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The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 21, July, 1859 by Various
page 25 of 309 (08%)
country, looked with reverence upon the inventor of the system.
The Democratic leaders, with one or two exceptions, avoided Paine.
Respectabilities shunned him as a contamination. Grant Thorburn was
suspended from church-membership for shaking hands with him. To the boys
he was an object of curious attention; his nose was the burden of their
songs.

Cheetham carried round a subscription-list for a public dinner. Sixty or
seventy of Paine's admirers attended. It went off brilliantly, and was
duly reported in the "American Citizen." Then the effervescence of New
York curiosity subsided; Paine became an old story. He left Lovett's
Hotel for humble lodgings in the house of a free-thinking farrier.
Thenceforward the tale of his life is soon told. He went rarely to his
farm at New Rochelle; he disliked the country and the trouble of keeping
house; and a bullet which whizzed through his window one Christmas Eve,
narrowly missing his head, did not add agreeable associations to the
place. In the city he moved his quarters from one low boarding-house to
another, and generally managed to quarrel with the blacksmiths, bakers,
and butchers, his landlords. Unable to enjoy society suited to his
abilities and large experience of life, Paine called in low company to
help him bear the burden of existence. To the men who surrounded him,
his opinions on all subjects were conclusive, and his shrewd sayings
revelations. Among these respectful listeners, he had to fear neither
incredulity nor disputation. Like his friend Elihu Palmer, and the
celebrated Dr. Priestley, Paine would not tolerate contradiction.
To differ with him was, in his eyes, simply to be deficient in
understanding. He was like the French lady who naïvely told Dr.
Franklin, "_Je ne trouve que moi qui aie toujours raison_." Professing
to adore Reason, he was angry, if anybody reasoned with him. But herein
he was no exception to the general rule,--that we find no persons so
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