It seems, indeed, to him to be
just the opposite. If one loves a person one finds nothing
obscene or disgusting in the object that pleases me." The
opposite attitude is probably in extreme cases due to the
influence of a neurotic or morbidly sensitive temperament. Swift
possessed such a temperament. The possession of a similar
temperament is doubtless responsible for the little prose poem,
"L'Extase," in which Huysmans in his first book, _Le Drageloir a
Epices_, has written an attenuated version of "Strephon and
Chloe" to express the disillusionment of love; the lover lies in
a wood clasping the hand of the beloved with rapturous emotion;
"suddenly she rose, disengaged her hand, disappeared in the
bushes, and I heard as it were the rustling of rain on the
leaves." His dream has fled.
In estimating the significance of the lover's attitude in this matter, it
is important to realize the position which scatologic conceptions took in
primitive belief. At certain stages of early culture, when all the
emanations of the body are liable to possess mysterious magic properties
and become apt for sacred uses, the excretions, and especially the urine,
are found to form part of religious ritual and ceremonial function.
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