One day, lying on an old uneven couch, innocently enough at first, he induced a new and delicious sensation, altogether different from any he had ever dreamed of--something far beyond the satisfaction of mere curiosity. He repeated the thing and before long produced emissions. Masturbation soon followed. Certain days he would perform the act two or three times, but again he would avoid it for days. He began at once to fight the tendency, and felt very guilty and very ashamed for indulging it. He prayed for help and at times wept over his failures to break the habit so quickly formed. For a certain period, after two or three years, he seemed to have succeeded, but he observed that he had intense erotic dreams with copious emissions regularly every eight days. Just then certain newspaper advertisements fell under his eye, and these persuaded him that he had produced in himself a diseased condition. He never resorted to the remedies advertised, but he was discouraged in his efforts to overcome the bad habit; and since the evil effects appeared to consist only in the seminal losses, he concluded that he might as well have the greater enjoyment of masturbation. For a short time, he remembers that he had an intense but revolting interest in the sexual organs of animals, especially horses. The males were much more interesting. Gradually he began to develop, entirely from within, the ideal of a male comrade,--a beautiful, emotional boy between whom and himself there might exist a powerful romantic passion. He lay for hours dreaming of this, and inventing thrilling situations. Suddenly, at church, he became acquainted with the very youth, Edmund, who seemed to satisfy all his longings. M.O. was then 16½ and Edmund 15. A real wooing ensued, Edmund finally yielding to the physical appeals of M.O. after several fits of misgiving. The yielding was in the end complete, however. The two spent night after night together, enjoying intercrural intercourse and sometimes mutual masturbation. Their parents may have been slightly uneasy at times, but the connection continued uninterruptedly for a year and a half or more. In the meantime M.O. occasionally had relations with other boys, but never wavered in his real preference for Edmund. For girls he had no sexual desire whatever, though he was much associated with them. Then M.O. and Edmund went to college at different places, but they met in vacations and wrote frequent and ardent love-letters. Both had genuine attacks of love-sickness and of jealousy. As M.O. looks back on this first love passion he can by no means regret it. It doubtless had great formative influence.