knew how to revive my love, however. Some nights she would not meet me, and I would be like a madman. Other nights she would meet me, but not let me raise her dress. She would lie on me, on a moonlit night, and her young face in shadow like a siren's in its frame of hair, merely to kiss me. But what kisses! Slow, cold kisses changing to clinging, passionate ones. She would leave my mouth to look around, as if frightened, and come back, open-mouthed, with a side-contact of lips that brought out unexpected felicities.

     "One night her fiancé saw us together, and followed me after I left her, but on turning a corner I ran. I ridiculed him to her and despised him. I should have found it difficult to say why. Another night her brother attacked me, and it would have gone hard with me, but Annie pulled me in and banged the door. We were in a friend's house, but her father came around soon and laid a stick about her shoulders, in my presence. I tried to talk big, and said something idiotic about being as good a man as her betrothed, as though my intentions were honorable, which for one brief moment made Anne look at me, paler faced and changed, such a strange glance. But he beat her home, enjoying my rage, and she went away, crying in her hands. I was allowed to go unmolested.

     "I soon received a letter from her asking me not to mind and making an appointment, at which she turned up cheerful and unconcerned. She went to confession, and would meet me afterwards; and her faith in that, and the difference of our religions (if I had any religion) would make her seem strange and alien to me at times, even banal. At last our meetings became a mere habit of sensuality, with all charm, and suggestion of better things eliminated....

     "I went with my friend George (who shared my room) one afternoon and called at Annie's school; she kept an infants' school of her own. She came to the door herself. It was the first time I had seen her in daylight, and I thought her cheek-bones bigger; she certainly was not so pretty as on the first evening I met her. George had told me he would sleep away if I wanted the room, and when next I met her she promised to come and sleep with me. Before I had always met her on the grass, under trees. She came, and the sight of her young limbs and breasts revived something of my love for her, my better love. But she was insatiable and more sensual every day. One day she came when I was not well, and would not go away disappointed. I had met a very pretty girl about this time, and now resolved to give Annie up, which I did in the cruelest manner, cutting her dead, and refusing to answer her letters and touching messages. I heard that she would cry for hours, but I was harder than adamant....

     "I thought myself very much in love with the very pretty girl for whom I had thrown up Annie. She lived with her mother and two sisters, one older than herself, the other a mere child. The eldest sister, a handsome, dark girl like a Spaniard, was not virtuous. She was good natured; too much so, and took her pleasure with several of us, dying, not long after, of consumption. I thought her sister, my girl, was virtuous, and I meant to marry her—some day. At any rate, I saw her mother, who lived in a well-furnished house and was a superior woman. This did not prevent my trying to seduce her daughter. I did not succeed for a long time, though she did not cease meeting me. The sisters came to see us. I knew, one night, her sister was upstairs with D. and I guessed what they were at, so I suggested to her she should creep up on them for fun. She did so, came back, excited and pale—and gave herself to me. But she was not a virgin and in time I had a glimpse of her unhappy fate and her mother's position. Her father was dead or divorced, and her mother, I believe, was mistress to some wealthy bookmaker. I am not sure, there was always a mystery hanging over the mother, nor am I certain that she connived at her daughter's seduction, but the girl's account was that after some successful Cup day there had been too much champagne drunk all around, and that a man she looked on as a friend came into her bedroom that night when she was tête montée and seduced or violated her—whichever word you like to choose. Since then his visits had been frequent until she met me, she said, and if I would be true to her she would be a true wife to me, and I believed her and still believe she meant what she said. But I left Melbourne shortly after this, our letters got few and far between, and ultimately I heard she was married to a young man who had always been in love with her....

     "Among the inmates of the boarding house was a 'married' couple who stayed for some time; he was an insignificant, ugly, little, crosseyed commercial traveler; she was a pretty, little creature who looked as innocent and was as merry as a child; we all vied in paying her attentions and waiting on her like slaves, the husband always smiling a cryptic smile. After they had left it was hinted they were not married at all; the oldest hands had been taken in.... One afternoon I met Dolly, the commercial traveler's wife, and she stopped and spoke to me. I remembered what I had heard and ventured on some pleasantry at which she laughed, and on my proposing that we should go for a walk she consented. She had left the commercial traveler, it came out in conversation, and we went on talking and walking, one idea only in my mind now; could I detain her till dark? Dolly, who was very pretty indeed, amused herself with me for hours, playing hot and cold, snubbing me one minute, encouraging me with her eyed another. Hour after hour went and she found this game so entertaining that she accompanied me to the park behind the Botanical Gardens, and it was not until it was too late for me to catch a train home that she gave herself to me. In fact, we stayed out the whole of that warm summer night. As the hours went by she told me of her home in London and how she first went wrong. She had been a good girl till one day on an excursion she drank some rum or gin, which seemingly revived some dormant taint of heritage; when she went home that night she fell flat at her mother's feet. Her parents, well-to-do shopkeepers, who had forgiven her several times before, turned her out. She became one man's mistress and then another's. She began early, and was scarcely 19 now. She would leave off the drink for a time and try to be respectable. She loved her father and mother, but she could not help drinking at times. She spoke cheerfully and laughingly about it all; she was young, strong, good natured, and careless. We went to sleep for a little while and then wandered in the early morning down toward the cemetery, when she tried to tidy her hair, asking me how I had enjoyed myself and not waiting for an answer. She was thirsty, she said, and when the public houses opened we went and had a drink. It was the first time I had seen her drink alcohol,—at the boarding house she had always been the picture of health and sweetness,—and I saw a change come over her at once, so that I understood all that she had told me. The sleepless night may have made it worse, but the look that came into her eyes, and the looseness of the fibres not only of her tell-tale wet mouth, but of every muscle of her face was startling and piteous to see. She saw my look and laughed, but her laugh was equally piteous to hear, and when she spoke again her voice had changed too, and was equally piteous. She asked for another. 'No, don't,' I begged, for the pretty girl I had flattered myself I had passed a summer's night with that most young men would envy, showed signs of changing, like some siren, into a flabby, blear-eyed boozer. That hurt my vanity.

     "I met her another night and she took, me to her lodgings, and I slept with her all night. I no longer tried to stop her drinking, but drank with her. I ceased to treat her with courtesy and gallantry; she noticed it, but only drank the more, drank till she became dirty in her ways, till her good looks vanished. I left her, too drunk to stand, as some friend, a woman, called on her.

     "She came to see me once more, like her old self, so well dressed and well behaved, and chatted so cheerfully to my landlady that the latter afterward congratulated me on having such a friend. Dolly carried a parcel of underclothing she had made, with a few toys, for the children of a poor man in the suburbs, and I accompanied her to the house. There was great excitement among the ragged children; in fact, the atmosphere became so dangerously full of love and charity that I commenced to feel uncomfortable,—the shower of roses again,—and was glad to find myself in the open air. We went for a walk and had several drinks, which made the usual change in Dolly. I got tired of her, determined I would leave her, spoke cruelly, and finally—after having connection with her on the dry seaweed—rose and left her brutally, walked away faster and faster, deaf to her remonstrances, and careless whether or how she reached the station....

     "I had gone to lodge with a family whom I had been accustomed to visit as a friend; there were two daughters; the elder, engaged to a young German who was away with a survey party, had a rather plain face, but a strong one and was herself a strong character, and I came to like her in spite of myself; the second girl had light golden hair, a fresh complexion, a short nose, and rather large mouth, which contained beautiful teeth; they were both good, obedient, innocent church-going daughters. As there was plenty of amusement there of an evening, singing and dancing, I did not go out, got into better ways, and gradually gave up drinking to excess. I was so improved in appearance that an old acquaintance did not recognize me. My anecdotes and fun amused Mrs. S., the mother of the girls. She could be very violent on occasions, I found, and I learned that there had been terrible scenes at times, and that from time to time it had been necessary to place her in an asylum. I went for drives with the girls and to theatres, and ought to have been happy and glad to find myself in such good quarters. The mother trusted me so entirely that she left me for hours with the girls, the younger one of whom I would kiss sometimes. She was engaged to a young fellow whom I spoke to patronizingly, but whose shoes I was not worthy to fasten. I was the cause of quarrels between them. They made it up again but I think he noticed the change that was taking place in Alice. For from kissing her I had gone on—all larking at first. We formed the habit of sitting down on the sofa when alone and kissing steadily for ten minutes or more at a time. She was excited without knowing what was the matter with her—but I knew. And one day when our mouths were together I drew her to me and commenced to stroke her legs gently down. She trembled like a string bow, and allowed my hand to go farther. And then she was frightened and ashamed and commenced to laugh and cry together. She had these hysterical attacks several times and they always frightened me. It ended in my seducing her. She broke off her engagement, and then was sorry; but soon she thought only of me.... One day Alice and I were nearly caught. I had just left her on the sofa and had commenced drawing at a table with my back to her when suddenly her mother came in without her shoes, while Alice had one hand up her clothes arranging her underclothing. The mother stopped dead and shot me one glance I shall never forget. 'Why, Alice, you frighten me!' she said. I feigned surprise and asked 'What is the matter?' Alice, although she was frightened out of her wits, managed to stammer: 'He couldn't see me—you couldn't see me, could you?' appealing to me. But I had managed to collect my senses a bit and although still under that maternal eye I asked,—at last turning slowly around to Alice: 'See? What do you mean? See what?' And I looked so mystified that the mother was deceived, and contented herself with scolding Alice and telling her to run no risks of that sort. I breathed again.

     "But I was near the end of my tether. Alice and I talked about everything now. She told me about her life at boarding school and the strange ideas some of the girls had about men and marriage. After leaving school she had been sent to a large millinery or drapery establishment to learn sewing and dressmaking. Here, she said, the talk was awful at times, and one girl had a book with pictures of men's organs of generation, which was passed around and excited their curiosity to the highest pitch.

     "I had days of tenderness and contrition, and even told her I would get on and marry her. Then the tears would come into her eyes and she would say: 'I seem to feel as if you were my husband now.' ...

     "I had to see a man on business and went to his cottage. The door was opened by his wife, a handsome, dark-eyed young woman, who looked as if butter would not melt in her mouth. After leaving a message I went on talking to her on other subjects. She piqued my vanity in some way, and made me feel curious and restless. I found myself thinking of her after I left and looking back I saw she was still looking at me.

     "To make a long story short, she encouraged me. It ended by my leaving the S. family and going to board with them. T. D., the husband, was glad of my company and my money. They had a little boy—whose father T. was not. I soon understood her inviting looks at me. For she was a general lover, and an old man, in a good government billet, visited her often when T. D. was away: I will call him Silenus. There was also a dark, handsome man who built organs. The latter came one day and sent for some beer. I was working in my room, and it so happened that before he knocked she had been going further than usual in her talk with me; in fact, as good as giving me the word. When her friend was admitted he had to pass my open door and he gave me a look with his black eyes and I gave him a look which told each what the other's game was. It is wonderful what a lot can be learned from a single glance of the eyes. When I saw the little boy bringing in the beer I felt that he had bested me. But she brought me in a glass first, and putting her down on the sofa I scored first. It was done so suddenly, so brutally, that, accustomed as she must have been to such scenes she turned red and bit her under lip. But she sent the other man away in a few minutes. After that she was insatiable; it was every day and sometimes twice in one day. I commenced to be gloomy and miserable again. And there was not even a pretense of love. There was no deception about her; she even introduced me to Silenus and we made excursions together, for which he paid, as he had plenty of money. We were always drinking, until at last I could eat nothing unless I had two or three whiskies. I became very thin, my horizon seemed black and all things at an end. (But T. D. enjoyed his meals and was really fond of his wife and her boy and his work; life was pleasant to him.) She would go up to town with me and to a certain hotel; after drinking she would leave me waiting while she retired with the handsome young landlord for a short time. She told me when she came back that he was a great favorite with married women.

     "She told me that Silenus visited a woman who practiced fellatio on him. Mrs. D. thought such practices abominable and could not imagine how a woman could like doing such a thing.

     "When she was out walking with me one day T. D.'s name came up and she said in a slightly altered voice: 'He told me he loved me!' It was a word seldom used by her except in jest. I threw a startled look at her and caught an inquisitive and apologetic look in return, such a strange and touching glance that I saw I had not yet understood her,—there was an enigma somewhere. When, bit by bit, she told me her life, I understood, or thought I understood, that strange childlike glance in this young woman steeped to her eyes in sin. No one had ever made love to her or spoken to her of love in her life.

     "It had commenced at school. She must have been a particularly fine and handsome girl, judging from her photographs. She had seen boys playing with girls' privates under the form and felt jealous that they did not play with her's. She had no mother to look after her and she soon found plenty of boys to play with her, and young men, too, as she grew older. She took it as she took her meals. She had been really fond of her child's father, but as he had shown no tenderness for her, nothing but a craving for sensual gratification, she would rather have died than let him know. She soon tired of her attachments, she told me. She did not like T. D. He was not the complacent husband; he was spirited enough, but he believed everything she told him. One day he came home unexpectedly when we were together on the bare palliass in her room. It was a critical moment when his knocks were heard, and in the hurry and excitement some moisture was left on the bed. The knocks became louder, but she was calmer than I, and bade me run down to the closet. I could hear her cheerful and chaffing voice greeting him. When I walked in back to my own room she called out: 'Here's T. home!' I learned afterward that he had been surly and suspicious, and had seen the moisture on the bed, and asked about it, whereupon she had turned the tables upon him completely; he ought to be ashamed of himself; she knew what he meant by his insinuations; if he must know how that moisture come on the bed, why she put the soap there in a hurry to catch a flea. He believed her and brought her a present next day in atonement for his suspicions.

     "During her monthly periods, when I could not touch her, she would come in and play with me until emissions occurred, and my feelings had become so perverted that I even preferred this to coitus. The orgasm would occur twice in her to once in me, and though her eyes were rather hard and her mouth too, she always looked well and cheerful, while I was gloomy and depressed. In her side, however, was a hard lump, which pained her at times, and which, doubtless, was waiting its time....

     "One day I felt so low in health that I proposed to T. D. that we should take a boat and sail out in the bay for a day or two. The sea, the change, the open air revived me, and I even made sketches of the black sailor as he steered the boat. One day when I was left alone in charge of the boat, as I felt the time hanging on my hands, for the sea, the blue sky, the lovely day gave me no real pleasure, I remember abusing myself, the old habit reasserting itself as soon as I was alone and idle. When T. D. came back he brought Mrs. D. with him, laughing and jolly as usual. She was surprised when lying next to me under the deck on our return I did not respond to her advances. It would have pleased her, with her husband only a few feet away. After that I spent a night with her, but she was getting tired of me. I did not care for her, but it hurt my vanity and I made a few attempts to be impertinent. She looked at me coldly and threatened to complain to T....

     "I want to relate an impression I received one night about this time when with several friends we called at a brothel. I forget my companion, but I remember two faces. It was winter, and great depression prevailed in Adelaide. We had been talking to the mistress as we drank some beer and were pretending to be jolly fellows, although we were wet, cold, and had not enjoyed ourselves (at least, I had not), and she was speaking harshly and jeeringly about two girls she had now who had not earned a penny for the past week. Just then we heard footsteps and she said in a lower tone: 'Here they are,' They came in, unattended, having ascertained which the brothel-keeper snorted and turned her back to them. The faces of the girls, who were quite young, looked so miserable that even I pitied them. The look on the face of one of those girls as she stood by the hearth drawing off her gloves lives in my memory. Too deep for tears was its sorrow, shame, and hopelessness....

     "I had given up drink and was living in the bush. To anyone with normal nerves it would have been a happy time of quiet, rustic peace, beauty, and relief from city life. With me it was restless vanity amounting to madness. In every relation, action, or possible event in which I figured or might figure in the future, I always instantaneously called up an imaginary audience. And then this imaginary audience admired everything I did or might do, and put the most heroic, gallant, and romantic construction on my acts, appearance, lineage, and breeding. Suppose I saw a pretty girl on a bush road. Instead of thinking 'There is a pretty girl; I should like to know her or kiss her,' as I suppose a healthy, normal young man would think, I thought after this fashion: 'There is a pretty girl; now, as I pass her she will think I am a handsome and aristocratic-looking stranger, and, as I carry a sketch-book, an artist—"A landscape painter! How romantic!" she will say, and then she will fall in love with me,' etc. This preoccupation with what other people might think or would think so engrossed all my time that I had no means of enjoying the presence, thought, or favor of the divine creatures I met, and I must have appeared 'cracked' to them with my reticence, pride, and silly airs.

     "I met girls as foolish as myself sometimes. Once at a table d'hôte I met a young girl who went for a walk with me and let me know her carnally although she was little more than a schoolgirl. She was going down to town soon, she said, and would meet me at a certain hotel (belonging to relations of hers) in Adelaide on a certain date, some time ahead; if I took a room there she would come into it during the night. In the meanwhile I had given way to drink again and abused myself at intervals. I came down to town, drunk, in the coach, and kept my appointment with the young girl at the hotel, expecting a night of pleasure; but she merely stared at me coldly as if she had never seen me before. I abused myself twice in my solitary room....

     "I met a middle-aged schoolteacher (who had once been an officer in the army) down for his holidays. As he spoke well, and was a 'gentleman,' I cultivated him. One night he asked me to meet a girl he had an appointment with and tell her he was not well enough to meet her. He foolishly told me the purpose of their intended meeting. I went to the trysting-place, at the back of the hotel, and met the girl. On delivering my message she smiled, made some joke about her friend, and looked at me as much as to say: 'You will do as well.' I had been drinking, and in the most brutal manner I took her into a closet. By some strange chance or state of nerves she gave me exquisite pleasure, but the orgasm came with me before it did with her, and in spite of her disappointment and protests I stood up and pulled her out of the place for fear some one should find us there. Still protesting she followed me, but her foot slipped on the paved court, and she fell down on her face. When she rose I saw that her front teeth were broken. I looked at her without pity, with impatience, and abruptly leaving her I went into the hotel to 'the colonel.' I commenced to tell him lies, when he asked me with a weak laugh what had been keeping me. I smiled with low cunning and drunken vanity, evading the question. Then he accused me directly. I only laughed; but, drunk as I was, I remember the look of the ageing bachelor as he saw he had been betrayed by a younger man. He had known her for years....

     "I was now living in the home of a woman who was separated from her husband and kept lodgers. She had a daughter, with whom I walked out, a pretty girl who drank like a fish, as her mother also did. There were other lodgers coming and going. I would lie down all day and keep myself saturated with beer. I commenced to get fat and bloated, with the ways of a brothel bully. A broken-down, drunken old woman who visited the house and had been a beautiful lady in her youth told me I should end my days on the gallows trap. The same woman when drunk would lift up her dress, sardonically, exposing herself. Other old women would congregate in the neglected and dirty bedrooms and tell fortunes with the cards. One little woman, an onanist, was like a character out of Dickens, exaggerated, affected, unnatural, with remains of gentility and society manners. Amidst all this drunkenness and abandonment May, the landlady's daughter, preserved her virginity. Young lodgers would take liberties with her, but at a certain stage would receive a stinger on the face. The girl liked me and would kiss me, but nothing else. And then—out of this home of drunkenness and shame—May fell in love with some pretty boy she met by chance, whom she never asked to her home. She began to neglect me, even to neglect drink, and to dream, preoccupied. I felt a restless jealousy, but she would look at me, without resentment, without recognition, without seeing me, look me straight in the eyes as I was talking to her, and dream and dream. This same pretty boy seduced her, I believe. When next I met her she was 'on the town,' her one dream of spring over....

     "About this time I had one of those salutary turns that have marked epochs in my life, and as a result I left that house and resolutely abstained from drink.... I was now in a small up-country town. I commenced to play croquet and to ride out. Sometimes I was invited to dinner by a young man at the bank, whose house was kept by his sister. She had a small figure, a pretty but rather narrow face, and well-bred manners; but there was a look in her asymmetrical eyes, in the shape of her thin hands, even in the stoop of her shoulders, that seemed passionate. One day—when her brother, a fine, sweet-blooded manly young athlete, was absent—I commenced to pull her about. She gave me one passionate kiss, but said: 'No! Do you know what keeps me straight? It is the thought of my brother.' I refrained from molesting her further. I met other girls, some pretty and arrogant, others plain and hungry-eyed; it was a country town where there were four or five females to every male. But I could not speak frankly and candidly to a young woman as the young banker did....

     "I remember that one night, when I was living at the Port, I slept all night with a prostitute who had taken a fancy to me and who used to cry on my shoulder, much to my impatience and annoyance. In the same bed with us, lying beside me, was a girl aged about 12. On my expressing surprise I was told she was used to it and noticed nothing. But in the morning I turned my head and looked at her, and even in the dim light of that dirty bedroom I could see that her eyes had noticed and understood. She pressed herself against me and smiled; it was not the smile of an infant. I could record many instances I have observed of the precocity of children.

     "At one time I made the acquaintance of three young men, two in the customs, the other in a surveyor's office. At the first glance you would have said they were ordinary nice young clerks, but on becoming better acquainted you would notice certain peculiarities, a looseness of mouth, a restless, nervous inquietude of manner, an indescribable gleam of the eye. They were very fond of performing and singing at amateur minstrel shows and developed a certain comic vein they thought original, though it reminded me of professional corner-men. However, I enjoyed their singing and drinking habits and went to their lodgings several nights to play cards, drink beer, and tell funny stories. One night they asked me to stay all night and on going to a room with two beds I was told to have one. Presently one of the young men came in and commenced to undress. But before going to his bed he made a remark which, though I had been drinking, opened my eyes. I told him to shut up and go to bed, speaking firmly and rather coldly, and he went reluctantly to his own bed. But another night when they had shifted their lodgings and were all sleeping in the same room I was drunk and went to bed with the same fair-haired young man. On waking up in the night I found my bedmate tampering with me. The old force came over me and I abused him, but refused to commit the crime he wanted me to. His penis was small and pointed. I rose early in the morning, sobered, suffering, and covered with shame, and went hastily away, refusing to stay for breakfast. I thought I caught an amazed and evil smile on the faces of the other two. Meeting the three the same evening in the street, I passed them blushing, and my bedmate of the previous night blushed also....

     "I now took cheap lodgings in North Adelaide. Here I had slight recurrences of the strangeness and fear of going mad which I had experienced once before. I led such a solitary life and fell into such a queer state that I turned to religion and attended church regularly. It was approaching the time for those young men and women who wished to be confirmed to prepare themselves, and a struggle now ensued between my pride and my wish to gain rest and peace of mind in Jesus. I was self-conscious to an incredible degree, and dreaded exposure or making an exhibition of myself, but still went to church, hoping the grace of God would descend on me. I had no other resources. I had no pleasure in life, and was so shattered and in such misery of dread that I welcomed the only refuge that seemed open to me. At last, one Sunday, I had what I thought was a call; I shed a few tears, and although tingling all down my spine I went up in the cathedral and joined those who were going to be confirmed. I attended special meetings and shocked the good bishop very much by telling him I had never been baptized. I had to be baptized first and went one day to the cathedral and he baptized me. When the critical awful moment came the bishop, whose faith even then surprised me somehow, held my hand in his cold palm, and gave it a pressure, eyeing me, expectantly, inquisitively, to see any change for the better. But, it so happened, that morning I was in a horrible temper and black mood, hard and dry-eyed, and no change came. Still, I tried to believe there was a change.

     "I was confirmed with others, had a prayer-book given me with prayers for nearly every hour in the day, and was always kneeling and praying. I procured a long, white surplice, and assisted at suburban services, even conducting small ones myself, reading the sermons out of books. But my mood of rage increased, and one Sunday I had to walk a long way in a new pair of boots. I shall never forget that hot Sunday afternoon. My feet commenced to ache and a murderous humor seized me. I swore and blasphemed one moment and prayed to God to forgive me the next. When I reached the chapel where I had to assist the chaplain I was exhausted with rage, pain, fear, and religious mania. I thought it probable I had offended the Holy Ghost. When, next Sunday, I went to try my hand at Sunday-school teaching I wore a pair of boots so old that the little boys laughed. I was always talking of my conversion and the spirit of our Saviour. I do not know what the clergymen I met thought of me. I thought I should like to be a minister myself, and questioned a Church of England parson as to the amount of study necessary. He received my question rather coldly, I thought, which discouraged me. As my dread gradually diminished, though I still felt strange, I made excuses for not conducting services, although I continued to read my Bible and prayer-book, and really believed I had been 'born again.'

     "Surely now, I thought, that I had Christ's aid, I shall be able to break off my habit of self-abuse that had been the curse of my youth. What was my horror and dismay to find that, when the mood came on me next, I went down the same as ever. And after all my suffering and dread and fear of fits! What could I do? Was I mad, or what? I was really frightened at my helplessness in the matter and decided on a course of conduct that ultimately brought me past this danger to better health and comparative happiness. I said to myself that there is always a certain amount of preliminary thought and dalliance before I do this deed; doubtless this it is that renders me incapable of resisting. I decided, therefore, never to let my thoughts commence to dwell on lustful things, but to think of something else on the first intimation of their appearance in my mind. I rigorously followed this rule; and it proved successful, and I recommend it to others in the same predicament as myself. After suffering weeks and months of dread and illness once more, falling away in flesh and turning yellow, I gradually mended a little. I had a better color and tone, and was something like other young men, barring a strange alternate exaltation and depression. Even this gradually became less noticeable, and my moods more even and reliable."

     As I became better I commenced to dream of true love. I wondered, too, if my horrible past really could be lived down and a young woman come to love me. I took pleasure in reading love poems, especially Browning's, and illustrated some with little water-colors....

     I was sitting in the stalls one night seeing a performance by a company of English actors when one of them played so badly that I thought to myself: "Why, hang it, I could play it better myself!" The next minute another thought followed: "Why not try?" I came out of the stalls the proverbial stage-struck youth. I was sitting in the same place another night when the young man next to me entered into conversation. By a strange coincidence he knew a few young men, amateurs, who were going to form a company, give up their situations and travel, if they could induce a few more to join them and put a little money in. I made an appointment for the following evening....

     There were lots of meetings in bedrooms and rehearsals between the beds, but ultimately I was told a school-room had been engaged and a professional actress, A. F. I went to the school-room and found all the boys there, and a young woman with a pale, rice-powder complexion. On introduction she gazed at me as if struck dumb. If she had been better-looking (I thought her vulgar and puffy) I would have been flattered. I was disappointed, but rather frightened (she had a stage presence) of her professional ability, especially when we commenced to rehearse. I had to make love to her, too, which embarrassed me. She had a good profile, I noticed, and would have been better looking, I thought, if she were in better condition, for she was young, about my own age, twenty-three or four. We were all young—enjoyed our rehearsals, and had lots of fun—but I did not respond to the advances A. was evidently making to me. Finally we started on our tour. As the weeks went on A. F., like the others, improved wonderfully in health and appearance. If we had had anything like houses it would have been a pleasant trip. My strangeness did not escape the notice of the boys altogether, for I was still a bit strange in mind and nerves—and deeply religious, bowing my head before each meal and reading my little Bible and prayer-book at odd times. I drank no alcohol. I spent a good deal of time by myself of with my faithful companion A., who was nearly always at my side, she and her appealing eyes. I was surprised to see how quickly she had improved; she looked quite attractive and ladylike some evenings at meals, but I only tolerated her. I was selfish and conceited.

     Things had been going on like this for a week—always playing to empty houses and our money lower and lower—when A. said to our other lady, Mrs. T., on a train in my presence: "I shall have to give him up, I suppose; he will have nothing to do with me." Mrs. T. said: "You give him up, do you?" and looked at me as if she were going to try her hand. A. said "Yes," and looked at me, smiling sadly. I don't know what motive prompted me—whether my vanity was alarmed at her threatened desertion or that she had really made some impression on me by her love, probably a little of both—but I said: "No, don't; come and sit down here," making way for her, and she joyfully came and nestled against me. From that time I ceased to treat her with ridicule, and kissed her at other times than when on the stage. I was subject still to black moods, and would not speak to her for hours sometimes, but she seemed content to walk with me and was infinitely patient. I had heard she was living with—if not married to—an actor. I asked her about him once, and she said she did not love him; she loved me and had never loved before. Her face had a touching sadness; her life had been unhappy and stormy, with no love and little rest in it. Her face, when she had lost her dissipated look and unhealthy pallor, was exquisite, delicate as a cameo. Love had improved her manners, too; she was more gentle and refined. I let things drift without thinking of the future, when one night after the performance—I was lying on the sofa and A. was sitting at my side, as usual—I suddenly thought, with the brutality that characterized me in these matters—"I will ask her to let me sleep with her." I still fought against any premonitory thought of self-abuse, but here, I thought to myself, is a chance of something better that will do me no harm and perhaps good. When she understood me she turned very red and walked away, shaking her head. But I let her understand that was the only way of retaining me, and finally, when they had all gone to bed, she gave herself to me, reluctantly and sadly; for she, too, had been drifting on without thinking of anything of this sort (she hated it at this time), but just living for her love of me, her first true love.

     Before this occurred, I must tell you, I had been so much better that I sometimes felt capable of doing anything, a sense of power and grasp of intellect which was combined with delicacy of feeling and sensitiveness to beauty, to skies and clouds and flowers. I seemed to be awakening to true manhood, to my true self. And at meals, it is worth recording, I commenced to have a distaste for meat.

     These glimpses of a better state of things left me on cohabiting with A., and for a time my gloom and black religious mania came on me once more. I now thought of my promise at confirmation, and it seemed to me I had offended beyond pardon. When we came to the next town, however, I openly slept with A. all night, leaving my own bed untouched. When we returned to Adelaide one of our party remarked: "The only man who had any success with the women on the tour was a Bible-reading, praying, and good, pious, confirmed Christian."

     A.'s nascent beauty and delicacy and improvement were gradually impaired, too. My own conduct became so morose at times that, besides increasing her misery, I offended the others, and bickerings ensued. I heard the other actress say "He's mad; that what's the matter." And I was so wrapped up in myself and my religious mania that I did not mind their thinking so.

     After the tour was over A. asked me to come and see her at her home, and as I missed her very much I went one night to tea. She had a room in her father's house to herself. A. was dressed in her best and we had an affectionate meeting. After tea I asked her if she were married to E. She said "No." Then I said: "Who are you married to?" She commenced to cry then, and told me something of her life, the saddest I ever heard. When only 17 she had been courted by a young man she did not care for, but who prevailed on her parents by pretending he had seduced her, but wished to marry her. Strange as it may seem, A. did not know what marriage meant, her mother being one of those silly women who don't like talking of these things and let their daughters grow up in ignorance, expecting they will learn from some one. In nine cases out of ten this happens, but A. was an exception. It was this, and the fact that she had not a particle of love for her husband, that gave her such a hatred of coition. When her mother saw the sheets the morning after the marriage she burst out crying; she did not like the young man and saw she had been deceived.

     A.'s husband soon showed his true character; he was in reality a gaol-bird. He beat her, drank, and even wanted her to go on the streets to earn money for him. She left him and went home; it was then she began her theatrical career by entering the ballet. At intervals her husband, drunk and desperate, would waylay and threaten her in the street. One day after a rehearsal he attempted to stab her. She got on in spite of all, being a born actress, and played small parts in traveling companies. Then E., who had also gone on the stage, courted her and she listened to him, not because she cared for him, but he protected her and offered her a home. She joined him; but his drunkenness and sensuality were so gross that he ruined his health and he attempted to maltreat A. in a nameless way. And whenever she was in the family way he would leave her alone and half-conscious in the cellar for days. To add to her misery she had epileptic fits. Then sometimes they would be out of an engagement and starving. They had been so hungry as to steal raw potatoes out of a sack and eat them thus, having no fire. She would often have had engagements, but E. was jealous and would not let her act without him. And he beat her as her husband had done, and her health became undermined. It was just after one of the forced miscarriages that she joined our traveling company, and that accounted for her yellow and puffy appearance. E. was now away up-country with a circus, but was expected down any time. A. told me a good deal of all this, between her tears, while sitting at my feet, and her tone carried conviction. When I ought to have gone home I persuaded her to let me stay all night. We had been in bed some time when her mother knocked at the door and wanted to come in for something in a chest of drawers there. "Why don't you open the door, A.? Who have you got there? Hasn't that fellow gone?" A. was confused and told me to get under the bed, but I refused, and she covered me up with the bed clothes as well as she could and opened the door. She had hid my clothes, but missed one of my shoes, and her mother saw it. "Oh, A.," was all she said; "you've got that fellow in bed," and went out crying. "Well, Fred" (my stage name), "you've got me into a nice row," A. said. She gave me my breakfast in the morning and I walked out of the front door without being molested. Another night I entered her window by a ladder and stayed all night. In the middle of the night E. came home drunk. She would not let him in and told him she would have nothing more to do with him. He attempted to break in the door, when A. called to me, and hearing a man in the room he went away, saying, as he went downstairs: "Oh, A.! Oh, A.!" as if he thought she would not have done such a thing. He never molested us after that night.

     I think it was my intention, at first, to break off with A. gradually. I found, however, I could not keep away from her, and it commenced to be evident to me that a bachelor's life in lodgings again would be dreary and lonely. And all this time the fear that I had offended God troubled me more than I have said, and it occurred to me (there may have been a touch of sophistry in this, or not) that if I were a true husband to her for the future—stuck to her and worked for her for the rest of my days—perhaps it would find favor in God's sight and be an atonement for my sin. Had she been free I would have married her, I believe. But she began to be harassed by her mother and bothered about my incessantly coming there and staying all night. It ended in my telling her I would be a husband to her, and she came and lived with me at my lodgings. We had one room and our meals cost us sixpence each. Cheap as it was, it was a struggle for me to earn money at all. I remember feeling ill and anxious once, and sustaining myself by the thought of my father wheeling the heavy truck up the street when he married my mother. And I decided to wheel my truck, too.

     A. seemed happy and her love increased, if possible; at first, though, she must have found me a trying lover, for I made her kneel and pray with me two or three times a day, which she did with such a queer expression of face. Sometimes her feelings got the better of her, and she would say: "Oh, damn it, Fred, you are always praying." And then I would be shocked and she would be sorry.... Coitus was frequent; she commenced to like it now....

     A. was not looking well one evening when she came in, and lay down on the bed. Presently she commenced to make a strange noise, and I saw her eyes were closed and her hands clenched. "Ah," said the landlady, who came in to help me; "she has epileptic fits." When her convulsions were over she looked blankly at us, knitting her brows and evidently puzzling her poor brain to remember who we were. For many years it was my fate to see her looking at me thus, at first stony and estranged, like a dweller in another star, then half-recalling with extended hand, then forgetting again with hand to mouth, then the gradual dawn of memory and love, and final full recognition. "It's Fred, my Fred!" I never got used to it; it always moved me to tears.... It was not to be thought that we had no quarrels. I still had fits of bad temper, and sometimes they came into collision with A.'s temper. It hurt my vanity considerably to see how soon she relinquished the respectful, patient, spaniel-bearing she had when we were traveling. I said some cruel things to her and she retorted. One would have thought, to hear us, that all affection was over. But when the mood of rage wore itself out we would both be sorry and make it up with tears, and be very happy in spite of our poverty.

     I think it was lust that prevented me from striving to fulfill my ambitions. A. let me do anything I liked, at all times of day or night, although she seemed surprised at my proceedings sometimes, for it was becoming a fever of lubricity with me. She still thought only of her love. I remember her coming in one day, tired, pale, perspiring, and worried—we had hardly anything in the house and she had been to the theater ineffectually—and when her eyes lighted on me the whole expression of her face changed, softened and brightened at once, and she came and kissed me and said: "It is so strange, I was thinking all sorts of nasty things coming along, but as soon as I see my pet's face I feel happy—I don't care for anything—I would sooner share a crust with him than have all the money in the world!"

     I commenced to feel libidinous curiosity to examine her—this was mostly on Sundays—and she let me, blushing at first, but laughing. Then I would try new positions in coitus I had heard of. Still she did not enter into my mood.

     She was engaged at this time to play in a pantomime and I commenced to lead a miserable, jealous existence. I heard scandal about her, baseless enough, but in the diseased, nervous, anxious state I had brought myself to it nearly drove me mad. I would go with her sometimes to visit her mother, whom I began to like. Her brother I still saluted coldly. It caused me horror and jealousy to see A. kissing him and letting him tickle her. In my rage, when we came home, I even said that perhaps she would let him do something else, naming it brutally and coarsely. I remember her shame, astonishment, indignation and tears. If ever a man tried a woman's love I did. But she forgave me, even that.

     We went to live in a little cottage. It was in this cottage that A. first showed signs of lust, and in the diseased state of my mind, instead of regretting it, I encouraged her. She told me one day that the orgasm very often did not occur at the same time with her as with me, and that it would not unless I put my little finger into the anus. This her husband taught her, and she would rather have died than confess it to me when we first met. We would often devote our Sundays to having a picnic as we termed our lustful bouts, stimulating ourselves with wine. Her temper was not improved thereby (though her fits entirely stopped for a twelvemonth)—we had wordy warfares, but we made it up again always with tears. Nor did I allow myself to deteriorate without reactions and excursions into better things. I was always reading Emerson; it was he who rescued me from orthodox Christianity and taught me to trust in myself and in Nature. I have never ceased this struggle towards better things to this day. There, in a nutshell, is my life; I have always been defeated when temptation came, but I have never ceased to struggle. I determined to be more abstemious in sexual indulgence and asked her to help me. She agreed willingly, for she was easily led. Whenever we fell back again into excess it was my fault.

     At a theatrical performance we first met a Miss T., a young German who sang. She was about 25, with modest, quiet and engaging manners. A. and she became very friendly. I liked her; she was tall, dark and lithe, but had bad teeth.

     I had been ill and at this time A. and I had a quarrel, my temper suddenly breaking out in murderous frenzy. I called her names and finally put her outside the house, telling her to go to her mother. I suffered a very hell of remorse and misery. Everything in the quiet, lonely house reminded me of her, seemed fragrant of her; my anguish became so keen I could not stop in the house, though I was just as wretched walking about. I kept this up for two days, when I met her coming to look for me. One look was enough—"A.!" "Pet!" in broken sobs—and in tears we kissed and made it up. Miss T. was with her, and I greeted her, too, with happy tears in my eyes. Another time, when A. was giving way to her temper, and one would have thought all love was dead, I said "Don't you love me then?" and the word alone was a talisman, her face changed, she held out her arms and began to sob quietly.... She accepted an offer to travel with a small theatrical company who were going up-country. She was not looking well when I left and after a time I received a telegram telling me to come to her at once as she was ill. Dreading all sorts of things I borrowed my fare and went to her. I knew nothing of women, of their point of view and different code of honor, and was very far from the attitude of Guy de Maupassant who said he liked women all the better for their charmingly deceitful ways. A. wanted to see me and had taken the surest means to ensure my coming. I was angry at first, but she looked so well and was so loving that I could not be angry long.

     One day when I was working the landlady came in and began talking about A. and her conduct before I came. She had gone into the actors' rooms at all hours, the woman said, and drank and been as bad as the rest in her conversation. It was the second time a married woman had run her down to me, and I commenced to think there might be something in it, and suffered all my mad jealousy over again. Not knowing the freedom actors and actresses allow themselves on tour, without there being necessarily anything in it, I worried till I thought I had nothing to do but die. And then one of the great struggles of my life occurred. Walking the country roads, I asked myself: "If it is true, if she has been unfaithful, will you forgive her and help her to arrive at her best?" For a long time the answer was "No!" But perhaps my striving for unity with myself had done some good, and the final resolution was for forgiveness. I felt more peace of mind then, and when I told a dying consumptive lodger in the house what the landlady had said, he replied, "Don't you believe a word of it. I know she loves you!"....

     After an absence I found myself one evening in a town where A. was performing. I went round to the back and they told me she had gone to a room in the hotel to change for another part. I followed and entered the room, with a glass of spirits I found that an effeminate young actor was bringing to her. She was half undressed, her beautiful arms and shoulders bare. My arrival was unexpected and she looked at me surprised, I thought coldly, as I reproached her for not keeping a promise she had made to me to touch no alcohol during the tour, but soon her arms were round my neck. She cried like a child. She was bigger and handsomer and healthier. There was not only an increased strength and size, but an increased delicacy and sweetness; her eyes and brows were lovely; there was an indescribable bloom and fragrance on her, such as the sun leaves on a peach; the traveling, country air, and freedom from coitus (had I known it) had enabled her to arrive at her true self, not only a beautiful woman, but a woman of fascination, of wit, vivacity and universal camaraderie. Her face was like the dawn; all my fears and jealousy left me like a cloud that melts before the sun. I remember the look on her face as she embraced me in bed that night. It had just the very smallest touch of sensuality, but was more like some beautiful child's who is being caressed by one she loves; this divine, drowsy-eyed, adorable look I had never seen on her face before—nor have I since.

     We fell back into our old lustful ways. Later on A. became ill and the black devil of epilepsy returned. I became gloomy.... A restlessness and selfish brutality came over me; our love and peace were gone. I persuaded A. to go to Melbourne and look out for an engagement. The day before she was to sail we went to Glenelg for a trip. The sea air, as often happened, precipitated A.'s fits. We had gone down to the pier and A. said she felt bad. I just managed to support her to the hotel before she became stiff, and I made some impatient remark (for she nearly dragged me down) which she heard, not being quite unconscious and said half incoherently and very pitiably: "Be kind, oh, be kind!" repeating it after consciousness left her. Her heart had been breaking all day at the prospect of parting, and also, I expect, because I was so ready to part with her. That moment was a crisis in my life. I was in a murderous humor, but she looked so unutterably wretched that it seemed impossible to be anything but kind. I made myself speak lovingly to her, in moments of partial consciousness, hired a room, carried her up, and nursed her and petted her all night. The act of self-control, and forcing myself to be kind whatever I felt, became a habit in time, a sort of second nature.

     In a few days she sailed. When she had gone I was remorseful and mad with myself. How could I let her go by herself? I resolved to follow her as speedily as possible, and did so.

     If I remember rightly I came to the conclusion about this time that we ought not to have coition unless we felt great love for each other. It seemed to corroborate this to a certain extent that A. always seemed more electric and pleasant to the touch when we had connection for love and not for lust. Leave it to Nature, I would say to myself. I began to feel how much my struggles, efforts and temperate living had improved me. I had more self-respect, though something of the old self-consciousness was still left. I did not get better continuously, but in an up-and-down zigzag. I still had moods of rage approaching madness and periods of neurotic depression. Long walks decidedly helped to cure me, and the sea, sun, wind, clouds and trees colored my dreams at night very sweetly. I frequently dreamed I was walking in orchards or forests, and a deeper, slightly melancholy but potent savor, as of a diviner destiny, was on my soul.

     After a long absence, during which she had frequently been ill, A. joined me. I could see she was recovering from fits, which I began to realize that she had more frequently in absence from me, and also from drinking, perhaps. She was small and thin, but fresh and sweet as honey, and all signs of fits and tempers passed away from her face, so wonderful in its changes. I had become so healthy through my abstinence, temperance and long walks that our meeting was a new revelation to me of how delicate, fragrant and divine a convalescent woman may be. She was glad and surprised to see me looking so well, and if she put her hand on my arm I felt a joyous thrill. I was certainly a better man for abstaining and she a better woman and I determined not to have connection unless we were carried away by our love. As a matter of fact we did not give way to excess, though we were very loving. I tried to persuade myself that we had not gone back to our old ways, but I could not do so long.

     Miss T. put in an appearance every day. She did not look so innocent, but as it was no business of mine I did not trouble. She seemed more attached to A. than ever.... A. was still very loving with me, but it was an effort to me to keep up to her pitch, and when A. proposed to go to Melbourne with Miss T, to sell off the furniture before settling in Adelaide, I was rather glad of the opportunity of abstaining from coitus and of watching myself to see if I again improved. When A. and Miss T. came to see me before going down to the steamer, A. was nearly crying and Miss T., changed from the old welcome friend, was not only pale and anxious, but looked guilty as if she had some treachery in her mind; she could not meet my eye. I thought less of it then than afterwards. And once more I took long walks at night and rose early to catch the freshness of the mornings.

     Some time before this I had read a book advocating a vegetarian diet, and at this time I chanced to read Pater's beautiful "Denys L'Auxerrois," the imaginary portrait of a young vine-dresser, who was attractive beyond ordinary mortals and lived, until his fall and deterioration, on fruit and water. The words, "a natural simplicity in living" remained in my memory. I resolved to read more carefully the book on scientific diet. Who can say, I thought, what changes for the better may come to me if I live on a strictly scientific and natural diet?

     I fasted one whole day, and then had a breakfast of cherries, in the middle of the day a meal of fruit, and walking in the afternoon—a gray, rainy day—I felt so light, so different, and the gray sky looked so sweet and familiar, that I was reminded of the luminous visions of my boyhood. It was a distinct revelation. This Pan-like, almost Bacchic feeling, did not last, however, nor was I always able to maintain my new method of diet, though I tried to do so. I made the attempt, however, but I imagine I was more than usually run down. I would walk miles in the hope of feeling less restless. One holiday I walked down to Glenelg, having only had grapes for my dinner, and lying on the beach I looked through a strong binocular glass I had borrowed at the girls bathing. And the beauty of their faces in their frames of hair, of their arms, of their figures, seen through their wet clinging dresses, satisfied me and filled me with joy, gave me for a short time that peace and content—in harmony with the strong sunlight on the waves and the rhythmic surf on the shore—I was seeking. The summer evenings on the pier or along the beach had a peculiar savor; one felt the youth and beauty there even on dark nights, the air was fragrant with them, white dresses and summer hats disappearing down the beach or over the sand hills. It was easy—doubtless justifiable sometimes—to put a lewd construction on these disappearances; but I felt it need not have been so; that it was not necessary that youth and beauty, even the sexual act itself if led up to by love, should be a subject of giggling and sniggering. I always left the beach and its flitting summer dresses with a sigh.

     A., after writing once, ceased writing at all and once more her mother and I were left in a state of anxiety and suspense. At last I determined to go to Melbourne to look for her, the only clue I had being a remark in her letter that a certain actor was giving her an engagement. In Melbourne I could not find any traces of her for some days and what traces I did find of her were not calculated to allay my anxious fears. One hotel-keeper told me that some one of A's name had stayed there with another hussy (giving Miss T's stage name): "There were nice carryings on with the pair of them." I thought of Miss T's strange looks, but could not imagine what hold she had on A., for A. loved me, I knew. I seemed to be in an inextricable maze. I could settle to nothing and was thinking of applying to the police when I heard that the actor A. had mentioned had taken his company to the Gippsland lakes. I followed to Sale, found the actor and was told that A. was not there. "She slipped me at the last moment," he said, "and remained in Melbourne." I returned to my lodgings, with my anxiety and nervous restlessness increased tenfold. But suddenly my fear and restlessness left me like a cloud. I felt quiet, young, peaceful, able to enjoy the country, A. was doubtless all right and would be able to explain her silence. I undressed leisurely and happily, thinking of the stars.

     The next day, Sunday, I awoke refreshed and still at peace. After breakfast, hearing children's voices, I went out into the garden and there was a collision of souls who somehow were affinities. A young girl about twelve or younger with a fine presence and handsome face fixed her eyes on me for half a minute and then came and sat on my knee. She was one of those children I am accustomed to call "love-children," because they are so much brighter, healthier, larger and more loving than others. I always imagine more love went to their making. We fell in love and she said, stroking my beard, "Oh, you are pretty!" and I said, "And so are you!" We were so affectionate that the servant called the child away and I went for a walk, finding my little sweetheart waiting for me on my return. The touch of her hand was electric and her voice fresh and musical. I kissed her, but had become more self-conscious since the morning and wondered if her mother or the servant were looking, or even of they would appear. I was not so frank and natural as my little chum. I have often thought of her since. She had the breadth of forehead, the strength and yet lightness of limb, together with the hands and feet, not too small, that I always imagine the dwellers in Paradise will have.

     I returned to Melbourne and continued trying to find A. At the same time I commenced in earnest to live on fruit and brown bread only, and enjoyed better tone and health every day, so that it was a joy to walk down the street in the sun and exchange glances with passengers à la old Walt. One day in the Botanical Gardens veils seemed to be lifted off my eyes. I could look straight at the sun and taking my note of color from that golden light I turned my eyes on the flowers, the mown grass, the trees, and for the first time perceived what a heavenly color green is, what divine companions flowers are, and what a blue sky really means. For half an hour I was in Paradise, and to complete my joy Nature revealed to me a new and unexpected secret.

     I was lying on a bench, basking, and my silk shirt coming open the strong sun made its way to my breast and presently I felt a totally new sensation there. I had discovered the last joy of the skin. My skin, fed by healthy fruit-made blood, must have functioned normally under the excitation of the sun just then (for a brief space only, alas!). I cannot describe the joy, any more than I could describe the taste of a peach to one who has only eaten apples: it was satisfying, divine. I opened my shirt wider, but the feeling only spread faintly, and indeed this halcyon sunny hour terminated in a restlessness that sent me walking into town to look for A.

     At last I heard, not of A., but of Miss T. She was in a ballet. I went round during rehearsal and while waiting entered into conversation with a little chorus girl with a good face, who was sewing. On my telling her whom I was seeking she stopped sewing and looked at me quickly: "Oh, are you her husband? I know her. I have seen them together." She looked as if she were going to tell me something, but merely shook her old-fashioned head in a mournful, indescribable way, saying "Why don't you keep your wife with you?" I went to the door and presently saw Miss T. She tried to avoid me, I thought, and looked more vicious than ever, but after a minute's thought reluctantly told me where she and A. were staying. To hide my fears and suspicions I had assumed a careless demeanor, but I think I should have strangled her had she refused to tell me. I hastily went to the place indicated and going up the stairs (to the astonishment of the people) opened the door and found myself face to face with A.—but how changed! She had the hard, harlot, loveless look I detested. I felt for a few minutes that I did not love her, and she regarded me coldly too, but presently old habits reinstated themselves. She put out her hands, very pitiably, and then was sobbing in my arms. I could get nothing out of her but sobs, and to this day do not know where she spent all these weeks nor why she did not write. Miss T. came in after rehearsal, pale and hard-faced. I greeted her politely, but was watching her, trying to puzzle out why A. did not look as she usually did after long absence from coition. Miss T. took another room in the same house and was soon joined by another ballet girl, young and very pretty, who soon began to have fits. A. was always crying until Miss T. went away with her pretty friend. I knew nothing, could hardly be said to suspect anything definite, and yet I pitied that pretty girl whose eyes looked so helpless and appealing.

     I set to work again. But I continued to live on fruit and bread, and taking off my clothes I would stand up at the window in the sun. A lot of prostitutes, however, who lived at the back saw me and were scandalized or shocked or thought me mad. The landlady heard of it and spoke to A. So I had to desist from my glorious sun-baths.

     We slept on a single bed, and though I did my best to avoid coitus (I wanted to wait and think out some theory of it), A., who knew nothing of this, wanted to resume our old habits, and finally I surrendered. But my sufferings next day were intense, and I had the sense of having fallen from some high estate. My thoughts were divided between two theories: one that our misery was caused by our diet, more or less; the other that we had fallen into some error as regards coitus, and this was becoming almost a certainty with me.

     There is one incident I think worthy of note which happened before the "fall" just mentioned and when I was living on fruit and in splendid health. At a performance I saw a girl on the stage with handsome legs in tights, and once as she straightened her leg the knee-cap going into position gave me such a strange and keen joy—of that quality I call divine or musical—that I was like one suddenly awakened to the divinity and beauty of the female form. The joy was so keen and yet peaceful, familiar, and subjective that I could not help comparing it to a happy chemical change in the tissues of my own brain. Like the unexpected functioning of my skin in the sun it was a sign of a partial return to a normal condition, another glimpse of Paradise.

     I stuck to my new diet and gained a fresh elation and joy in life. Gradually clothes became insupportable, and I went down to the beach as often as possible to take them off, and at nights, beside the patient and astonished A., I would lie naked. One evening, passing some grass, I looked over the fence like a gipsy and felt a longing to take off my clothes and sleep in the grass all night. It was of course impossible. And A. looked unhappily in my face; she began to think her mother, who now thought I was mad, must be right.

     That night I woke up and found myself having coition. I was angry and felt I had been put back in my progress, but a fever of lust now came over me. I would sit under the tap and let the cold water run over me to conquer the fever, but at the end of a week my hopes were frustrated and I even turned against my natural diet, on which I had made flesh. A., as I expected, went through her usual fits, and slowly recovered. (If we had connection only once she in about three weeks had a mild attack of fits; if we had coition more than once the fits were more severe.) I relapsed more than once and as a means of impressing my resolution for future abstinence I would walk for miles in the middle of pitch-black nights....

     Miss T. came over to Adelaide and as I knew nothing definite against her and heard that she was engaged, I thought perhaps my suspicions were unfounded and was friendly. But one day in town I saw her and A. on a tram going out to our cottage. Even then my suspicions might not have been awakened, but I saw Miss T. say something rapidly to A., and A. called out to me, "Will you be coming home soon?" And I answered "No." When the tram had gone on I found myself vaguely wondering what Miss T. wanted to know that for, for my perceptions were becoming acute enough to understand women's ways. In another minute I was walking rapidly home. When I came to the door it was locked. I knocked and knocked and no one came. I called out and threatened to kick in the door. Still no one came. Mad with rage I commenced to put my threat into execution, when the door was opened by Miss T., half-naked, in her petticoats, and pale as death, but no longer defiant. "So I've caught you, have I?" I looked, but could not trust myself to speak. Wondering why A. did not appear I went into the bedroom. She was lying on the bed, just as Miss T. had left her, on the verge of a fit, and on seeing me she held out her hands piteously, and when I stooped over her she whispered, "Send her away, send her away." Then she became unconscious and going into the next room I ordered Miss T. (who had managed to scramble on her dress) out of the house. I spoke scornfully as if addressing a dog, and she slinked out with a malignant but cowed look I hope never to see on a woman's face again. What they had been doing with their clothes off I do not know; women will rather die than confess. When A. had recovered from her fit she denied that there had been anything between them, and stuck to it doggedly, but with such a forlorn look I had not the heart to prosecute my inquiries.

     For my part, all the efforts I had been making for so long seemed for a time to be in vain; for some weeks I sank into a sort of satyriasis, and even my anger against Miss T. turned to a prurient curiosity. At the same time I was not always able to adhere to my diet. But both as regards coition and diet I was still fighting, and on the whole successfully. My fits of temper, however, were excessive and my ennui became gloomy despair. One day I blasphemed on crossing the Park and spoke contemptuously of "God and his twopenny ha'penny revolving balls," referring to the planetary system. But for long walks I should have gone mad. A. was drinking in the intervals of her fits. I found half-empty bottles of wine hidden away. This did not improve my temper, and one day—this was when she was well and up—I struck her a heavy blow on the face, and she aimed a glass decanter at me. She went home to her mother and I lived alone in the cottage. I heard soon afterwards that her husband had come back and that they had made it up. Our parting was not, however, destined to be final.

     Even out of that month's sufferings I made capital. I was better after my tendency to lubricity, my gloom, rage, restlessness and degradation. They had been but the irritations of convalescence.