h a few of his most
intimates had known it for several years. In the "Memoirs" compiled by
Elizabeth Sharp, wife of the writer, we find the following:

"The life of William Sharp divides itself naturally into two halves: the
first ends with the publication by William Sharp of 'Vistas,' and the
second begins with 'Pharais,' the first book signed _Fiona Macleod_."

In these memoirs, the point is made obvious that _Fiona Macleod_ is not
merely a _nom de plume_; neither is she an obsessing personality; a guide
or "control," as the Spiritualists know that phenomenon. _Fiona Macleod_,
always referred to by William Sharp as "she," is his own higher Self--the
cosmic consciousness of the spiritual man which was so nearly balanced in
the personality of William Sharp as to _appear_ to the casual observer as
another person.

It is said that the identity of _Fiona Macleod_, as expressed in the
manuscript put out under that name, was seldom suspected to be that of
William Sharp, so different was the style and the tone of the work of these
two phases of the same personality.

In this connection it may be well to quote his wife's opinion regarding the
two phases of personality, answering the belief of Yeats the Irish poet
that he believed William Sharp to be the most extraordinary psychic he
ever encountered and saying that _Fiona Macleod_ was evidently a distinct
personality. In the Memoirs, Mrs. Sharp comments upon this and says:

"It is true, as I have said, that William Sharp seemed a different person
when the Fiona mood was on him; but that he had no recollection of what he
said in that mood was not the case--the psychic visionary power belonged
exclusively to neither; it influenced both and was dictated by laws he did
not understand."

Mrs. Sharp refers to William Sharp and Fiona, as two persons, saying that
"it influenced both," but both sides of his personality rather than both
personalities, is what she claims. In further explanation she writes:

"I remember from early days how he would speak of the momentary curious
'dazzle in the brain,' which preceded the falling away of all material
things and precluded some inner vision of great beauty, or great presences,
or some symbolic import--that would pass as rapidly as it came. I have been
beside him when he has been in trance and I have felt the room throb with
heightened vibration."

One of the "dream-visions" which William Sharp experienced shortly before
his last illne