more prejudiced against Bacon--if
possible--that I was before. And so we discussed and discussed, both on
the same side, and were happy. For a while. Only for a while. Only for a
very little while, a very, very, very little while. Then the atmosphere
began to change; began to cool off.

A brighter person would have seen what the trouble was, earlier than I
did, perhaps, but I saw it early enough for all practical purposes. You
see, he was of an argumentative disposition. Therefore it took him but
a little time to get tired of arguing with a person who agreed with
everything he said and consequently never furnished him a provocative
to flare up and show what he could do when it came to clear, cold, hard,
rose-cut, hundred-faceted, diamond-flashing REASONING. That was his name
for it. It has been applied since, with complacency, as many as several
times, in the Bacon-Shakespeare scuffle. On the Shakespeare side.

Then the thing happened which has happened to more persons than to me
when principle and personal interest found themselves in opposition to
each other and a choice had to be made: I let principle go, and went
over to the other side. Not the entire way, but far enough to answer the
requirements of the case. That is to say, I took this attitude--to wit,
I only BELIEVED Bacon wrote Shakespeare, whereas I KNEW Shakespeare
didn't. Ealer was satisfied with that, and the war broke loose. Study,
practice, experience in handling my end of the matter presently enabled
me to take my new position almost seriously; a little bit later, utterly
seriously; a little later still, lovingly, gratefully, devotedly;
finally: fiercely, rabidly, uncompromisingly. After that I was welded
to my faith, I was theoretically ready to die for it, and I looked down
with compassion not unmixed with scorn upon everybody else's faith that
didn't tally with mine. That faith, imposed upon me by self-interest
in that ancient day, remains my faith today, and in it I find comfort,
solace, peace, and never-failing joy. You see how curiously theological
it is. The "rice Christian" of the Orient goes through the very same
steps, when he is after rice and the missionary is after HIM; he goes
for rice, and remains to worship.

Ealer did a lot of our "reasoning"--not to say substantially all of it.
The slaves of his cult have a passion for calling it by that large name.
We others do not call our inductions and deductions and reductions by
any name at all.