No More Learning

Paul [severely]- Here all the women talk politics.
Jeanne [dolefully]-I don't understand a thing about it.
Paul-The women here don't understand a thing about it,
but that doesn't make any difference: you must talk it all the
same. Cite Pufendorf and Machiavelli as if they had been your
relatives; allude to the Council of Trent as if you had presided
at it. As to your amusements—well, while you are here, you
can expect chamber music, walks around the garden, whist; — that
is all I can promise you: and so, what with only high-necked
dresses, and the few words of Latin that I have put into your
head,-why, my dear, I will wager that before a week is over,
-


## p. 10965 (#177) ##########################################

ÉDOUARD PAILLERON
10965
people will say about you: "Now that little Madame Raymond,
she is simply made to be the wife of a statesman! " And in the
kind of society where we are just now, let me tell you that when
people say that a woman is made to be the wife of a statesman,
her husband is not very far from being one.
Jeanne-What! You wish to be a statesman!
Paul-Yes! So that I need not be an exception to everybody
else!
Jeanne-But since Madame de Céran belongs to the Opposi-
tion, to what post can she help you?
Paul- Dear simpleton that you are! In whatever concerns
political places, my dear child, between the Conservatives and
their opponents there is only a mere shade of difference. The
Conservatives do the asking, and the people that belong to the
Opposition do the accepting. No, no, Jeanne, once for all, it is
here in this very house that are made—and more than made —
reputations, situations, elections, and all that sort of thing. Such
a fashionable house as this, where under the excuse of talking
about literature, fine arts, even the clumsy wire-pullers bring
about their purposes,- such a house as this, I say, is the back
door of the ministries, the ante-room of academies, the laboratory
of success.
Jeanne- How dreadful! But what sort of society is there
here?
Paul Society here, my child, is a sort of Hôtel de Ram-
bouillet in 1881: it is a society where people talk and where peo-
ple pose, where pedantry takes the place of science, sentimentality
that of sentiment, and a silly fussing that of delicacy; where
no one ever says what he thinks, and where no one ever thinks
what he says; where keeping at whatever you have in your mind
to bring about is a special policy; where friendship is calculation;
where even gallantry is a means of managing things: it is a so-
ciety where one sucks his cane in the vestibule and chews on his
tongue in the drawing-room. In a word, a very serious society
indeed!
Jeanne-But then, that is the society where one is always
bored.
-
Paul-Precisely.
Jeanne-But if one is bored there, what influence can it have?
Paul What influence! Ah, innocence! innocence! What in-
fluence, if it bores you? An enormous influence! Don't you see
-


## p. 10966 (#178) ##########################################

10966
ÉDOUARD PAILLERON
that as French people, we have a horror of boredom which we
carry almost to the point of veneration? To a Frenchman, being
bored is a terrible deity, whose worship is carried on in full
dress. The Frenchman does not understand a serious affair ex-
cept under that form of worship. I don't tell you that he always
keeps it up, but he does not believe it any the less firmly -
preferring to believe it rather than really to see much of it.
We French people, gay at heart, have grown into a habit of
despising so to be; we have lost our faith in the good sense of
open laughter; a people skeptical, talkative, has come to put faith
in those who are silent. A race expansive and cheerful has
come to allow itself to be imposed upon by the pedantic solem-
nity, by the pretentious nullity, of people wearing white cravats;
yes, in politics, in science, in art, in literature, in everything!
We make fun of them, we hate them, we run away from them
like the plague; but somehow they alone have won our secret
admiration and absolute confidence. What influence, then, does
boredom have? Ah, my dear child, learn that there are in the
world only two sorts of people: those who cannot submit to being
bored, and who are nothing at all; and those who can submit to
being bored, and who are simply everything,- besides those who
habitually bore others!
Jeanne [with a gesture of disappointment]-To a charming
household you have brought me on a visit, you wretched man!
Paul [very solemnly]- Jeanne, do you wish to be the wife of
a préfet - yes or no?
Jeanne-Oh, really, I simply never could-
Paul-Nonsense! You can put up with it eight days.
Jeanne-Eight days? Without talking, without laughing!
Without even embracing you!
Paul Certainly not, before other people; but when we are
alone by ourselves - and then in corners, now do behave your-
self, that will be charming. Why, I'll give you regular rendez-
vous-in the garden, anywhere-just as we used to do before.
our marriage, you remember.
Jeanne — Oh, very well then, it's all right! It's all right! I
shall get on somehow. [She opens the piano, and begins to play
a lively air from the Fille de Madame Angot. ']
Paul [alarmed]-Stop! stop! what are you playing?
Jeanne- Why, it is from the operetta that we heard yester-
day.
---


## p. 10967 (#179) ##########################################

ÉDOUARD PAILLERON
10967
Paul Thoughtless creature! Now see how you profit by the
sober lessons that I have been giving you! If any one should
come! If any one should hear you! Will you be sensible!
[François appears at the end of the room. ] Too late! [Jeanne
cleverly changes the air of the opera to a grave passage in a
symphony from Beethoven. ] Beethoven! Bravo! [Pretends to
follow the air with great attention. ] Ah' decidedly there is no
music except that of the Conservatory!
-
Translated for A Library of the World's Best Literature by E. Irenæus
Stevenson
A SCIENTIST AMONG LADIES
From The World of Boredom'
[In M. de Bellac, the hero of the following scene, the dramatist portrays
the superficial, pretentious, and conceited man of letters, who passes for a deep
thinker, and probably believes himself such; and whose practical success is
largely due to the adulation of a coterie of women, infatuated with what they
consider philosophy, but in reality carried away by mere sentimentality for
its drawing-room expounder. As the curtain rises, Madame de Céran, hostess
of the assembled company, is about to conduct the ladies into the next apart-
ment; when one of them, Madame de Loudan, takes her by the arm. ]
M
ADAME DE LOUDAN [in an affected tone]—O countess! count-
ess! before we go, do let us carry out the little plot that
we have just been making against M. de Bellac. [Going
to Bellac, she says beseechingly:] M. Bellac-
Bellac [smiling conceitedly]-Marquise-?
Madame de Loudan-We are all begging one favor of you.
Bellac [graciously] You mean the favor that you do in ask-
ing it of me?
All the Ladies [to each other]-Oh, how charmingly he said
that!
-
――――――
Madame de Loudan - The poetry that we are going into the
other room to hear will probably take the entire evening. This
will be our last chance for a ray of illumination from you.
Do
recite us something-will you not? Now, before we all go-
just as little a thing as you choose.
We don't wish to tax your
genius; but something-anything-only speak. Every word you
will say will fall on us like manna!


## p. 10968 (#180) ##########################################

10968
ÈDOUARD PAILLERON
Suzanne - Yes, yes, please do, M. Bellac.
Madame Arriego-Do be so kind, M. Bellac.
The Baroness-We are all absolutely at your feet, M. Bel-
lac.
Bellac [protesting]-O ladies! ladies!
Madame de Loudan - Come over here and help us, Lucy-
you who are his Muse! You ask him too.
Lucy-Certainly I ask him.
Suzanne
For my part, I will have it so, whether M. Bellac
likes it or not!
The Ladies [whispering together]-Oh! oh!
Madame de Céran - Suzanne, you forget yourself.
Bellac-Oh, from the moment when anybody takes to vio-
lence-
―――
Madame de Loudan - Oh, he consents! he consents! An arm-
chair! An arm-chair! [A general movement of delight among all
the ladies surrounding Bellac. ]
Madame Arrigo-Will you have a table?
Madame de Loudan - Would you like us to draw back a lit-
tle from you?
Madame de Céran - Yes, just make a little more room around
him, please, ladies.
Bellac-Really! really! I beg of you-no stage setting-
nothing that suggests giving a lesson, a lecture, in a word,
pedantry. Rather, my dear ladies, let us turn it into a conver-
sation; you to ask me whatever questions you please.
Madame Loudan [joining her hands together]—O dear M. Bel-
lac, can we ask you something about your new book?
Suzanne-O M. Bellac, please —
Bellac-Ah, irresistible prayers!
―
―――――
But in spite of them-
yes, in spite of them, suffer me to refuse. Before my book is
given to everybody, no one human being must know anything
about it.
Madame de Loudan [slyly]-Not even one single person-in
particular?
Bellac O marquise, as Fontenelle once said to Madame de
Coulanges, "Take care! you are getting close to a secret. "
All the Ladies [with great enthusiasm]-Ah! charming!
The Baroness [in a low voice to Madame de Loudan] - How
much wit he has!


## p. 10969 (#181) ##########################################

ÉDOUARD PAILLERON
10969
Madame de Loudan-He has something better than wit, my
dear.
The Baroness What do you mean?
Madame de Loudan-The man absolutely has wings-you
shall see he positively has wings!
Bellac [looking around the circle]— Ladies, I think you will
all agree that this is neither the place nor the hour to enter
upon those eternal problems with which souls whose intellectual
flight is as high as yours, continually torment themselves,— the
mysterious enigmas of life and of the Great Beyond.
The Ladies [to each other]-Ah! the Great Beyond, my dear;
the Great Beyond!
Bellac Such a topic reserved, I am at your orders: and as I
speak there occurs to me one of those questions eternally agi-
tated, never decided; upon which, with your permission, I should
like to express an opinion in a few words.
The Ladies - Yes, yes; speak! speak!
-
-
-
-
-
Bellac [sitting down in the arm-chair] — And I should like to
say what I have to say about it in view of a triple end. The
topic that I have in mind is-love-
The Ladies [all together, awed, and with enthusiasm]-Ah!
Bellac Yes, of love. Oh, weakness which is a force! Senti-
ment which is a faith! The only one perhaps which knows no
atheists.
The Ladies-Ah! ah! Charming!
Madame de Loudan [to the Baroness] - Didn't I tell you he
positively had wings, my dear-just listen!
Bellac-I had come here this morning intending to speak,
àpropos of the topic of German literature, of a certain philosophy
which makes mere instinct the base and the rule of all of our
actions and of all of our thoughts.
The Ladies [protesting]-Oh! oh!
Bellac I take this occasion to assert that that opinion is not
at all mine, and that I repulse it with all the energy of a soul
that is proud to exist.
The Ladies-Oh, admirable!
The Baroness [in a low voice to Madame de Loudan] - Did
you ever see a man with such a beautiful hand?
Bellac- No, ladies, no: love is not, as the German philoso-
pher said, purely a passion belonging to the species,-a deceptive


## p. 10970 (#182) ##########################################

10970
ÉDOUARD PAILLERON
illusion by which nature dazzles men, to accomplish its ends.
No, no, a hundred times no! It is impossible that it should be
so if we really have souls.
The Ladies- Yes, yes; bravo!
Bellac Let us leave to the sophists, and to vulgar natures,
those theories that debase the human heart; let us not even dis-
cuss them; let us answer them by silence, by the language of
forgetfulness.
The Ladies-Charming! charming!
Bellac Heaven forbid that I should ever deny the sovereign
influence of beauty upon the tottering wills of men. [Looking
meaningly around him. ] I see before me in such a moment as
this only too much of what would enable me victoriously to
refute any error as to that.
The Ladies - Ah! ah!
-
Bellac-But above this beauty which is perceptible and per-
ishable, my dear ladies, there is another beauty, unconquerable
by time, invisible to the eye, and which the purified spirit alone
can perceive and love with a refined and immaterial love. That
species of love, my dear ladies, is the very principle of love
itself, the bringing together of two souls, and their elevation
above all the mud of this terrestrial world,—their united flight
into the infinite blue of the Ideal.
The Ladies [all together]-Bravo! bravo!
[As Bellac says these last words, the old Duchesse de Réville, who has been
sitting quite forward of the group of his admirers, embroidering
diligently, exclaims in a tone of contempt:]
There you have stuff and nonsense for you with a vengeance!
Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature' by E. Irenæus
Stevenson


## p. 10971 (#183) ##########################################

ÉDOUARD PAILLERON
THE STORY OF GRIGNEUX
From Cabotins >
10971
[The following dialogue occurs between a young sculptor, Pierre Carde-
vent, who has had the misfortune to fall in love apparently outside of his
sphere, and Grigneux, an old painter, whose life has been a failure. Grigneux
takes an affectionate interest in the young man's career. The scene is a
drawing-room, where the two are for a few moments alone by themselves;
the episode occurring in the second act of the play. ]
P
reassure
IERRE [to Grigneux, who looks anxiously at him on entering
the room]-Ah! it is you, is it? Well, you can
yourself, my old Grigneux. It is finished.
It is finished. It is finished.
Grigneux-What? What is finished?
-
-
Pierre-My romance as you called it a while ago.
Grigneux [incredulously] — Finished?
Pierre-Yes, Mademoiselle Valentine tells me that she does
not wish to see me, that I must forget her, because — well, I
don't know just why, but I do know that she doesn't wish to
see me again. Oh, my romance has not been a long one, eh?
[with a forced laugh] and you were so afraid of its having
another winding-up: well, here is its winding-up; I hope you are
satisfied with it. Would you like me to say that I am satisfied
too?
Grigneux [gravely]- How you love her!
Pierre-So then this is what people call loving anybody.
[Sarcastically. ] Well, well, it is a lively business! Think of it!
During ten days I have been expecting that girl at the studio-
to go on with her portrait-as if I were waiting for the good
God himself! This very evening I have left my mother alone
to come to this house, and here I am: obliged to make myself
agreeable to a lot of people who bore me to death, in a drawing-
room, in fashionable society!
I, Cardevent the sculptor! Look
at me, in a coat that worries me, a cravat that strangles me,
with pomade on my hair! Yes, with pomade! I put it on my
hair, on my honor! [laughing] and all that so that I could hear
this young lady tell me that I must forget her, and that "every-
thing is finished"! Really, it is all very stupid! I have never
been so stupid about anything in all my life. But then it's done
So much the better. I have had enough, thank you!
Grigneux-O my poor Pierre, you are hard hit.
now.


## p. 10972 (#184) ##########################################

10972
ÉDOUARD PAILLERON
Pierre-Very well then, I must get over it. It is simply a
matter of resolution.
Grigneux - Yes; but you must resolve to be resolved.
Pierre-Don't be afraid; you shall see.
Grigneux-It is because I have "seen" that I am afraid.
Pierre-Oh, come now! There is no such thing as a love
which one cannot kill with one stroke of his own will.
Grigneux-Do you think so? Listen to me. Pierre, I knew,
a long time ago, an artist far less gifted than you, but having
just as you have a real passion for his art, and a strong faith in
his own youth: he was a man who would have been somebody
for all I know; only a woman came into his life, a woman who
shattered all these promises, and who made of that man's life the
most lamentable thing in the world.
Pierre- And how did that happen?
Grigneux —Oh, always the same story! He had as a neigh-
bor a young girl, a pianist, who got along as well as she could
in life, earning her bread by giving lessons. She was intelligent,
she was proud, she was a little impulsive. She believed that
this poor fellow possessed genius. You see that a charm for him
hung about her. And besides all this, she was as pretty-as
pretty well, as this Valentine here whom you love; and what is
more, she had the same name.
[Grigneux pauses as if becoming
lost in remembrances. ]
-
―
Pierre-Well, what happened?
Grigneux-What happened? He loved her and he married
her! It had to be so; it was written in the book of fate. To
fall in love for an artist that is a danger to begin with; but
for an artist to marry, to bring a woman into the secret of your
work, that is to say, all your efforts, doubts, pangs of artistic
creation,—a woman who has begun by believing in you as in
God, and who imagines that it is enough for you to make a
gesture as God might, in order to create something,-oh, that is
an irreparable mistake! I tell you, Pierre, women do not under-
stand anything except success. Now this poor creator of whom
I am speaking, tried in vain to be a creator all the week long,
without even taking time to rest himself on the seventh day; but
he got nothing out of his chaos. Success never came; but on the
contrary, failures succeeded failures. Little by little, everybody
ceased to expect anything from him, to hope anything for him,—
except the man himself, whose hope was of the kind that becomes
-
――――


## p. 10973 (#185) ##########################################

ÉDOUARD PAILLERON
10973
grotesque by its persistence. People laughed at him all around.
him. From the time that the laughing began he was judged and
condemned. The young woman whom he had loved and married,
she joined the laughers. I leave out the details. It is enough to
say that when there was only one sort of treason that could
be committed against him, the thing which was sure to happen.
happened: one evening his wife fled from the house of this
creature whom fate had vanquished,— the ridicule of whom was
in everybody's mouth. She fled, to go heaven knows whither, in
company with nobody knew whom.
Pierre
- And he? What did he do then?
―――
Grigneux-Well, during a whole week, out of his senses with
grief and rage, he hunted all around the town after her; but of
course he could find out nothing. Then he fled in his turn; and
he went down and shut himself up in Italy in a little village
near Naples. There it was that eight months later the news of
his wife's death met him while he was reading one day a French
newspaper. But for all that he stayed down there, an exile, for
twenty years; even to the time when, an old man, worn out,
unrecognizable, he came back to Paris, the place where every
one can lose himself and forget himself: and there he ended up
by living under a false name; concealed, miserable, and alone.
Pierre-So! The worse for him then. A man who cannot
recover himself under an insult is a coward.
Grigneux - Yes: well then, that man of whom I have been
telling you, he was-myself!
Pierre [greatly shocked] - You, Grigneux! You!
Grigneux [becoming more and more carried away from himself]
Yes, I am more of a coward than you would believe for
I love her still; and, afraid lest I love her less, I have done
no searching into her story since I came back here. I wish to
know nothing more than I know of her guilty past. Yes, I have
been determined that so far as I am concerned she shall have no
existence from the day when I ceased to see her. I have been
resolved that she shall dwell in my mind only as she was before
her sin that death shall bury her forever, pure in its pardoning
mystery. Oh, I am a coward in more than that, if you care to
know it: for I love her for always; yes, for always! [He speaks
in a constantly increasing excitement. ] And since I have lost her
in reality, I bring her back to me in my dreams; and it is for
that that I take that poison which gives a man dreams. And
-


## p. 10974 (#186) ##########################################

ÉDOUARD PAILLERON
10974
with them, oh then she comes back - I can hear her
to me I answer her- she draws near to me I can feel her
-
―
-
- she speaks
hand upon my shoulders again-she is there-I see her! [He
breaks off and remains in a sort of ecstatic silence. ]
Pierre [terrified] — Grigneux! Grigneux!
Grigneux [as if awakening]-And then, little by little, her
voice dies away, the vision effaces itself, and so she leaves me
alone, and so miserable that I must try to go through it all
again. Oh, I know perfectly well that my reason is going, that
my body is wearing out. So much the better! Only my body
separates me from her where she is now. So let it perish as
soon as it can, and my soul will take its wings to join hers!
Pierre [much affected]-My friend, my poor friend!
Grigneux [passing his hand over his forehead and returning to
himself]- Pierre, see what love makes of an old man like me;
what it can do to a young man like you. Oh, you see now why
it is that I tell you, "Fly from it. " My dear boy, I have nobody
in the world to love except you. I have nothing to expect in
life except what will come through you in your future. And
your future is so bright. Oh, I beg of you, I beseech you, do
not be a traitor to me, to yourself; do not at least rob me of
what should be your glory!
Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature' by E. Irenæus
Stevenson


## p. 10975 (#187) ##########################################

10975
THOMAS PAINE
(1737-1809)
HETHER, as he himself believed, his services to the cause of
American independence deserved to be mentioned with
those of Washington and Jefferson, or not, the pamphlets
of Thomas Paine were doubtless in their time "half-battles. " Clear,
logical, homely, by turns warning, appealing, or commanding, now
sharply satirical, now humorous, now pathetic, always desperately in
earnest, always written in admirably simple English, they constituted
their author, in the judgment of many, the foremost pamphleteer of
the eighteenth century. In the phrase of
Matthew Arnold, he saw things steadily and
saw them whole, whenever he was able to
see them at all,- which, with his myopic
vision, was by no means always. Before his
day, moreover, pamphlets and open letters
had been for the classes. Atticus, Brutus,
Civitas, Cato, Phil-anglus, when they ap-
peared in print, wore mask and buskins,
and addressed themselves to gentlemen who
knew their classics, and who expected
academic speech. Paine addressed the
masses as he would have talked to them in
the street. His turn for phrases was nota-
ble. "Our trade will always be a protec-
tion. " "Neutrality is a safer convoy than a man-of-war. " "It is the
true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions,
which she can never do while by her dependence on Britain she is
made the make-weight in the scale of European politics. " "Nothing
can settle our affairs so expeditiously as an open and determined
declaration of independence. " "This proceeding may at first appear
strange and difficult. A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong
gives it a superficial appearance of being right. " All these sentences,
and many even better, he wrote six months before the 4th of July,
1776, while many genuine patriots still trembled at the thought of
separation from the mother country.
The imported citizen who showed such perspicacity and courage
was at this time thirty-nine years of age, and had been for two years

THOMAS PAINE


## p. 10976 (#188) ##########################################

10976
THOMAS PAINE
assistant editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine, at a salary of £50
a year.
Born in Norfolkshire, the son of an English staymaker, a
Quaker, and poor, he had been by turns a staymaker, a sailor, an
exciseman, a tobacconist, and an usher in a school at £25 a year,
when he determined to emigrate and to establish a girls' school in
Philadelphia. On a fortunate day in the summer of 1774, at the
London house of his friend David Williams, - the radical who, with
himself, was presently to receive the honor of French citizenship,—
the humble usher met the "ingenious Dr. Franklin," who took a
great liking to him, advised him as to his future career, and wrote
him cordial letters of introduction to friends in Philadelphia. That
he was a very likable man, both at this time and later in life, is
shown, among other evidence, by a familiar letter to Goldsmith,
desiring "the honor of his company at the tavern for an hour or
two, to partake of a bottle of wine"; by the prediction of the brill-
iant Horne Tooke that whoever should be at a certain dinner party,
Paine would be sure to say the best things said; and by the friend-
ships which he made so easily. In middle age, at least, he was
fastidious in his dress, inclined to elegance in his manners, and at-
tractive in looks.
(
In 1775, a paper of his against slavery brought him the kindly
regard of many distinguished Americans, and the friendship of Frank-
lin was an invaluable guarantee. In January 1776 appeared anony-
mously Paine's first pamphlet, Common Sense. ' It was variously
ascribed to Franklin and the two Adamses; and when the irascible
John went to France, he found himself, to his chagrin, introduced as
"the famous Adams, author of Common Sense. >>
"The success it
met with," wrote the author, "was beyond anything since the inven-
tion of printing. I gave the copyright up to every State in the
Union, and the demand ran to not less than a hundred thousand
copies. " In his opinion the Declaration of Independence followed
«< as soon as 'Common Sense' could spread through such an extensive
country. " Nearly a year later came the first number of The Crisis,
beginning "These are the times that try men's souls," a number
which, read as a gospel in America, was condemned to be burned by
the hangman in England.
Later issues followed, some a few para-
graphs in length, some many pages, printed wherever there was a
printing-press, often on brown paper in the scarcity of white, and
distributed to every enlisted man and every village politician.
In 1780 the country was virtually bankrupt, the army starving and
mutinous, and Congress without money or credit. Paine, then clerk
of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, wrote a fiery letter inclosing his
whole salary, five hundred dollars, and urging the establishment of
a volunteer relief fund. Three hundred thousand pounds (inflated
―――


## p. 10977 (#189) ##########################################

THOMAS PAINE
10977
Pennsylvania currency) was raised, and a relief bank founded, which
presently, at the instance of Robert Morris, became the "Bank of
North America. " The next year, Paine, as private secretary, accom-
panied Colonel Laurens to France to negotiate a loan with that King
Louis, one of whose judges the ex-staymaker was presently to be-
come! In 1783 Morris besought its author to resume the Crisis, and
rouse reluctant patriotism to pay its debts and obey the orders of
Congress. The second paper of the new series contained the famous
passage: "We sometimes experience sensations to which language is
not equal. The conception is too bulky to be born alive, and in the
torture of thinking we stand dumb. Our feelings, imprisoned by
their magnitude, find no way out; and in the struggle for expression
every finger tries to be a tongue. " The last Crisis, published after
the treaty of peace, is a noble and eloquent setting forth of the
greatness of the American opportunity.
For all this laborious and constant toil, Paine, holding the Quaker
theory that the preacher must take no pay, received not a single
penny. "I could never reconcile it to my principles," he wrote, "to
make any money by my politics or my religion. " "In a great affair,
where the happiness of man is at stake, I love to work for nothing;
and so fully am I under the influence of this principle that I should
lose the spirit, the pleasure, and the pride of it, were I conscious that
I looked for reward. " But after the war, Pennsylvania set apart
£500 (currency) for his actual expenses; New Jersey gave him a
small place at Bordentown; New York settled upon him a confiscated
Tory farm at New Rochelle; and finally Congress voted him $3,000,
most of which he had already spent in the service of the nation.
From 1783 to 1787 Paine spent most of his time in Philadelphia,
engaged in scientific pursuits, the avocation of the cultivated gentle-
man of his time. One of his experiments was literally to set the
river on fire for the entertainment of General Washington, whose
guest he was for some time at Rocky Creek, near Philadelphia.
Among other contrivances he invented an iron bridge of a single
arch, the idea being suggested to him by the mechanism of a spider's
web.
To lay his model before the French Academy of Sciences, he
sailed for Havre in 1787; and then began the stormy fifteen years of
his life in England and France. Science he loved, but politics was
his very life. He was well received in Paris; but Paris was already
on the road to revolution. It had no time for the study of bridges,
and he had no heart for anything but affairs. When the Bastille was
taken, Lafayette sent the key to his "master," Washington, through
the hands of Paine, who wrote: "That the principles of America
opened the Bastille is not to be doubted, and therefore the key comes
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10978
THOMAS PAINE
to the right place. " He became once more a pamphleteer, and pres-
ently a member of the Assembly that condemned the King to death;
a condemnation which he opposed with magnificent courage from
the tribune itself, in the face of a furiously hostile audience, and
against which he voted in a hopeless minority. Before long he him-
self became a 'suspect'; and a prisoner for eleven months, to be
released at last, broken in health, energy, and fortunes. Before these
evil days, however,- from 1791 to 1793,- he had been busy in Eng-
land rousing radical sentiment, working at first heartily with Burke,
and after the publication of that statesman's 'Reflections,' furiously
against him. "Mr. Burke's mind," he wrote, "is above the homely
sorrows of the vulgar. He can feel only for a king or for a queen.
The countless victims of tyranny have no place in his sympathies.
He is not afflicted with the reality of distress touching on his heart,
but by the showy resemblance of it. He pities the plumage, but
forgets the dying bird. " Paine's crowning offense at that time was
the publication of The Rights of Man'; for England stood in terror
of the Revolution. The Church, the professions, trade, good society,
alike condemned all who defended or even explained it; and as a
dangerous agitator, but especially as a treasonable writer, Paine was
presently outlawed by the government.
From the time of his release from prison in '94 to that of his
return to the United States, on the invitation of Jefferson, in 1802,
little is known of Paine's life. He was very poor, his associates seem
to have been unworthy of him, he was growing old, his health was
wretched, and the habit of brooding over what he thought the in-
justice and ingratitude of the American people led him at times to
drink more than was good for him. He still wrote,- papers on finance,
'The Rights of Man,' 'Agrarian Justice,' the last part of the 'Age of
Reason' (the first book of which he had completed but not revised at
the time of his arrest by the Committee of Public Safety: a work
which gave him the reputation of a foe to Christianity), but the
old fire was burned out. His last seven years in America were most
unhappy. Old friends fell away. The acerbity of his temper and
the sensitiveness of his vanity kept new ones aloof. The bitterness
of politics colored judgment, and he was accused of offenses he had
never committed and of conduct impossible to him. An old man at
seventy-two, he died broken with many griefs, to be remembered by
a later age as "the great Commoner of Mankind. "
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THOMAS PAINE
10979
FROM THE CRISIS »
Reprinted from Moncure D. Conway's Edition of The Writings of Thomas
Paine. Copyright 1894, by G. P. Putnam's Sons
T"
HESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier
and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the
service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves
the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is
not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that
the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What
we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only
that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a
proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if
so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.
Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that
she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES
WHATSOEVER"; and if being bound in that manner is not slavery,
then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the
expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only
to God.
Whether the independence of the continent was declared too
soon, or delayed too long, I will not now enter into as an argu-
ment; my own simple opinion is, that had it been eight months
earlier it would have been much better. We did not make a
proper use of last winter; neither could we, while we were in a
dependent state. However, the fault, if it were one, was all our
own; we have none to blame but ourselves. But no great deal
is lost yet. All that Howe has been doing for this month past
is rather a ravage than a conquest, which the spirit of the Jer-
seys a year ago would have quickly repulsed, and which time.
and a little resolution will soon recover.
I have as little superstition in me as any man living; but
my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty
will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them
unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly
sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method.
which wisdom could invent. Neither have I so much of the
infidel in me as to suppose that he has relinquished the govern-
ment of the world, and given us up to the care of devils: and
as I do not, I cannot see on what grounds the King of Britain


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THOMAS PAINE
can look up to heaven for help against us; a common murderer,
a highwayman, or a house-breaker, has as good a pretense
as he.
'Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run
through a country. All nations and ages have been subject to
them: Britain has trembled like an ague at the report of a French
fleet of flat-bottomed boats; and in the fourteenth [fifteenth] cen-
tury the whole English army, after ravaging the kingdom of
France, was driven back like men petrified with fear; and this
brave exploit was performed by a few broken forces collected
and headed by a woman, Joan of Arc. Would that heaven might
inspire some Jersey maid to spirit up her countrymen, and save
her fair fellow-sufferers from ravage and ravishment! Yet pan-
ics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good
as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows
through them, and acquires a firmer habit than before. But
their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstones of sin-
cerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light which
might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered. In fact, they
have the same effect on secret traitors which an imaginary appa-
rition would have upon a private murderer. They sift out the
hidden thoughts of man, and hold them up in public to the
world. Many a disguised Tory has lately shown his head, that
shall penitentially solemnize with curses the day on which Howe
arrived upon the Delaware.
I shall not now attempt to give all the particulars of our
retreat to the Delaware; suffice it for the present to say, that
both officers and men, though greatly harassed and fatigued,
frequently without rest, covering, or provision,- the inevitable
consequences of a long retreat,- bore it with a manly and mar-
tial spirit. All their wishes centred in one; which was, that
the country would turn out and help them to drive the enemy
back. Voltaire has remarked that King William never appeared
to full advantage but in difficulties and in action; the same re-
mark may be made on General Washington, for the character
fits him. There is a natural firmness in some minds which can-
not be unlocked by trifles, but which, when unlocked, discovers a
cabinet of fortitude; and I reckon it among those kinds of public
blessings, which we do not immediately see, that God hath blessed.
him with uninterrupted health, and given him a mind that can
even flourish upon care.
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THOMAS PAINE
10981
Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her
situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has
nothing to do but to trade with them. A man can distinguish
himself between temper and principle; and I am as confident as
I am that God governs the world, that America will never be
happy till she gets clear of foreign dominion. Wars, without
ceasing, will break out till that period arrives, and the continent
must in the end be conqueror; for though the flame of liberty
may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.
America did not, nor does not, want force; but she wanted a
proper application of that force. Wisdom is not the purchase of
a day, and it is no wonder that we should err at the first setting
off.