RANSVESTIA

each of the two natures had its own needs and desires, interests and friends. The needs of each were not always harmonious one with the other, but created a complex condition that led to a severe nervous collapse. The immediate result of the illness was to cause an acute depression and restlessness that necessitated a continual change of en- vironment.

Sometimes Sharp seems schizophrenic in discussing his own dual identity. He wrote to a friend in the year 1898 that after having been ill, he was now on the way to recovery.

"'Part of my work is now too hopelessly in arrears ever to catch up. Fortunately, our friend Miss F. [iona] M. [acleod] practically finished her book just before she got ill, too ..."

His wife noted differences between the Macleod personality and the Sharp one. In her mind Fiona wrote because it was "the result of an inner impulsion," while Sharp wrote because the necessities of life demanded it and he wanted to keep his reputation alive. His attempt to keep his femme self from his masculine self was so important to him that he even had his feminine self dedicate her books to him. His specially bound copy of one of Fiona's books bears this inscription: "To William Sharp from his comrade Fiona Macleod."

Mrs. Sharp reported that when the Fiona mood was upon him, he was a different person. As William he could set himself to work normal- ly and was more or less master of his own mind. As Fiona, however, he had to wait upon the mood or seek conditions to induce a creative mood. Though he tried to keep his dressing and his feminine self secret, he also wanted it to be known; just before his death he made sure that it would be by writing to some of his and Fiona's friends (with whom she had only corresponded) about Fiona.

"This will reach you after my death. You will think I have wholly deceived you about Fiona Macleod. But, in an intimate sense this is not so; though (and inevitably) in certain details, I have misled you. Only, it is a mystery I cannot explain. Perhaps you will intuitively understand or may come to understand. 'The rest is silence.' Farewell. William Sharp."

Such deception had been made possible by his claiming Fiona as a niece or a ward. His femme self survived his death as evidenced by his choice of epitaphs. One epitaph he selected from his writings as

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