Page:The Female-Impersonators 1922 book scan.djvu/54

34 literature is still undetermined after close to three hundred publications on this question. If Providence grants me time, I will finally prove beyond the shadow of a doubt, by the homosexual argument original with myself, that Francis Bacon was the Shakespeare-author. I give below an outline of my proposed thesis.

The young actor, Shakespeare, was a tremendously virile male, but estranged from his wife and living apart during most of his married life. Bacon was an androgyne several years older than Shakespeare. He married only in middle life and solely for money. He was a great statesman, but sorely in need of money to meet his extravagant tastes. Apparently he was incapable of procreation. Both men lived in London, and were at least acquaintances, during the dozen years which saw the creation of the Shakespeare literature.

Bacon was the foremost scholar and one of the foremost statesmen of his generation. He and the Shakespeare-author are recognized to-day as two out of the three greatest intellects which have ever blossomed forth in England—even by those who deny the identity of the two, and hand the palm of Shakespeareauthor to the obscure actor, Shakespeare.

Numerous literateurs believe that evidence exists that the incomparable Bacon's fad was writing plays, the theatre in his day being comparatively a new craze (that is, for modern times)—as are the "movies" in the first quarter of the twentieth century. It would then have been regarded as incongruous for the dignified statesman, Bacon, to write plays as for an expresident of the United States to-day to write