The street that was named "Reason" because of him, suggests the
persecutions abroad and at home which followed the writing of that
extraordinary and daring book "The Age of Reason." The name of Mme. de
Bonneville, who chose for him the little frame house on the site which
is now about at 59 Grove Street, recalls his dramatic life chapter in
Paris, where he first met the De Bonnevilles. So, you see, one cannot
write of Thomas Paine in Greenwich, without writing of Thomas Paine in
the great world--working, fighting, pleading, suffering, lighting a
million fires of courage and of inspiration, living so hard and fast
and strenuously, that to read over his experiences, his experiments
and his achievements, is like reading the biographies of a score of
different busy men!
He was born of Quaker parentage, at Thetford, Norfolk, in England, on
January 29, 1737, and pursued many avocations before he found his true
vocation--that of a world liberator, and apostle of freedom and human
rights. One of his most sympathetic commentators, H.
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