eriodicity in the sexual
impulse. I have discussed this matter very fully elsewhere,[69] and will
here do no more than draw attention to the fact that the poetry of
spring, which sings partly of love alone, and partly of the relations
between love and the annual awakening of nature, bears upon the
influence of this season of the year upon the sexual impulse. It seems
that the spring also exerts an influence upon the love-sentiments of the
child. It is possible that suggestion here plays a certain part,
inasmuch as from childhood onwards poetry and many observations teach
that there is a connexion between love and the season of spring. Sanford
Bell considers that the importance of spring in this connexion depends
on the fact that at this season children begin to meet one another in
the open, subject to less restraint, and perhaps more frequently. But he
does not exclude the possible existence of an inherited vestige of
periodicity in the sexual impulse.

It is widely assumed that among the higher social classes the awakening
of the sexual life occurs earlier than among the lower. But it can
hardly be said that trustworthy statistics exist to illustrate this
point; and the most we can admit is that it may be true of the
commencement of menstruation--though even here the data available hardly
suffice to afford proof of the thesis. It is said that in girls of the
upper classes menstruation begins on the average at an earlier age than
in girls of the lower classes; and also that menstruation begins earlier
in towns than in the country. Rousseau[70] asserted this long ago,
taking his facts from Buffon, who attributed the fact to the sparer and
poorer fare of the country folk. Rousseau, while admitting that
menstruation began later in the country districts, considered that diet
had nothing to do with the matter, since even where (as in Valais) the
peasants enjoyed a liberal fare, puberty, in both sexes, occurred later
than in the majority of towns, in which an excessively rich diet was
often customary. He believed that the difference between town and
country in this respect depended rather upon the more enduring repose of
the imagination in the country, this latter itself arising from the
greater fixity of customs in the rural districts. Speaking generally,
however, the question whether in the country the sexual life awakens
later than it does in the towns, cannot be said to have been decisively
answered.

Closely connected