Page:The Female-Impersonators 1922 book scan.djvu/120

94 because of the repetition of the j and n. I have always considered "Jennie June" as the most exquisite of names: the poetic name; the magic name; the "divine" name (in the sense that we speak of the "divine" or "godlike" human form). I later substituted the feminine "Pussie" because so nicknamed, much to my delight, by the tremendously virile.

I later adopted "Earl" primarily because it rhymes with "girl", the creature of enchantment that I longed to be, and secondarily because it arouses noble ideas. I adopted "Lind" after Jennie Lind, one of my models.

Perhaps these fancies about names are proof of insanity. A medical reviewer of my, who devoted only five minutes to the 70,000 words, declared me "clearly insane."

When I transferred my female-impersonations from Mulberry Street to the Fourteenth Street Rialto, incredulity occasioned my transliterating the fancy "Raphael" to prosaic "Ralph."

As a result of my 1905 court-martial making the names "Ralph Werther" and "Jennie June" known to some army heads, I found it advisable, when in 1907 renewing my kind of army life for seven years, to choose new masculine and feminine names. I feared it might become known to the army heads that the fairie "Jennie June" had transferred "her" stage for female-impersonations to a distant military post. Hence the substitutions of "Earl Lind" and "Pussie."

On a single day I have had to sign myself with four different names. Always after writing my signature, I must review it painstakingly to make sure I have put down the proper one. Only once I have made