It wasn't Grove Street then; in fact,
it wasn't a street at all, but an open lot with one lone frame house
in the middle of it. Here Mme. de Bonneville brought Thomas Paine when
his age and ill health necessitated greater comforts than Mrs.
Ryder's lodgings could afford.
Here he spent some peaceful months with only a few visitors; but those
were faithful ones. One was Willett Hicks, the Quaker preacher, always
a staunch friend; another was John Wesley Jarvis, the American
painter--the same artist who later made the great man's death mask.
It was Jarvis who said: "He devoted his whole life to the attainment
of two objects--rights of man and freedom of conscience."
And, by the bye, Dr. Conway has declared that "his 'Rights of Man' is
now the political constitution of England, his 'Age of Reason' is the
growing constitution of its Church."
In passing I must once again quote Mr. van der Weyde, who once said to
me: "I often wonder just what share Mary Wollstonecraft had with her
'Rights of Women'--in the inspiration of Paine's 'Rights of Man.
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