CHAPTER XIII



FORGETTING THE THINGS WHICH ARE BEHIND



I have implied in this book that the very best in sexual experience is
only for those who keep themselves unspotted in early life, and who
come to the sacrament of marriage with no previous and lower experience
of sex intimacy. I am even sure that the very best is spoilt a little
by all previous unworthy thinking, and by all perverse practices.

I know that that will sound a hard saying to very many, for there are
few who have fulfilled these conditions for knowing the best. It must
seem to them that I am practically saying to them, "You can never now
enter into the holy of holies." Yet I cannot alter what I have said,
however acute may be my sympathy with those who have stumbled. I
believe it is true, and no good ever came of hiding the truth. It is
because it is true that I have such confident hope for mankind. Men and
women do in their hearts want the very best, and when they come to know
what are the only terms on which that very best can be had they will, I
believe, accept those terms.

But this would be a cruel book, and a false book too, were I to imply
that there is no way in which the past can be forgotten and forgiven,