James described two opposing views of what causes many ill-defined "psychosomatic" illnesses. In one of these a "flight into illness" relieves the individual of the burden of unbearably conflicted impulses, feelings, or social demands. In the other, the afflicted individual, far from taking refuge in illness, tries desperately to become or feel healthier. James suggests that illness may in fact be willed in order to avoid different social problems. According to her, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel movements, and migraines may be some of the illnesses that are feigned to avoid society. Alice and her brother William had a close relationship that has been argued to consist of eroticism. William would write “mock sonnets” to Alice and read them to her in front of their family. One such sonnet has William declaring his desire to marry Alice to which she replies that he had told her not “to hope for love from [him].” William concludes the sonnet by saying that he will commit suicide because Alice will not marry him. There were also times where his letters to her were candidly erotic—he would describe her physical and personality characteristics and state how “desirable” and “lovable” they made her. William used his artistic skill to draw five sketches of Alice. These pictures also demonstrate erotic overtones. Three of the sketches form a triptych. All of the panels exhibit Alice drawn older than she was at the creation of these sketches as she was 11 at the time. She is sitting in a chair on a top floor while William is in a room below her. William is seen hunched over an instrument as he is serenading his sister in the first panel. He stands more erect in the next two panels. William is wearing a large head feather in each of the panels which progressively gets closer to the ceiling until it is pushing against it in the final panel. Growing from the outside of the building is a full bush in the first panel. The bush in the second panel is almost completely devoid of leaves and in the third panel, it is no longer there. The walls of the building shrink throughout the panels until they are almost nonexistent in the final panel. It has been argued that this triptych is a visual representation of a defloration fantasy. The fourth sketch created by William of his sister contains a drawing of her head when she was a young teen. Alice’s eyes are cast downward and underneath her head, William wrote the caption “The loveress of W.J.”