In one of his latest novels, _Les Rencontres de M. de Bréot_, Henri de Régnier, one of the most notable of recent French novelists, narrates an episode bearing on the matter before us. A personage of the story is sitting for a moment in a dark grotto during a night fête in a nobleman's park, when two ladies enter and laughingly proceed to raise their garments and accomplish a natural necessity. The man in the background, suddenly overcome by a sexual impulse, starts forward; one lady runs away, the other, whom he detains, offers little resistance to his advances. To M. de Bréot, whom he shortly after encounters, he exclaims, abashed at his own actions: "Why did I not flee? But could I imagine that the spectacle of so disgusting a function would have any other effect than to give me a humble opinion of human nature?" M. de Bréot, however, in proceeding to reproach his interlocutor for his inconsiderate temerity, observes: "What you tell me, sir, does not entirely surprise me. Nature has placed very various instincts within us, and the impulse that led you to what you have just now done is not so peculiar as you think. One may be a very estimable man and yet love women even in what is lowliest in their bodies." In harmony with this passage from Régnier's novel are the remarks of a correspondent who writes to me of the function of urination that it "appeals sexually to most normal individuals. My own observations and inquiries prove this. Women themselves instinctively feel it. The secrecy surrounding the matter lends, too, I think, a sexual interest."