destroy their functioning and I would be permanently rid of facial hair, my most detested mark of the male, but there was no appreciable effect. I also feared the repeated operation might occasion a malignant growth, but I was ready to take every risk.
About the age of seventeen, I was horrified at the first appearance of hair on my face. For several months I refused to shave, but pulled the hairs eut when they became long enough to grasp between the fleshy part of the thumb and the blade of a dull knife. I was again horrified when my father presented me with a safety razor. Fortunately for me, this invention shortly preceded my arrival at puberty, my horror of it being far less than of the old-fashioned kind.
During this period of my career, I learned that fairies are maintained in some public houses of the better class, and met several of these refined professionals, who resembled myself both physically and psychically. They commonly have plates substituted for their front teeth. Even I took this expedient under consideration. It was suggested to me to become an inmate of such a house, but I could make the career of a fille de joie only a side issue. I gave first place to the intellectual and others of the highest aims of life. My sister courtesans, both male and female, thought only of the sensual, and had adopted their occupation as a gainful one, whereas I sought merely the satisfaction of strong instincts, which unsatisfied would make practically impossible the higher life I regularly lived.
During this period I knowingly encountered the first
