and love have always seemed
such holy and beautiful things to me. I have never connected the
two sets of feelings. I think I am as strongly sexed as anyone,
but I am able to hold a friend in my arms and experience deep
comfort and peace without having even a hint of physical sexual
feeling. Sexual expression may be quite necessary at certain
times and right under certain conditions, but I am convinced that
free expression of affection along sentimental channels will do
much to minimize the necessity for it along specifically sexual
channels. I have gone three months without the physical outlet.
The only time I was ever on the verge of nervous prostration was
after having suppressed the instinct for ten months. The other
feelings, which I do not consider as sexual feelings at all, so
fill my life in every department--love, literature, poetry,
music, professional and philanthropic activities--that I am able
to let the physical take care of itself. When the physical
sensations come, it is usually when I am not thinking of a loved
one at all. I could dissipate them by raising my thought to that
spiritual friendship. I do not know if this was right and wise. I
know it is what occurred. It seems a good thing to practise some
sort of inhibition of the centers and acquire this kind of
domination. One bad result, however, was that I suffered much at
times from the physical sensations, and felt horribly depressed
and wretched whenever they seemed to get the better of me."

"I have been able," she writes, "successfully to master the
desire for a more perfect and complete expression of my feelings,
and I have done so without serious detriment to my health." "I
love few people," she writes again, "but in these instances when
I have permitted my heart to go out to a friend I have always
experienced most exalted feelings, and have been made better by
them morally, mentally, and spiritually. Love is with me a
religion."

With regard to her attitude toward the other sex, she writes: "I
have never felt a dislike for men, but have good comrades among
them. During my childhood I associated with both girls and boys,
enjoying them all, but wondering why the girls cared to flirt
with boys. Later in life I have had other friendships with men,
some of whom cared for me, much to my regret, for, na