benefit, and was hooted in the streets, and under his own windows.
Hearing such remarks and insults, the Doctor would glare round at them
with red eyes, especially if the brandy-bottle had happened to be much
in request that day.

Indeed, poor Doctor Grim had met with a fortune which befalls many a
man with less cause than drew the public attention on this odd
humorist; for, dwelling in a town which was as yet but a larger
village, where everybody knew everybody, and claimed the privilege to
know and discuss their characters, and where there were few topics of
public interest to take off their attention, a very considerable
portion of town talk and criticism fell upon him. The old town had a
certain provincialism, which is less the characteristic of towns in
these days, when society circulates so freely, than then: besides, it
was a very rude epoch, just when the country had come through the war
of the Revolution, and while the surges of that commotion were still
seething and swelling, and while the habits and morals of every
individual in the community still felt its influence; and especially
the contest was too recent for an Englishman to be in very good odor,
unless he should cease to be English, and become more American than the
Americans themselves in repudiating British prejudices or principles,
habits, mode of thought, and everything that distinguishes Britons at
home or abroad. As Doctor Grim did not see fit to do this, and as,
moreover, he was a very doubtful, questionable, morose, unamiable old
fellow, not seeking to make himself liked nor deserving to be so, he
was a very unpopular person in the town where he had chosen to reside.
Nobody thought very well of him; the respectable people had heard of
his pipe and brandy-bottle; the religious community knew that he never
showed himself at church or meeting; so that he had not that very
desirable strength (in a society split up into many sects) of being