interest or received pleasure from the prevailing American pictures, as I always loved drama and continued story, vaudeville never appealing to me. But for this one little thing, present conditions would be unbearable, which is why I touch upon it at greater length than the story of these days would seem to warrant. One of the principal pleasures of my life has been the theatre. I always had an abiding and ever-present liking for dramatic action and situation, as well as good comedy—burlesque, vaudeville, moving pictures, farce, and the like, only had a limited appeal, although I must say that “Seven Days” was a farce which I greatly enjoyed. Coming to Havana I had to drop the theatre entirely,—not that I was such an inveterate theatre-goer before (owing to financial circumstances)—because of lack of understanding and lately lack of energy to exert myself to attempt to understand, my hearing not being any too good at best; a greater reason was the absence of good plays and the outrageous prices. I ignore entirely the numerous small theatres devoted to pandering to the lowest instincts of the ignorant black, mulatto and even white. Under these circumstances I turned to the moving picture theatre, and by only attending when there is at least one longer picture which promises dramatic action, I managed to derive considerable pleasure from this class of entertainment, no doubt to a great extent due to the fact that that was the only thing which took me out of myself, so that I lived in the play—except my reading. These two have kept me going during these months—when I tire of reading or by reason of a peculiar nervousness do not feel like reading, if there is a good picture I go, otherwise I make myself read and am soon reconciled for the evening. Sometimes a walk by the sea during the evening helps me much.

Even with this, however, through it all lingers that sense of utter weariness, almost to the point of exhaustion. During the day I manage to escape the worst consequences by keeping my mind busy when absent from the office, and the early evening or night generally also is passed without too much worry. This leaves the periods of dull care at the office, hoping and waiting for the hour of getting away and bedtime and later night. A proof of how much I have retrogressed physically is, that from October to December, 1908, during my first few months in New York, I was able to work from eight in the morning until six at night, and three or four nights a week, with only an hour’s break for lunch and . . . Now, working less than seven hours a day, the day every week is longer, more tiresome. The weakening of my powers has been gradual and to a certain extent unnoticeable, but it has been steady, inexorable, and now I am face to face with a condition which means the end of everything if continued for too long. During these years in my heart I have protested against it all. Taken away from school when I was leading the class, without any great effort either, by circumstances, I began a business career of hope and with boundless ambition and half-formed boyish ideals. The fact that I left school of my own accord outwardly does not detract from the fact that circumstances were gradually making it more imperative and I only took the bull by the horns, as I have done many times since. I remember with great vividness an incident of my early business career, when with . . . store. I used to keep a credit book of returned goods, and had considerable dealings in this way with the girls of the various departments. I was then rather indifferent to feminine charms, although awakening sexual passion was entering into my emotional and mental states, and had been for a year or so. I was then fifteen or sixteen (I do not know whether this happened before or after my birthday). One of the girls, a rather flippant, but as I look back, a shrewd observer, came to my window in the office (which was on a similar plan to a bank, I having one window and the cashier another) with something or about something returned. I scowled for some reason or other, probably because I had a pressure of work. She then made an observation, the prophecy of which has been amply demonstrated—“you are a boy now, but you will never be a youth,” and something about my jumping into manhood. She was only a department store girl, but she hit the nail on the head exactly that time, as subsequent events have proven. In those days, after my little stories for . . . I liked reading and probably looked forward to college at some time in the future in an indefinite way. I was very earnest and ambitious about my work, which continued more or less until some time last year, when the increasing tired feeling, nervousness, changing ideas, ideals and different outlook combined to bring on rapidly my present state, when I positively loathe my daily work. The principal reason for this, no doubt, is that I have neglected exercise almost entirely and now have reached the state where exhausted nature will not be denied.

I have already at frequent intervals commented on the disturbances which haunted my bedside, and to-night, or rather to-day and last night (for it is now a quarter of six and the candle before me is rapidly losing its efficacy) is only an example of the recurring frequency of my nervousness at bedtime . . . off all temptation to indulge in sexual pleasures from the first of this year, and, although I have not succeeded entirely up to the present, having only five days of absolute abstention from excitement of any kind sexually and possibly several months from direct intercourse, behind me,—still I have radically changed from my excesses of the first few months in Havana, although even these were not excesses compared to the average of a vast number here and elsewhere.

This holding off naturally leaves out a vital source of relief for the all-compelling necessity of getting away from myself. Sometimes, from my twentieth year on, when the prospect of a nervous, sleepless night presented itself, sexual intercourse brought the much-needed relief, and sleep followed. And yet, such was the strength of the conventional atmosphere that I had been reared in and lived in, despite my radical views and supposed freedom of mind, I thought it was somehow or other wrong and underhand to seek relief in this way. I cussed myself for a weakling, fought, staved it off for weeks, and then succumbed again. It is only lately that I have seen a different light on the subject.

My views now are that our present system of sexual relations is absolutely false. This conclusion is more due to my own reasoning than to any radical literature I have read. First, there should be freedom. Any man should be allowed to have intercourse with a woman who was willing, as long as they did it for love. There should be no such thing as an illegitimate child. If a mother was not in a position to or willing to bring up her child, the State should do it. Of course, when I say there should be freedom, I do not say that, if one man was living with a woman (legally, of course, as all such relations would be legal without any question), I should be at perfect liberty to fool around, but if at any time their relations became such that they could not harmoniously keep it up any longer, divorce should be automatic. Marriage might be for a minimum period, and as much longer as the parties concerned cared to keep it up. There should be no coercion on either side. The woman should have the care of her children if she so desired, but if unable to take care of them, the State should do so. Even without a socialist state this could partly be put into effect.

The White Slave Trade should be abolished as a trade. If a woman was herself willing to become the tool of every man who came along,