A certain elegance of
manner and of dress, which had distinguished him, was gone. He drank
deep, and was noisy. His fondness for talking of himself had grown to
such excess as to destroy the conversational talents which all his
contemporaries who speak of him describe as remarkable. "I will venture
to say that the best thing will be said by Mr. Paine": that was Horne
Tooke's prophecy, talking of some proposed dinner-party.
Demoralized by poverty, with ruined health, his mind had become
distorted by physical suffering and by brooding over the ingratitude
and cruel neglect of the American people, who owed, as he really
believed, their very existence as a nation to him. "Is this what I
ought to have expected from America," he wrote to General Washington,
"after the part I have acted towards her?" "I do not hesitate to say
that you have not served America with more fidelity or greater zeal or
more disinterestedness than myself, and perhaps not with better
effect." Henceforth he was a man of two ideas: he engrafted his
resentment upon his "Rights of Man," and thought himself carrying out
his theory while indulging in his wrath.
Pages:
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191