Note 115 — Chapter IX · The Old Maid and Her Relation to Society

See Mercier, Op. cit., p. 220. The author continues: “They [the feelings in question] take the shape of religious emotion, and expression for them is found in observance of ceremonial and in devotion to a ritual.” The fact that the first initiation into religious fervour of this kind frequently starts by the young girl’s wild adoration for an older woman—her school mistress or her Sunday-school teacher—is not mentioned by Mercier, but it is important.