LITMIR.BIZ

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as a journalist became known, and as time passed by it seemed to me as if half the world had heard of my alleged iniquities. People who have never set eyes on me seem to regard me in the light of a monster of iniquity who ought not to be suffered to exist. All these outsiders believe that I have committed 'nameless' offenses times innumerable and lift up their hands in speechless horror at the audacity of a man who, so situated, dares to appear openly in public, under his own name, and look people in the face. They have not even the brains to see that this very fearlessness proves the fictitious character of their beliefs. Next, they believe that if only they could get my dismissal from my journalistic post I should be brought to starvation point. This up to a year ago was true. Then an old relative died and left me some property which I sold to invest in an annuity, and thus have just enough to live on quietly, apart from what I may earn. Under such strange conditions it might be asked whether life was not unendurable. Frankly speaking, I cannot say that I find it so. I have in London a few bachelor friends who go with me to theaters, etc. In the suburbs I have about half a dozen family friends. Here I meet with pleasant society and a hearty welcome. I am passionately fond of music, have an excellent piano, and can hear the best concerts in Europe. I go to all good plays. I am a good chess player. Lastly, I am an omnivorous reader. You will allow that my resources for passing the time are not limited.

      "Of course, I am sorry that I sinned, and wish that I had not done so. But I disclaim any feeling of shame."

      S. W. was the youngest of four children and the only boy. His father was 40 at his birth, his mother 33. The father was an intellectual man of weak character, the mother a woman of violent and eccentric temper, with, he believes, strong sexual passions. S. W. knows of nothing in the family to account for his own abnormal condition.

      He is short (five feet five inches), but well built, with strong chest and a powerful voice. His arms are weak and flabby (feminine, he thinks), but the legs muscular. As a boy of 14 he could walk forty miles with ease, and he played football till near the age of 45. He is considered manly in character and tastes, but is easily moved to tears under strong excitement. There is no information as to the type of man to whom he is attracted. I may observe, however, that the analytical chemist who first evoked S. W.'s admiration was well known to me some thirty years later, as he was my own teacher in chemistry. At that time he was an elderly man of attractive appearance and character, sympathetic and winning in manner to an almost feminine extent.

      S. W. has never felt the slightest sexual attraction toward the opposite sex. The first indications of inverted feeling were at the age of 6 or 7. Watching his father's pupils, boys of 13 or 14, from the windows, he speculated on what their organs of generation were like. "In connection with a girl," he writes, "I should no more have thought of such a thing than in the case of a block of marble." About this time, indeed, he at times slept with a sister of 10, who induced him to go through the form of sexual connection, saying that it felt "so funny;" but he merely did this to please her, and without the slightest interest or feeling on his own part. This attitude became more marked with increased knowledge, until he fell ardently in love at the age of 12. Throughout life he has practised masturbation to a certain extent, and is prepared to defend the practice in his own case. His erotic dreams have been of only the vaguest and most shadowy character. He is able to whistle. He takes a warm interest in politics and in philanthropic work. But his chief love is for music and he has published many musical compositions. On the whole, and notwithstanding the persecution he has endured, he does not regard his life as unhappy. At the same time he is keenly conscious of the atmosphere of "Pariahdom" which surrounds inverts, and in his own case this has never been alleviated by any sense of companionship in misery. The facility with which some inverts are said to recognize others of their own kind is quite incomprehensible to him; he has never to his knowledge met one.

      HISTORY VI.—E. S., physician, aged 50.

      "I have some reason," he writes, "for believing that some of my relatives (on the paternal side) were not normal in their sexual life. But I am sure that no such suspicion was entertained by their friends or associates; they were very reticent people. A great proportion of my near relatives have remained unmarried or deferred marriage until late in life. None of them have been good business men; all seem to have been more deeply concerned in other things than in making—or in keeping—money. They have mostly taken little or no share in public life, and not cared much for society. Yet they have been folk of more than average ability, with intellectual and æsthetic interests. We are prone to enthusiasms, but lack perseverance. We are discursive and superficial, perhaps, but none would call us stupid. We are perhaps abnormally self-centered and self-conscious—never cruel or vicious. Our powers of self-control are considerable; we are conventional people only because we are lazy and intensely dislike any open self-assertion. Yet we are nervous rather than phlegmatic. All that is on the father's side. My maternal ancestors have been concerned with farming and the sea and have also had a similar lack of business capacity, but with less mental adaptiveness and alertness, with more steadiness of purpose, however, always doers rather than dreamers. Among them I remember one cousin who was probably abnormal, although he died when I was too young to notice much. Again, they were all rather reserved people, but more genial with strangers, more socially inclined, and with less self-control.

      "I was an only child and a spoilt one. I was always quick at school, fond of learning, and finding my lessons no trouble. Serious study I disliked. But for school purposes I did not find it necessary, and had no difficulty in carrying all before me. I was never fond of games, although very fond of being out of doors and of walking. Few of my relatives have been at all keen on sport. I made no close friendships at school and was never very popular with my schoolfellows, who, however, tolerated my odd ways better than might have been expected. I was easily brought to appreciate good literature, but I never had much power of expression or of strenuous thought. I was extremely susceptible and impressible, moved by beauty of any kind, but never at all ambitious or in any way creative. I was easily stimulated to work, and then loved to work; but, unless the stimulus were maintained the natural indolence of my disposition asserted itself, and I wasted my powers in dreams and trifles. My memory was very quick and retentive, in the main, but curiously capricious. I always lacked initiative and decision. At college my successes were continued. I gained medals and prizes, passed my examinations easily, and graduated 'with first-class honors.' In my professional lifework I have been successful rather beyond the average. I love it with all my heart.

      "I cannot speak with any confidence about the first stirrings of my sexual instincts, but I think I can assert that they have at no time led me to any desire for the opposite sex. It is true that my earliest recollection of the kind is concerned with intimacies with a girl play-fellow, but as we had at the time reached only the mature age of 7 (at the most) I fancy that our mutual exhibitions—for there was nothing more—simply satisfied our natural curiosity. Certainly these memories are, in my mind, in no way set apart from the recollections of other kinds of play. Next to that I remember the usual schoolboy talk about things hidden and forbidden, but up till I was 12 or so this was simply dirty talk, concerned more with renal and intestinal functions than with any sexual feelings or understanding. One boy was known to us all (and of my not inconsiderable circle of early friends, all grew up to be normal people, who married and had children in due course) for the unusual size of his parts and for the freedom with which he invited and satisfied the curiosity of his friends. He must have been precocious, for he could not have been more than 12, and I remember to have heard that he had a thick growth of pubic hair. Even then, although I know that my curiosity—to put it at that only—was active, I never allowed myself to have any dealings with him; and I think I should have discouraged them had they been suggested to me. That is the odd thing about my life: the things I longed intensely to do I would not let myself do, not from any religious or moral scruple, but from some inexplicable fastidiousness or scrupulosity which is yet as active as ever, although I am sure that it would not be able to hold its own could these favorable conditions be repeated, but would be overcome by the imperious and fully grown desires which, by long repression, or by unsatisfactory diversion, have grown to be so strong. Indeed, given the opportunity, and the assurance that no first seduction or corruption of anyone was in question, they would prove quite irrepressible.

      "Certainly, long before puberty—which was early with me—I remember being greatly attracted to certain boys, and wishing

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