dress, and in similar ways. In boys also
similar phenomena may often be observed.

Vanity, too, plays an important part, and this all the more because a
child often wishes to appear older than his years, and despises childish
ways. If a boy loves a girl several years older than himself, his
sensitive pride will suffer if, as usually happens in such cases, the
girl treats him as a child. Goethe, who at the age of ten was inspired
by such a passion, describes it in _Wahrheit und Dichtung_. "Young
Derones introduced me to his sister, who was a few years older than
myself, a very agreeable girl, well-grown, regularly formed, a brunette,
with black hair and eyes. Her whole expression was quiet, and even sad.
I tried to please her in every possible way, but could not succeed in
attracting her attention. Young girls are apt to regard themselves as
greatly in advance of boys a little younger than themselves, and whilst
they look up to young men, they assume the manners of an aunt towards
any boy who makes them the object of his first love."

The sense of shame makes its appearance in childhood. Havelock Ellis
and others indeed deny this, pointing out how readily shyness is
mistaken for the sense of shame. The error is common enough, but it
certainly does not apply to all cases, for even in childhood we often
enough encounter distinct manifestations of the sexual sense of shame. I
shall not here discuss the question to what extent this sense is innate
and to what extent acquired, since the matter will come up for
consideration in later part of this book. Unquestionably, during
childhood, the sense of shame in respect of certain processes may be
awakened by means of imitation and education. Thus we may observe that
many children, boys as well as girls, are greatly distressed, at any
rate during the second period of childhood, at having to undress in the
presence of others, and especially in the presence of persons of the
opposite sex. It is interesting to learn that many homosexuals declare
that even during childhood they felt ashamed when they were compelled to
undress before someone of their own sex, whereas in the presence of a
person of the opposite sex they were comparatively unashamed.

Sanford Bell is of opinion that girl-children, although in them as in
boys the sense of shame awakens comparatively early, are yet more
aggressive than boys. I have not myself been able to observe any such
difference. In the earlier years