My father stopped to listen, became interested, effected a meeting, and, after quite an acquaintance, invited him to the ministers’ dinner.  It was after the dinner that father told me what little he knew about him.  He had been born in the working class, though he was a descendant of the old line of Everhards that for over two hundred years had lived in America.* At ten years of age he had gone to work in the mills, and later he served his apprenticeship and became a horseshoer.  He was self-educated, had taught himself German and French, and at that time was earning a meagre living by translating scientific and philosophical works for a struggling socialist publishing house in Chicago.  Also, his earnings were added to by the royalties from the small sales of his own economic and philosophic works.

     * The distinction between being native born and foreign born
     was sharp and invidious in those days.

This much I learned of him before I went to bed, and I lay long awake, listening in memory to the sound of his voice.  I grew frightened at my thoughts.  He was so unlike the men of my own class, so alien and so strong.  His masterfulness delighted me and terrified me, for my fancies wantonly roved until I found myself considering him as a lover, as a husband.  I had always heard that the strength of men was an irresistible attraction to women; but he was too strong.  “No! no!” I cried out.  “It is impossible, absurd!” And on the morrow I awoke to find in myself a longing to see him again.  I wanted to see him mastering men in discussion, the war-note in his voice; to see him, in all his certitude and strength, shattering their complacency, shaking them out of their ruts of thinking.  What if he did swashbuckle?  To use his own phrase, “it worked,” it produced effects.  And, besides, his swashbuckling was a fine thing to see.  It stirred one like the onset of battle.

Several days passed during which I read Ernest’s books, borrowed from my father.  His written word was as his spoken word, clear and convincing.  It was its absolute simplicity that convinced even while one continued to doubt.  He had the gift of lucidity.  He was the perfect expositor.  Yet, in spite of his style, there was much that I did not like.  He laid too great stress on what he called the class struggle, the antagonism between labor and capital, the conflict of interest.

Father reported with glee Dr. Hammerfield’s judgment of Ernest, which was to the effect that he was “an insolent young puppy, made bumptious by a little and very inadequate learning.”  Also, Dr. Hammerfield declined to meet Ernest again.

But Bishop Morehouse turned out to have become interested in Ernest, and was anxious for another meeting.  “A strong young man,” he said; “and very much alive, very much alive.  But he is too sure, too sure.”

Ernest came one afternoon with father.  The Bishop had already arrived, and we were having tea on the veranda.  Ernest’s continued presence in Berkeley, by the way, was accounted for by the fact that he was taking special courses in biology at the university, and also that he was hard at work on a new book entitled “Philosophy and Revolution."*