LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

before I ventured to raise my eyes, for I felt that I was under inspection, and this embarrassed me. But at length I looked up, and my first glance fell upon a pale and slender girl who sat opposite me: her name was Emily, and she was the daughter of the parish-clerk. A passionate trembling seized me, the blood rushed to my heart; but a sentiment of shame was also intermingled with my first sensations, and I lowered my eyes to the ground once more, as rapidly as if I had caught sight of something horrible. From that moment Emily was ever in my thoughts; and the school, so greatly dreaded in anticipation, became a joy to me, because it was there only that I could see her. The Sundays and holidays which separated me from her were as greatly detested by me as in other circumstances they would have been greatly desired; one day when she stayed away from school, I felt utterly miserable. In imagination she was always before my eyes, wherever I went; when alone, I was never weary of repeating her name; above all, her black eyebrows and intensely red lips were ever before my eyes, whereas I do not remember that at this time her voice had made any impression on me, although later this became all-important."

      In belletristic literature, also, we find occasional references to the love-sentiment in childhood. Groos refers to an instance which he thinks perhaps the most delicate known to him, and one in which the erotic element is but faintly emphasised, namely, Gottfried Keller's Romeo und Julia. "In a spot entirely covered with green undergrowth the girl stretched herself on her back, for she was tired, and began in a monotonous tone to sing a few words, repeating the same ones over and over again; the boy crouched close beside her, half inclined, he also, to stretch himself at full length on the ground, so lethargic did he feel. The sun shone into the girl's open mouth as she sang, lighting up her glistening white teeth, and gleaming on her full red lips. The boy caught sight of her teeth, and, holding the girl's head and eagerly examining her teeth, said, 'Tell me, how many teeth has one?' The girl paused for a moment, as if thinking the matter carefully over, but then answered at random, 'A hundred.' 'No!' he cried; 'thirty-two is the proper number; wait a moment, I'll count yours.' He counted them, but could not get the tale right to thirty-two, and so counted them again, and again, and again. The girl let him go on for some time, but as he did not come to an end of his eager counting, she suddenly interrupted him, and said, 'Now, let me count yours.' The boy lay down in his turn on the undergrowth; the girl leaned over him, with her arm round his head; he opened his mouth, and she began counting: 'One, two, seven, five, two, one,' for the little beauty did not yet know how to count. The boy corrected her, and explained to her how to count properly; so she, in her turn, attempted to count his teeth over and over again: and this game seemed to please them more than any they had played together that day. At last, however, the girl sank down on her youthful instructor's breast, and the two children fell asleep in the bright midday sunshine."

      In erotic literature we also occasionally find descriptions belonging to our province, as, for instance, in the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter. Indeed, a certain kind of erotic literature, more especially pornographic literature, selects this subject by preference. Thus, I may allude to the Anti-Justine of Rétif de la Bretonne. In a certain section of such literature, improper practices between children and their parents and other blood relatives play a part.

      Recently, in connexion with two different fields of study, attention has been directed to the sexual life of the child. The first of these is concerned with the abnormal, and especially the perverse, manifestations of the sexual life, a study of which Westphal, and above all von Krafft-Ebing, have been the founders. The other is the modern movement in favour of the sexual enlightenment of children. As regards the latter, the literature to which it has given rise has not, indeed, contributed much, beyond a few casual references, in the way of positive material concerning the sexual life of the child. But none the less, it is this movement which has made it of prime importance that our subject should be carefully investigated. As regards studies of the abnormalities of the sexual impulse, under the name of paradoxical sexual impulse cases have been published in which that impulse manifested itself at an age of life in which it is normally non-existent—old age and childhood. Recent research has brought to light a large number of cases of this nature. Among those who have reported such cases, we must mention first of all von Krafft-Ebing, and in addition, Féré, Fuchs, Pélofi, and Lombroso.

      In addition to these various works, others must be mentioned which have arisen mainly out of the recently awakened interest in the sexual life; for example, works on puberty, the psychology of love, and similar topics. In his Fisiologia del Amore (Physiology of Love), Mantegazza emphasises the love-manifestations of childhood. The same may be said of many other general works on the sexual life, and more especially, as previously mentioned, of works on prostitution. Certain works on offences against morality have also enriched our knowledge in this province.

      It might at first sight appear from what has been said that the literature of the sexual life of the child was extremely voluminous, but this is not in reality the case. Almost always, this important question is handled in a casual or cursory manner. A thorough presentation of the subject has not, as far as my knowledge extends, hitherto been attempted. Freud rightly insists that even in all, or nearly all, the works on the psychology of the child, this important department is ignored. Quite recently, indeed, special works have appeared upon the sexual life of the child, among which I must first of all mention Freud's own contribution to the subject, forming part of his Drei Abhandlungen zur sexuellen Theorie (Three Essays on the Sexual Theory, Leipzig and Vienna, 1905).7 But what this writer describes as an indication of infantile sexuality, viz., certain sucking movements, has, in my opinion, nothing to do with the sexual life of the child—as little to do with sexuality as have the functions of the stomach or any other non-genital organ. A number of other processes occurring in childhood, which Freud and his followers have recently described as sexual in nature, and as playing a great part later in life in connexion with hysteria, neurasthenia, compulsion-neuroses, the anxiety-neurosis, and dementia præcox, have very little true relationship to the sexual life of the child. In any case, Freud has not systematically studied the individual manifestations of the sexual life of the child. I must also mention a small work by Kötscher, Das Erwachen des Geschlechtsbewusstseins und seine Anomalien The Awakening of the Consciousness of Sex and its Anomalies, Wiesbaden, 1907). Kötscher, however, does not give any detailed account of the sexual life of the child; he starts, rather, from the sexual life of the adult, and only as a supplement to his account of this does he give a few data regarding the awakening of the consciousness of sex. In the American Journal of Psychology, July 1902, we find an elaborate study of the sexual life of the child. In this paper, A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love between the Sexes, the writer, Sanford Bell, devotes much attention to the love-sentiments in childhood. He discusses, indeed, only heterosexual, qualitatively normal inclinations, and his essay deals only with the psychological aspects of the question. The processes taking place in the genital organs do not come within the scope of the writer's observations, and, indeed, are outside the limits of his chosen theme. A great many other points connected with the question are also left untouched. None the less, the paper is full of matter. The same must be said of the works of the English investigator, Havelock Ellis, who is, in my opinion, the leader of all those at present engaged in the study of sexual psychology and pathology. Unfortunately his writings are not so well known in Germany as they deserve to be, the reason being that owing to their strictly scientific character they are not so noisily obtruded on the public notice as are certain other widely advertised and reputedly scientific works. In his various books, and above all in his six volumes entitled Studies in the Psychology of Sex (F. A. Davies Company, Philadelphia, Pa.), as a part of his general contributions to our knowledge of the sexual life, Havelock Ellis records numerous observations relating to the years of childhood; especially valuable in this connexion are the biographies given in the third volume of the above-mentioned Studies.

      A valuable source of data for our field of inquiry exists in the form of unpublished diaries, autobiographies, and albums, which are not accessible to the general public. I have myself had the opportunity of studying a number of records of this nature, and have formed the opinion that a quantity of invaluable material lies hidden in these recesses. I may add that the records I have been able to use have not only related to living persons; in addition, I have been able to study a number of albums and diaries dating from an earlier day. These have remained unpublished, in part because they appeared

Скачать книгу