It may well be, as Kiernan has argued (_Alienist and Neurologist_, 1891; ibid., 1902, p. 263), that in the disturbance of emotional balance caused by grief the primitive instincts become peculiarly apt to respond to stimulus, and that in the aboulia of grief the mind is specially liable to become the prey to obsessions. "When my child died at the age of 6 months," a correspondent writes, "I had a violent paroxysm of weeping and for some days I could not eat. When I kissed the dead boy for the last time (I had never seen a corpse before) I felt I had reached the depths of misery and could never smile or have any deep emotions again. Yet that night, though my thoughts had not strayed to sexual subjects since the child's death, I had a violent erection. I felt ashamed to desire carnal things when my dead child was still in the house, and explained to my wife. She was sympathetic, for her idea was that our common grief had intensified my love for her. I feel convinced, however, that my desire was the result of a stimulus propagated to the sexual centers from the centers affected by my grief, the transference of my emotion from one set of nerves to another. I do not perhaps express my meaning clearly." How far the emotional influence of grief entered into the following episode it is impossible to say, for here it is probable that we are mainly concerned with one of those almost irresistible impulses by which adolescent girls are sometimes overcome. The narrative is from the lips of a reliable witness, a railway guard, who, some thirty years ago, when a youth of 18, in Cornwall, lodged with a man and woman who had a daughter of his own age. Some months later, when requiring a night's lodging, he called at the house, and was greeted warmly by the woman, who told him her husband had just died and that she and her daughter were very nervous and would be glad if he would stay the night, but that as the corpse occupied the other bedroom he would have to share their bed ("We don't think very much of that among us," my informant added). He agreed, and went to bed, and when, a little later, the two women also came to bed, the girl, at her own suggestion, lay next to the youth. Nothing happened during the night, but in the morning, when the mother went down to light the fire, the daughter immediately threw off the bedclothes, exposing her naked person, and before the youth had realized what was happening she had drawn him over on to her. He was so utterly surprised that nothing whatever happened, but the incident made a life-long impression on him.