These troubles were increased
by my sedentary life. However I obtained medical aid, and put as
good a face on matters as possible.
"But the most trying thing of all has yet to be mentioned--the
discovery that I had not yet got fully clear of the habit of
masturbation. I had, indeed, repudiated it as far as my conscious
waking moments were concerned, even though strongly impelled by
sexual desire; but one night, about a year after I had
relinquished the practice, I found myself again giving way to it
in those moments between sleeping and waking when the will is
only semiconscious. It was as if a race took place for
wakefulness between my physical instinct, on the one side, and my
moral sense and inhibitory nerves on the other; and very
frequently the physical instinct won. This, perhaps, is not an
uncommon experience, but it distressed me greatly; and I never
felt safe from it until marriage. I resorted to various
expedients to combat this tendency, at length having to tie
myself in a certain position every night with a cord round my
legs, so as to render it impossible to turn over upon my face.
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