"
The state of New York, in a really surprising burst of generosity,
presented him a farm in New Rochelle, and then, lest he imagine the
Government too grateful, took away his right to vote there. They
offered the flimsy excuse that he was a French citizen,--which, of
course, he wasn't,--but it was all part of the persecution inspired by
organised bigotry and the resentful conservative interests which he
had so long and so unflaggingly attacked.
And so at last to Greenwich Village! Though I cannot engage that we
shall not step out of it before we are through.
Thomas Paine was old and weary with his arduous and honourable years
when he came to live in the little frame house on Herring Street, kept
by one Mrs. Ryder.
John Randel, Jr., engineer to the Commissioners who were at work
re-cutting New York, has given us this picture of Paine:
"I boarded in the city, and in going to the office almost
daily passed the house in Herring Street" [now No. 309
Bleecker Street] "where Thomas Paine resided, and frequently
in fair weather saw him sitting at the south window of the
first-story room of that house.
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