suicide. If I had only put it into execution! For since then there has been such frequent violent agitation of mind and body that my heart has been bound as with a chain, and made cold. I may say at once that, up to the present time, onanism has not loosened me from its clutches; it has overcome all attempts and efforts to escape, and my desire to resist it is almost destroyed. Three or four times I have given it up for a month at a time, usually under the influence of mental excitement.
“When about thirteen, I had my first love. To-day it seems as if my greatest wish then was to kiss my school-fellow’s fresh, rosy lips. It was a passion full of romantic dreams. At the age of fifteen or sixteen it became more violent, when I first experienced the insane pangs of a jealousy which is more terrible than that of natural love can be. This second period of my life lasted for years, though I spent but a few days with the object of my passion; and then we did not see each other for fifteen years. Gradually my feeling cooled, and I then fell passionately in love several times with other men, who, with the exception of one, were about my own age.
“My love—if you will kindly allow this expression for a feeling condemned by the majority of mankind—has never been returned; I have never had intercourse with a man in any way that would not bear the light of day; never has any one shown even extraordinary interest in me, though one of my friends discovered my secret longing; and yet I have had a burning desire for masculine love. In this longing my feelings seem to me to be entirely those of a loving woman; and I notice, with horror, that my sensual ideas grow more and more like those of a woman. During the periods when I am free from any particular love, my longing degenerates so that, in my onanistic manipulations, I conjure up only coarse, Sensual ideas. But I am still finally able to overcome these. My efforts to repress the love, however, are absolutely vain. At the present time I am again suffering with such an exaggerated state of feeling that has existed for months; and I have pondered so much over its peculiarities that I think I can describe my feelings truthfully. In this way I have made the peculiar observation that I have never loved a bearded man. From this it might easily be presumed that I am given to so-called boy-love; but that is not the case. For, to the sensual charm, on closer association, a mental interest is added. With this begins the mental pain. I am seized with such a passionate longing that I am willing to sacrifice myself, in a way. I excite confidence in myself; and from this mutual feeling a heart-felt friendship might be engendered, if deep down in my soul were not sleeping the demon which impels me to the closest of relationships, which is allowed only between human beings of opposite sex. My whole being, every fibre of my body, longs for it, and I am consumed by a hot, atone passion. I wonder that here I can again describe in unfeeling words the feelings that coursed through my whole being. Of course, by the struggle of years, I have been forced to learn