read of being told about, and dread at what I
had done, kept me awake. I heard the two women talking for a long time.
Mixed with my dread was a wonder at the hair, and the soft, moist feel,
I had had for an instant, on some part of my hand. I knew I had felt the
hidden part of a female, where the piddle came from, and that is all
I did think about it, that I know of, I have no recollection of a lewd
sensation, but of a curious sort of delight only.

It must have been from this time, that my curiosity about the female
form strengthened, but there was nothing sensual in it. I was fond of
kissing, for my mother remarked it; when a female cousin, or any female
kissed me, I would throw my arms round them, and keep on kissing. My
aunts used to laugh, my mother corrected me, and told me it was rude. I
used to say to the servants, kiss me. One day I heard my godfather say:
"Walter knows a pretty girl from an ugly one doesn't he?"

I had a dread of meeting the governess, at breakfast, watched her, and
saw her laugh at her sister, I watched my mother for some days after,
and at length said to the governess, who had punished me for something.
"Don't tell mamma." "I have nothing to tell about, Walter," she
replied, "and don't know what you mean." I began to tell her what was on
my mind. "What's the child talking about, you are dreaming, some stupid
boy has been putting things into your head, your papa will thrash
you, if you talk like that." "Why you came and tickled me," said I. "I
tickled you a little when I put your light out," said she, "be quiet."
I felt stupified, and suppose the affair must have passed away from
my mind for a time, but I told my cousin Fred about it afterwards. He
thought I must have been dreaming, and I began to wonder if it really
had occurred, I never thought much about it until I began to recall my
childhood for this history.

I must have been twelve years old, when I went to an uncle's in Surrey,
and became a close friend of my cousin Fred, a very devil from his
cradle, and of whom much more will be told: before then I had only seen
him at intervals. We were then allowed, and it seems to me not before
that time, to go out by ourselves. We talked boyish baudiness. "Ain't
you green," said he, "a girl's hole isn't called a cock, it's a cunt,
they fuck with it," and then he told me all he knew. I don't think I had
heard that before, but can't be sure.

From that time a new train of ideas came into my hea