I was well on in my 26th year when I met a widow with whom I fell
in love, with the result that I married her. She is a most
sensible woman, and it was her intellectual gifts which were the
attraction to me. In my amours intellect has never played a part.
She has all along been cognizant of, and lenient to, my
polygamous tendencies; for she recognizes the fact that whatever
_fredaine_ I may have on hand makes not the slightest difference
in my love and respect for her. Were she a more sensual woman,
perhaps things would be different.
In all I have had to do with 81 other women, of whose special
characteristics I kept a careful note at the time. Twenty-six
were normal women with whom my _liasons_ have lasted long, so I
know more about them than I do about the other fifty-five, who
were prostitutes, and with some of whom my dealings were but for
an afternoon.
The races represented have been these, for I have seen a bit of
the world: English, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, French, German,
Italian, Greek, Danish, Hungarian, Roumanian, Indian, and
Japanese. Taking them all round, the only difference that I found
between old and young women is that the older ones are less
selfish, and more complaisant, and less inclined to resent one's
being unable to attain to the height of their desire, for from
time to time I have been unable to "come up to the scratch" after
a heavy night's labor, or when I was afraid of being caught in
the act of coition, a fear which, in my experience, acts as a
stimulus to desire in women, unlike its action in men.
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