ce has befallen many artistic
creators. For, in the words of Landor, "absence is the invisible and
incorporeal mother of ideal beauty."

We do well to remember that, while the auto-erotic manifestations through
the brain are of infinite variety and importance, the brain and the
sexual organs are yet the great rivals in using up bodily energy, and that
there is an antagonism between extreme brain vigor and extreme sexual
vigor, even although they may sometimes both appear at different periods
in the same individual.[90] In this sense there is no paradox in the
saying of Ramon Correa that potency is impotence and impotence potency,
for a high degree of energy, whether in athletics or in intellect or in
sexual activity, is unfavorable to the display of energy in other
directions. Every high degree of potency has its related impotencies.

It may be added that we may find a curiously inconsistent proof
of the excessive importance attached to sexual function by a
society which systematically tries to depreciate sex, in the
disgrace which is attributed to the lack of "virile" potency.
Although civilized life offers immense scope for the activities
of sexually impotent persons, the impotent man is made to feel
that, while he need not be greatly concerned if he suffers from
nervous disturbances of digestion, if he should suffer just as
innocently from nervous disturbances of the sexual impulse, it is
almost a crime. A striking example of this was shown, a few years
ago, when it was plausibly suggested that Carlyle's relations
with his wife might best be explained by supposing that he
suffered from some trouble of sexual potency. At once admirers
rushed forward to "defend" Carlyle from this "disgraceful"
charge; they were more shocked than if it had been alleged that
he was a syphilitic. Yet impotence is, at the most, an infirmity,
whether due to some congenital anatomical defect or to a
disturbance of nervous balance in the delicate sexual mechanism,
such as is apt to occur in men of abnormally sensitive
temperament. It is no more disgraceful to suffer from it than
from dyspepsia, with which, indeed, it may be associated. Many
men of genius and high moral character have been sexually
deformed. This was the case with Cowper (though this significant
fact is suppressed by his biographers); Ruskin was divorced for a
reason of this k