It is indeed a method
that would only appeal to a person of feeble or failing mental power. What
more usually happens is that the auto-erotic excitement develops, _pari
passu_ and spontaneously, with the mental activity and at the climax of
the latter the auto-erotic excitement also culminates, almost or even
quite spontaneously, in an explosion of detumescence which relieves the
mental tension. I am acquainted with such cases in both young men and
women of intellectual ability, and they probably occur much more
frequently than we usually suspect.
In illustration of the foregoing observations, I may quote the
following narrative, written by a man of letters: "From puberty
to the age of 30 (when I married), I lived in virgin continence,
in accord with my principle. During these years I worked
exceedingly hard--chiefly at art (music and poetry). My days
being spent earning my livelihood, these art studies fell into my
evening time. I noticed that productive power came in
periods--periods of irregular length, and which certainly, to a
partial extent, could be controlled by the will. Such a period of
vital power began usually with a sensation of melancholy, and it
quickened my normal revolt against the narrowness of conventional
life into a red-hot detestation of the paltriness and pettiness
with which so many mortals seem to content themselves.
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