Editor’s Introduction: In honor of Thomas Paine’s birthday, I thought it would be fun — and highly appropriate — to consider Paine, not as Founding Father and historical icon, but simply as a human being. I discovered the following essay by Henry Redhead Yorke while reading W.T. Sherwin’s Memoirs of the Life of Thomas Paine (1819) – one of the earliest attempts to provide a laudatory life of Paine and rehabilitate his public memory. Sherwin had reproduced the piece almost in its entirety from Yorke’s Letters from France 1802 (published in 1804).

Henry Redhead Yorke (1771/2-1813) is himself something of a mystery. The son of an enslaved black woman from Barbuda and a white Englishman, he was raised within the slave community of Antigua, until his father brought him to England at age six, to be raised and educated as a gentleman in Little Eaton in Derbyshire. A political radical as a young man, and a supporter of the French Revolution, Yorke was jailed for anti-government activities in England from November 1795 until March 1798. As scholar Amanda Goodrich (whose biography of Yorke is due out later this year) states: “He became a revolutionary radical in 1792, but then after a spell in prison for his activities he performed a complete volte face and took up an ultra-loyalist Tory position.” These later conservative views are evident in Yorke’s account of his time in Paris.

Thomas Paine, of course, remained a lifelong radical, but had noticeably soured on the French Revolution after his own imprisonment in France during the Reign of Terror. This shift in Paine’s attitude is brought to the forefront in Yorke’s account.

For me, what makes Yorke’s essay remarkable are the details it provides about Paine’s everyday life during the time he lived in France after his imprisonment and just before his return to the young American republic. Yorke is a master storyteller who turns his visit with Paine into a tale with dramatic structure and moments of both pathos and comedy. His portrait of Paine is evenhanded – compassionate, humorous, sharply observant, and quite candid about his subject’s virtues and flaws. While Yorke writes charming prose, he does not romanticize Paine. His description of Paine’s untidy apartment, for example, is fairly appalling. Yet at the same time, we see Paine moved to tears by the reunion with his old friend, and later in the sketch we are treated to the comic spectacle of Paine debating religion at a dinner party – tirelessly holding forth on the topic and all but literally arguing everyone else under the table. Yorke’s exasperation with his friend is evident, but it does not overshadow his genuine pleasure in Paine’s company.

Since Sherwin, many Paine biographers and scholars have regularly plucked a sentence or paragraph from Yorke’s colorful account, but the essay itself remains obscure. This is a shame, since it provides a lively and unique first-hand account of Thomas Paine the man.

Yorke also preserved one of Paine’s own most intriguing personal essays, “On Forgetfulness,” which undoubtedly would have been lost if Yorke had not made a copy during his visit. It originally appeared within the body of this essay, and other than a few of the author’s footnotes, it is the only thing I’ve left out of the version presented here – and that only because Paine’s piece stands so beautifully on its own that it merits a separate blog-post. (Coming soon.) I have also left Yorke’s punctuation, capitalizations, and spelling intact from his original published work.

From: Letters from France 1802, by Henry Redhead Yorke (1804)

The name of Thomas Paine is so familiar to every one, that had we not been previously acquainted with each other, I should have contrived to have had an interview with him, during my residence in Paris. Nearly ten years had elapsed since we were last together, and I felt deeply interested in learning his opinions concerning the French revolution, after all the experience, which so long a period of uninterrupted storms and convulsion, must necessarily have afforded him. Accordingly, he was amongst the first on whom I called, and I have since been frequently in his company.

It was not without considerable difficulty that I discovered his residence, for the name of Thomas Paine is now as odious in France as it is in England, perhaps more so. A bookseller’s shop in the Palais Royale appeared the most likely place to inquire, and thither I immediately repaired. But I had no sooner mentioned his name, than the bookseller, his wife, his son, and a bye-stander, fell upon me in such an unmerciful manner, calling Paine scelerat, bandit, coquin, and ascribing to him, the resistance which Leclerc had experienced from the negroes of St. Domingo, of which they had just received intelligence, that I found it necessary to decamp without losing a moment of time. Being at a loss how to proceed, I determined to betake myself to the hotel of the American minister, and as I was passing through the Rue des Petits Peres, I saw over the gateway of White’s, in large letters, hotel de Philadelphie; in consequence of which, I entered and enquired for Thomas Paine. The master told me that he never came there now, but that he was sometimes to be found at the adjoining coffee house. Thus far, I was making some progress. On applying where I had been directed, I was informed, that he had not been there for several days, but that he lived at a bookseller’s in the Rue du Theatre Francais. A bookseller! after the dressing I had just received, a bookseller’s shop sounded very terrific in my ears. However, I was resolved, and set off with a good heart, being persuaded that if Paine lived there, neither the bookseller, his wife, his son, nor a bye-stander, would eat me. I took the precaution as soon as I had reached the street, to inquire how many booksellers lived in it, and the immediate answer was, that an American bookseller inhabited No. 4. After having mounted to the second story, I rang at the bell, and on a jolly looking woman opening the door, I asked in a meek and humble tone (for the reception I had met with at the Palais Royale was still in my mind) whether Mr. Paine lived there? After having surveyed me from head to feet, she answered in the affirmative, but said she believed he was not at home, and requested me to enter. As soon as I had walked into her apartment, she held the candle pretty close to my face, and said, “Do you wish to see Mr. Paine?” to which I instantly replied, “I am just come from England, and am extremely anxious to see him, as I am an old acquaintance whom he has not seen these ten years.” Even as the sun dispels the mist, so did this well-timed declaration change the features of her countenance, which now became nothing but smiles and joy. She continued; “He is taking a nap; but I’ll go and wake him.”

In two minutes she returned, and ushered me into a little dirty room, containing a small wooden table, and two chairs. “This,” said she, “is Mr. Paine’s room!” I never sat down in such a filthy apartment in the whole course of my life. The chimney hearth was an heap of dirt; there was not a speck of cleanliness to be seen; three shelves were filled with pasteboard boxes, each labelled after the manner of a minister of foreign affairs, correspondance Americaine, Britannique; Francaise; Notices politiques; Le citoyen Francais, &c. In one corner of the room stood several huge bars of iron, curiously shaped, and two large trunks; opposite the fire place, a board covered with pamphlets and journals, having more the appearance of a dresser in a scullery than a side-board. Such was the wretched habitation of Thomas Paine, one of the founders of American Independence; whose extraordinary genius must ever command attention; and whose writings have summoned to action the minds of the most enlightened politicians of Europe! How different the humble dwelling of this Apostle of Freedom, from those gorgeous mansions tenanted by the founders of the French Republic!

After I had waited a short time, Mr. Paine came down stairs, and entered the room, dressed in a long flannel gown. I was forcibly struck with his altered appearance. Time seemed to have made dreadful ravages over his whole frame, and a settled melancholy was visible on his countenance. He desired me to be seated, and although he did not recollect me for a considerable time, he conversed with his usual affability. I confess I felt extremely surprised that he should have forgotten me; but I resolved not to make myself known to him, as long as it could be avoided with propriety. In order to try his memory, I referred to a number of circumstances, which had occurred while we were in company, but carefully abstained from hinting that we had ever lived together. He would frequently put his hand to his forehead, and exclaim, “Ah! I know that voice, but my recollection fails!” At length, I thought it time to remove his suspense, and stated an incident which instantly recalled me to his mind. It is impossible to describe the sudden change which this effected in his appearance and manner; his countenance brightened, he pressed me by the hand, and a silent tear stole down his cheek. Nor was I less affected than himself. For some time, we sat without a word escaping from our lips. “Thus are we met once more Mr. Paine,” I resumed, “after a long separation of ten years, and after having been both of us severely weather-beaten.” “Aye,” he replied, “and who would have thought that we should meet at Paris?” He then inquired what motive had brought me here, and on my explaining myself, he observed, with a smile of contempt, “They have shed blood enough for liberty, and now they have it in perfection. This is not a country for an honest man to live in; they do not understand any thing at all of the principles of free government, and the best way is, to leave them to themselves. You see they have conquered all Europe, only to make it more miserable than it was before.” Upon this, I remarked, that I was surprized to hear him speak in such desponding language, of the fortune of mankind, and that I thought much might yet be done for the Republic. “Republic!” he exclaimed, “do you call this a Republic? why, they are worse off than the slaves at Constantinople; for there, they expect to be bashaws in heaven, by submitting to be slaves below, but here, they believe neither in heaven nor hell, and yet are slaves by choice. I know of no Republic in the world, except America, which is the only country for such men as you and I. It is my intention to get away from this place as soon as possible, and I hope to be off in autumn; you are a young man, and may see better times, but I have done with Europe, and its slavish politics.” I admitted that America might be always looked to as the country of forlorn hope, but that I entertained great doubts whether I should be happy in it; and I enumerated my objections, concluding with the want of society, and my apprehensions respecting the yellow fever, which I stated you had represented to me in a very unfavourable light. Both these objections he endeavoured to controvert, by shewing that there was as good society in America, and better in many respects, than in all Europe; and as to the yellow fever, it had been imported, and there could be no doubt it would wholly disappear by the pursuit of proper precautions; he then made use of some ingenious arguments to prove this, and affirmed that it had of late years, scarcely ever proved fatal to persons in easy circumstances, on account of their having withdrawn into the country at its first appearance. But, his argument carried irresistible conviction to my mind, when he insisted that it was the only circumstance, that had deterred Europeans from emigrating thither, which he illustrated by a comparative statement of the influx of population before and since the breaking out of that pestilential malady.

In the course of our long conversation upon America, he put into my hands a letter, which he had recently received from Mr. Jefferson, the President. It was dictated with the ease, and freedom of one old friend writing to another. [Yorke’s Footnote: This letter has been wholly misunderstood, and misrepresented in the English newspapers; as I read it with great attention, the reader may depend on the accuracy of [my] account of it.] He [Jefferson] begins with congratulating Mr. Paine on his determination to exchange the Old for the New World, as he will find on his return, a very favourable change in the political opinions of the citizens of the United States, who are happily come back to those enlightened principles, which he, (Mr. Paine) had so usefully contributed to spread over the world. He trusts that this intelligence will afford him pleasure, and that in returning to a country where his principles are daily practised by the government, he will at length experience that happiness and repose, which his exertions in the cause of mankind deserve. As Mr. Paine had expressed a desire to return in a public manner, [Jefferson] states that the sloop of war, which had brought the minister Livingstone to France, would return at a given time, and convey him to America, if he could make it convenient to take advantage of the occasion. [Yorke’s footnote: This is the passage which has furnished so much ground for controversy between the London Journalists, as well as the Parisian. Several of the former stated, that Mr. Jefferson had sent a vessel for Mr. Paine, which was not true. But the expression “public manner,” is susceptible of two different constructions. First, it implies Mr. Paine’s wish, as a measure of personal security, to return in a government vessel; or, secondly, it implies a wish to return in a public capacity. In whatever sense the President received the application, it is evident the idea did not originate with him; and if he took it in the second, it is equally evident, that he eluded its meaning, by complying with it in the sense of the first. I have read this letter several times, and from the manner of it, viz. “As you express a wish to return in a public manner, &c.,” it does strike me forcibly, that Mr. Paine meant in some public capacity; and from what afterwards fell from him in conversation, respecting his return to Europe, which I have detailed in the text, my opinion (which I only venture) seems additionally strengthened.] The rest of the letter is in the usual tone of friendship, and assures Mr. Paine, he shall meet with an hearty welcome.

As soon as I had finished the perusal of the letter, [Paine] observed, that there now remained only four persons who had acted in concert during the American revolution, John Adams, (the late President) Jefferson, Livingstone, and himself. He then gave me two copies of Mr. Jefferson’s speech, which he said, he had caused to be printed in France, by way of contrast with the government of the First Consul. He continued, (laughing at the same time) “It would be a curious circumstance, if I should hereafter be sent as Secretary of Legation to the English court, which outlawed me. What a hubbub it would create at the King’s levee, to see Tom Paine presented by the American ambassador! All the bishops and women would faint away; the women would suppose I came to ravish them, and the bishops, to ravish their tythes. I think it would be a good joke.” I took this opportunity of suggesting, that he had not altogether given up Europe, since he thought of revisiting it in an official capacity. He answered, that it was possible, but not probable at this time of life; that he should dispose of his estate, live upon the interest, and amuse himself with mechanics, and writing memoirs of his life and correspondence, two volumes of which he had already completed.

What a hubbub it would create at the King’s levee, to see Tom Paine presented by the American ambassador! All the bishops and women would faint away; the women would suppose I came to ravish them, and the bishops, to ravish their tythes. I think it would be a good joke.

The estate which he possesses in America is valuable, and must produce more than, from his habits, he can spend. Many years ago he had been offered 1200 l. for it, afterwards, he said 2000 l. sterling was bidden, and at last Judge Greswold tendered him 4000 l. for it, which he also refused, because he knew it was worth more, as he estimates it at about 7000 l.

Upon my inquiring how he had passed his life since we parted, he gave a long account of his occupations, from the time that he was sent to prison. During [the English] invasion of Holland, he went to Brussels, where he passed a few days with General Brune, with a view, as he declared, of accompanying him to Holland, “to see the last of John Bull.” He stated, however, that in France and the French army, there was but one opinion concerning that event; and even General Brune himself had avowed, that it was impossible to prevent the final success of the English.

While he was in prison, he wrote his “Age of Reason,” and amused himself with carrying on an epistolary correspondence with Lady S[mthye], under the assumed name of “The Castle in the Air,” and her Ladyship answered, under the title of “The Little Corner of the World;” which has been continued to the present day without intermission. Some of this correspondence which he shewed me, is extremely beautiful and interesting; considering the dreadful places, times, and circumstances in which they were composed. You are not perhaps aware, that [Paine] is the author of that beautiful Song on the Death of General Wolfe, which many years ago was in every one’s mouth; however, [an] extract from a manuscript essay that he gave me, will afford you a competent idea of his manner of treating subjects, less solemn and invidious than politics. It will appear at full length, in the volumes he intends to publish on his return to America.

[Editor’s Note: Yorke refers here to Paine’s essay “To Forgetfulness” which was originally published within the body of his essay on Paine. I’ve left it aside here, to appear in a future blog-post on its own.]

I have often been in company with Mr. Paine, since my arrival here; and I was not a little surprized to find him wholly indifferent about the public spirit of England, or the remaining influence of his doctrines among its people. Indeed, he seemed to dislike the mention of the subject; and when, one day, in order to provoke discussion, I told him I had altered my opinions upon many of his principles, he answered, “You certainly have the right to do so; but you cannot alter the nature of things; the French have alarmed all honest men; but still truth is truth. Though you may not think that my principles are practicable in England, without bringing on a great deal of misery and confusion, you are, I am sure, convinced of their justice.” Here, he took occasion to speak in terms of the utmost severity against Mr. — , who had obtained a seat in parliament, and said that “parsons were always mischievous fellows when they turned politicians.” This gave rise to an observation respecting his “Age of Reason,” the publication of which I said had lost him the good opinion of numbers of his English advocates. He became uncommonly warm at this remark, and in a tone of singular energy declared, that he would not have published it, if he had not thought it calculated to “inspire mankind with a more exalted idea of the Supreme Architect of the Universe, and to put an end to villainous imposture.” He then broke out with the most violent invectives against our received [religious] opinions, accompanying them at the same time with some of the most grand and sublime conceptions of an Omnipotent Being, that I ever heard or read of. In the support of this opinion, he avowed himself ready to lay down his life, and said, “the Bishop of Landaff may roast me in Smithfield, if he likes, but human torture cannot shake my conviction.” To this I answered, “The bishop of Landaff is a man of too enlightened, tolerant, and humane a disposition, to wish you roasted, or any other man for differing with you in opinion. You cannot say that his Apology does not breathe tolerance in every page.”— “Aye, it is an Apology, indeed, for priestcraft; but parsons will meddle and make mischief; — they always hurt their own cause, and make things worse than they were before; if he had said nothing, the church would have lost nothing; but I have another rod in pickle, for Mr. Bishop.” Here he reached down a copy of the Bishop’s work, interleaved with remarks upon it, which he read to me; after which, he admitted the liberality of the Bishop, and regretted, that in all the controversies among men, a similar temper was not maintained. But, in proportion as he appeared listless of politics, he seemed quite a zealot in his religious creed; of which the following is an instance.

He then broke out with the most violent invectives against our received [religious] opinions, accompanying them at the same time with some of the most grand and sublime conceptions of an Omnipotent Being, that I ever heard or read of.

An English Lady of our acquaintance, not less remarkable for her talents than for elegance of manners, entreated me to contrive that she might have an interview with Mr. Paine. In consequence of this, I invited him to dinner on a day when we were to be favoured with her company. But, as she is a very rigid Roman Catholic, I cautioned Mr. Paine before-hand, against touching upon religious subjects, assuring him at the same time, that she felt much interested to make his acquaintance. With much good nature, he promised to be discreet. Although the Lady I allude to, is perhaps one of the most liberal and tolerant of her sex, I knew that on this point she felt tenderly; for which reason, this preliminary hint was not ill timed.

For above four hours, [Paine] kept every one in astonishment and admiration of his memory, his keen observation of men and manners, his numberless anecdotes of the American Indians, of the American war, of Franklin, Washington, and even of his Majesty, of whom he told several curious facts of humour and benevolence. His remarks on genius and taste, can never be forgotten by those present. Thus far every thing went on as I could wish; the sparkling champagne gave a zest to his conversation, and we were all delighted. But alas! alas! an expression relating to his “Age of Reason,” having been mentioned by one of the company, he broke out immediately. He began with Astronomy, — addressing himself to Mrs. Y—, he declared, that the least inspection of the motion of the stars, was a convincing proof, that Moses was a liar. Nothing could stop him. In vain I attempted to change the subject, by employing every artifice in my power, and even by attacking with vehemence his political principles. He returned to the charge with unabated ardour. I called upon him for a song, though I never heard him sing in my life. He struck up instantly one of his own composition; but the instant he had finished it, he resumed his favourite topic. Every time he took breath, he gained fresh strength, and on he went, with inconceivable rapidity, until the ladies gradually stole unobserved from the room, and left another gentleman and myself to contest, or rather to leave him master of the field of battle.

I felt extremely mortified, and remarked that he had forgotten his promise, and that it was not fair to wound so deeply the opinions of the ladies. “Oh!” said he, “they’ll come again. What a pity it is that people should be so prejudiced!”— To which I retorted, that their prejudices might be virtues. “If so,” he replied, “the blossoms maybe beautiful to the eye, but the root is weak.” I desired him to prove it. He continued as follows, declaring that he could not do better than cite his own expressions, written years ago. “There is something exceedingly curious in the constitution and operation of prejudice. It has the singular ability of accommodating itself to all the possible varieties of the human mind. Some passions and vices are but thinly scattered among mankind, and find only here and there a fitness for reception. But prejudice, like the spider, makes every where its home. It has neither taste nor choice of place, and all that it requires is room. There is scarcely a situation, except fire or water, in which a spider will not live. So, let the mind be as naked as the walls of an empty and forsaken tenement, gloomy as a dungeon, or ornamented with the richest abilities of thinking, let it be hot, cold, dark, or light, lonely or inhabited, still prejudice, if undisturbed, will fill it with cobwebs, and live, like the spider, where there seems nothing to live on. If the one prepares her food by poisoning it to her palate and her use, the other does the same; and as several of our passions are strongly charactered by the animal world, prejudice may be denominated the spider of the mind.”

Upon my observing that I did not recollect the passage in any of his works, he stated, that it was written in America, twenty years ago, and might be found in one of his pamphlets, the name of which has escaped my recollection. But he repeated it, at our request, several times, and allowed me to write it down. One of the most extraordinary properties belonging to Mr. Paine, is, his power of retaining every thing he has written in the course of his life. It is a fact, that he can repeat word for word, every sentence in his “Common Sense, Rights of Man, &c. &c, which I attribute first, to the unparalleled slowness with which he composes every passage he writes; secondly, to its having been profoundly meditated, and lastly, to his dislike to every sort of reading. The Bible is the only book which he has studied, and there is not a verse in it, that is not familiar to him. Wonderful and productive as his mathematical genius is unquestionably, he has often assured me, that he never read any thing upon the subject. Indeed, he seems to have a contemptuous opinion not only of books, but of their authors; for in shewing me one day the beautiful models of two bridges he had devised, he observed that Dr. Franklin once told him, that “books are written to please, houses built for great men, churches for priests, but no bridge for the people.”

One of the most extraordinary properties belonging to Mr. Paine, is, his power of retaining every thing he has written in the course of his life. It is a fact, that he can repeat word for word, every sentence in his “Common Sense, Rights of Man, &c. &c.

These models exhibit an extraordinary degree, not only of skill, but of taste, in mechanics; and are wrought with extreme delicacy, entirely by his own hands. The largest is nearly four feet in length; the iron works, the chains, and every other article belonging to it, were forged, and manufactured by himself. It is intended as the model of a bridge, which is to be constructed across the Delaware, extending 480 feet with only one arch. The other is to be erected over a lesser river, whose name I forget, and is likewise a single arch, and of his own workmanship, excepting the chains, which instead of iron, are cut out of pasteboard, by the fair hand of his correspondent, the Little Corner of the World, whose indefatigable perseverance is extraordinary. He was offered 3000 l. for these models, and refused it. The iron bars which I before mentioned that I noticed in a corner of his room, were also forged by himself, as the model of a crane, of a new description. He put them together, and exhibited the power of the lever, to a most surprizing degree.

It would require the leisure, and faculty of Jamie Boswell [biographer of Dr. Samuel Johnson] himself, to detail all the conversations, which I had with Mr. Paine, or the opinions and anecdotes which he recounted. I am sure they would fill a volume. I shall therefore conclude this account of him, with a few words, respecting his acquaintance with Bonaparte.

When the Hero of Italy had returned to Paris, in order to take the command of that Army of England, with whose left wing he afterwards set off to conquer the department of the Thames, on the burning sands of Egypt, he called on Mr. Paine, and invited him to dinner. In the course of his rapturous ecstacies, [Bonaparte] declared, that a statue of gold, ought to be erected to [Paine] in every city in the universe; he also assured him, that he always slept with his book [Rights of Man], under his pillow, and conjured him to honour him with his correspondence and advice. When the military Council at Paris, who directed all the movements of Bonaparte, (though he has the merit of them) came to a serious consultation about the invasion of England, Mr. Paine was invited to assist at the sitting. After they had ransacked and examined all the plans, charts, and projects of the Old Government, Bonaparte submitted to them, the propriety of hearing what Citizen Paine had to say upon the subject. But I should have stated, that without one dissentient voice, they were all of opinion, the measure was impracticable, dangerous even in idea, and still more so in the attempt. General D’Arcon, a celebrated engineer [Yorke’s footnote: He directed the siege of Gibraltar, in the American War], was one of this Council, and present on the occasion. He laughed at the project, and said, that all those plans and schemes, had better be made cartridge paper of, for there was no Prince Charles (meaning the Pretender) now-a-days; and that they might as well attempt to invade the moon, as England, with its superior fleet at sea. “Oh!” exclaimed Bonaparte, “but there will be a fog.”— “Ah!” replied D’Arcon, “and there will be an English fleet in that fog.” — “Cannot we pass?” said Bonaparte; “Doubtless,” answered the other, “by diving twenty fathom under water;” then looking steadfastly at the Hero, “General,” said he, “the earth is our own, but not the sea. We must recruit our fleets, before we can hope to make any impression on England, and even then, the enterprize would be fraught with perdition, unless we could raise a diversion among the people.” Then Bonaparte: “that is the very point I mean; here is Citizen Paine, who will tell you, that the whole English nation, except the royal family, and the Hanoverians who have been created peers of the realm, and absorb the greatest part of the land property, are ardently burning for fraternization.” Paine being called upon, said, “It is now several years since I have been in England, and therefore I can only judge of it, by what I knew when I was there. I think the people are very disaffected, but I am sorry to add, that if the expedition should escape the fleet, I think the army would be cut in pieces. The only way to kill England, is to annihilate her commerce.” This opinion was backed by all the Council, and Bonaparte, turning to Paine, asked how long he thought it would take to annihilate the English commerce? Paine answered, that every thing depended on a peace. From that hour, Bonaparte never spoke to him, and when he had finished his adventures in Egypt, and had stolen back to France, [Bonaparte] passed by [Paine] the grand dinner, that was given to the Generals of the Republic, a short time before his usurpation, staring him in the face, and saying to General Lasnes, in the hearing of Paine, “the English are all alike in every country, — they are all rascals.”

Mr. Paine thinks the Egyptian expedition was determined on, in consequence of the rejection of this project of Bonaparte by the Council; as it never was either in their contemplation, or that of the government, to invade England, but only to keep us upon the qui vive, and to divert our attention from other objects. Besides which, the popularity and inflammatory mind of Bonaparte were so excessive, that they were glad to get rid of him at any rate. Paine entertains the most despicable opinion of Bonaparte’s conduct, military as well as civil, and thinks him the completest charlatan [that] ever existed.

[Yorke’s footnote: It may be thought strange, that a man, like Paine, educated in the passive principles of the Quakers, and himself very timid, at least, in appearance, should be competent to give an opinion on military operations. But I can assure the reader, there are many eminent French Generals, who have attached the highest credit to his advice, although he had never seen the countries, in which that advice was beneficial.]

 

 

In honor of Banned Books Week , I decided earlier this month to revisit Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man.

Originally published in England as two separate pamphlets (in March 1791 and February 1792), the 200-page book is still widely considered Paine’s most important and influential work.

It is also, according to the American Library Association “one of history’s most banned political narratives.” In England, it was contraband for decades. Selling this work of “seditious libel” could get you arrested, fined, imprisoned – or even, as in one case, transported. Both a defense of the French Revolution and an ideological take-down of English monarchy, Rights of Man caused a political furor almost unimaginable for us today. (Yes, even in the age of Trump). In 1792, brought to trial by the Crown, Paine fled his native England to avoid being hung as a traitor. He would never return.

Since that time, Rights of Man has remained controversial, a regular target of censorship efforts around the world. Even in the United States it hasn’t always been safe from challenges in schools and libraries.

Nor is it difficult to understand why. Paine’s insistence, conveyed in plain language, that ordinary citizens had an inherent, always-existing right to choose – and if necessary to change – their governments was and continues to be toxic to authoritarians of all political stripes.

I first encountered Rights of Man around 2010. Having read The Age of Reason and Common Sense, I was prepared for the conventions of eighteenth-century language, as well as Paine’s impressive gift for both lucid explanation and (often hilarious) sarcasm.

I was not prepared for the sheer breadth and compass of Paine’s democratic vision – nor the depth of his feeling for the oppressed. Of the supposedly “vulgar … ignorant mob,” the lowest of the poor classes throughout Europe, Paine offers this insight, two centuries before activists had a word for marginalization:

It is by distortedly exalting some men, that others are distortedly debased, till the whole is out of nature. A vast mass of mankind are degradedly thrown into the back-ground of the human picture, to bring forward, with greater glare, the puppet-show of state and aristocracy.

The book is filled with such insights.

Yet, even after a second reading, I still find Rights of Man a difficult work to fully absorb. It is nearly impossible to summarize, because it is so many things at once. Far more than a polemic, it is also reportage, protest, political theory. It is at once sober journalism and withering satire, careful analysis and impassioned plea for justice. The late commentator Christopher Hitchens describes it as “one of the first ‘modern’ texts,” and “both a trumpet of inspiration and a carefully wrought blueprint for a more rational and decent ordering of society” (Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man: a Biography, 11).

In its reach and complexity, the book is different, even, from Paine’s other writings. Unlike Common Sense or The American Crisis, it’s less a call to arms than a spur thought and reflection – though it is filled with evocative metaphor and stirring language. Unlike The Age of Reason, it doesn’t target a specific foe, such as organized religion – unless that foe is monarchy and “hereditary government,” which will strike most readers of today as last century’s news.

Ironically, the main barrier to fully appreciating Rights of Man in 2017 may be that its critique of “government” has been largely blunted over time – by the very progress that Paine himself hoped for and advocated. What was “seditious libel” worthy of trying to hang an upstart writer back in 1792 is today the “common sense” of nearly all modern democracies.

As Paine states in “Letter to the Addressers.” his summary and defense of Rights of Man, “I have asserted … and by fair and open argument maintained, the right of every nation at all times to establish such a system and form of government for itself as best accords with its disposition, interest, and happiness; and to change and alter it as it sees occasion.”

That is – people, meaning ordinary citizens, are the creators and shapers of government. And those same people have the right to change and reshape their government if they so choose.

Paine doesn’t need to convince us that such a belief is right, just, or natural. We presume those truths to be self-evident. What shocks us is that anyone might believe – or have ever believed – otherwise.

Americans in particular have been telling ourselves this story of how governments are best formed for over two hundred years. We tell it this way because we learned it from our Founders, including and especially Thomas Paine.

So what, if anything, can a work like Rights of Man say to us today, if so many of its precepts are already ingrained in our worldview? Haven’t we already absorbed all this business about representative democracies and written constitutions?

Well … perhaps – but it is helpful to remind ourselves of how much reality – political reality, in particular – is invented.

Rights of Man – like all Paine’s work, like the writings of all our Founders – was created at a time when modern democracy was experimental and widely mistrusted. Words and concepts matter. Historians point out that in Rights of Man, Paine transformed the meaning of the word democracy itself, giving it the largely positive connotation it carries today. In the late eighteenth century, thinkers and writers were still using democracy as a slur – a synonym for anarchy, lawlessness, “mob rule,” and the unmooring of civil order. John Adams understood the word in this sense, and like others of his time, characterized democracy as a kind of contagion – as “Paine’s yellow fever.” The statesman Edmund Burke became Paine’s ideological rival – and the catalyst for the writing of Paine’s book, when he dismissed as irrelevant some “paltry sheets about the rights of man.”

American political discourse has been, and continues to be, one long debate about rights: who has them, who should, what they entail, how they are to be enforced, what puts them under threat. When the Supreme Court hears a case, whether on health insurance or campaign funding or immigration, it acts as an arbiter of rights. Many of its most important cases historically have referenced and interpreted the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, better known to all of us as the Bill of Rights. We are nearly incapable of imagining a world without rights – or at least a theoretical assertion of them – as a given.

It has perhaps become too easy for us “post-moderns” to forget that there was a time in which rights were a foreign and forbidden language, a cause to charge writers with madness and treason, to jail booksellers and publishers and to burn authors in effigy. The media of Thomas Paine’s day cast his work in precisely those terms, whether through vicious editorial cartoons of “Mad Tom, the Man of Rights” or a scurrilous government-funded “biography” packed with falsehoods.

Yet Paine – and his ideas – have persisted.

Among many other things, Rights of Man advocates for a progressive tax structure and what we might today call a welfare state: government pensions for the old, education for the young and the unemployed, help for the impoverished and for new parents. Many of these ideas did not see fruition for a century and more after Paine’s death. Many others have yet to be even tried. Paine did not live to see most of the changes that his words helped bring about.

And just as he failed to see the coming Reign of Terror in France – an oversight that nearly got him killed (there were a great number of things in Paine’s life that nearly got him killed before he actually died … at the age of 73) – so he also failed to see that the dissolution of monarchy would not bring an end to war. Nor could he have known that democracy wasn’t a cure-all, and that many of the abuses he attributed to “the monarchical system” would prove a hazard to representative systems as well. The presidency of Donald Trump is far from the earliest example, but of course it springs most easily to mind. In reading Paine’s various descriptions of monarchy as afflicted by the ills of both youth and old age, it’s hard not to keep seeing Trump, the would-be emperor of America, with his alternating temper-tantrums and breathtaking ignorance.

It is government through the medium of passions and accidents. It appears under all the various characters of childhood, decrepitude, dotage, a thing at nurse, in leading-strings, or in crutches. It reverses the wholesome order of nature. It occasionally puts children over men, and the conceits of nonage over wisdom and experience. In short, we cannot conceive a more ridiculous figure of government …

Likewise, in contemplating the phenomenon of “alternate facts” and “fake news” that we read about daily, Paine’s warnings about the “the puppet show” and “mystery” of government take on new resonance.

Yet for me, as always, the most moving aspect of Paine’s writing is never ideology – or even bold, strong language, but compassion – and the kind of open-hearted idealism that our cynical culture loves to deride as naive fantasy.

There are moments, more perhaps in Rights of Man than any of his other works, when Paine’s faith in his fellow human beings – that is, in us, ordinary Jane-and-Joe Average citizens like you and me – is not only profoundly touching, but unsettling. Throughout the book, it is clear that Paine rests his faith less in a specific form of government than in his fellow human beings – in “we the people” and our willingness to assert and protect not just our own rights – but those of others. Representative democracy will work, he tells us, not because of this or that party or leader, but because “the nation” (in the Rousseauist sense, meaning “the people”) has the ultimate power to shape and control government.

“Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the age and generations which preceded it,” he tells us. “Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow. …. Every generation is, and must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions require.” Those are rousing and hopeful words – words fit to encourage a resistance.

Paine also believed that we the people could see through the orchestrated lies that government (or the media) so often peddles. In “Letter to the Addressers,” he writes:

… how easily does even the most illiterate reader distinguish the spontaneous sensations of the heart, from the labored productions of the brain. Truth, whenever it can fully appear, is a thing so naturally familiar to the mind, that an acquaintance commences at first sight. No artificial light, yet discovered, can display all the properties of daylight; so neither can the best invented fiction fill the mind with every conviction which truth begets.

In Rights of Man, this sentiment is even more streamlined and poetic:

… such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing. The sun needs no inscription to distinguish him from darkness.

In this age of floating signifiers, fake news, and tweeting presidents, it is challenging, even daunting, to adopt Paine’s optimistic stance on the self-evidence of truth. Media and technology have changed all of that, we keep hearing. We may (rightly) ask if Paine was being naive – and whether we are naive to trust what he says.

But we should not forget that speaking truth to power has never been a magic trick or a one-time proposition. Truth may “only” need to appear – but most of the time it needs to appear over and over again before it sinks it. Paine knew this, even if he doesn’t say so here. We can tell that by the number of times that he did, in fact, repeat those democratic ideals that we think we know, but rarely expend the effort to examine or teach or defend. Paine did all these things throughout his life, very often at great personal risk, over, and over, and over again.

Thomas Paine persisted – on many fronts beyond the printed page. And through those efforts, his thoughts and ideas have persisted into our own time.

We need to remember that, and follow his example.

 

 

“We have it in our power to begin the world over again,” wrote Thomas Paine in Common Sense, a pamphlet of less than fifty pages, published in January of 1776, months before the Declaration of Independence was drafted. In clear and robust prose, Paine urged his fellow Americans to do the unthinkable, the impossible – to declare themselves an independent nation.

Given the chaos of American politics at the present moment, many of us no doubt long for the power that Paine invokes here – the power of citizens to alter their government – an idea that may seem quaint in the age of Trump, but which is, after all (or used to be), at the heart of American national identity.

That desire to reshape the world for the better is also at the heart of Ian Ruskin’s compelling one-hour drama on the life of Paine, arguably America’s most fervent revolutionary and certainly the most radical of our Founders. The film is returning to public television stations around the country this week, with multiple airings on the World Channel on and around Independence Day. (Where I live, in the Detroit area, Thomas Paine’s To Begin the World Over Again will be shown four times between July 3 and 4. To find airdates where you are, visit The World Channel, thelifeofthomaspaine.org, or web-search the schedule for your local PBS affiliate.)

I discovered Ian Ruskin’s work through his blog-piece: “Why Thomas Paine Matters,” posted to Daily Kos in April of 2012. The article, reflecting on both the importance of Paine’s ideas and the dearth of political truth-telling in America, also contained links to video excerpts from Ruskin’s stage play.

Watch Video: Enlightenment

For me, this was a perfectly timed coincidence. I watched in wonder and delight as Thomas Paine came to life on my laptop screen. I had been making a study of Paine and his writings ever since reading The Age of Reason in 2009. (The tale of my acquaintance with Mr. Paine can be found in my own Daily Kos diary from about a year ago.) Ruskin’s pushback against a distorted Tea Party version of American history was grounded in fact, not ideology. Better still, he used Paine’s actual words and ideas to press his case. His characterization immediately struck me as jaw-droppingly right – exactly in line with the man I had glimpsed in countless letters and essays, and in the sarcastic humor and soaring rhetoric of all his major works. I knew I had to see this play. And I really wanted to talk to the man who had written and performed it.

About a week later, I sent an email – a fan letter, really – to Ian Ruskin. Since then I’ve had the privilege of chatting with the playwright several times about the purpose and evolution of his play. I saw it performed in Philadelphia at the American Philosophical Society in 2012, and later helped bring it to an audience at Bowling Green State University, where I was then a graduate student in American Studies. One of the undergraduate students told me afterward how inspired he’d been to see the performance (and that he’d also read The Age of Reason), and I realized that history didn’t have to be oversimplified or whitewashed to connect with non-scholars.

In March 2015, I was in the audience at the Lillian Theater in Hollywood as To Begin the World Over Again was filmed. The experience was magical. The creative and artistic process was fascinating, of course – but almost as amazing was getting to see how others in that audience absorbed and reacted to a historical figure as someone relevant to their own lives.

Historian Harvey Kaye, one of the many scholars consulted for Ruskin’s Paine project, has observed in his book Thomas Paine and the Promise of America, that we tend to look back to the American Founders in times of national crisis, habitually seekng inspiration in “our revolutionary past at times … when the very purpose and promise of the nation [are] at risk or in doubt.” Paine in particular, according to Kaye, is the embodiment of the American impulse to radicalism. Ruskin’s goal in bringing Paine to the stage (and now the screen) was originally to remedy public perception of a “misunderstood” historical figure and to counter the “complete distortion of Paine’s words and work and beliefs” by entities such as the Tea Party.

Ruskin seems to have found his mission in rescuing historical figures who’ve been misunderstood or have faded from public memory. He began exploring the potential of history-based one-man plays in 2001 with From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks, which celebrates the achievements of labor radical Harry Bridges. His next project will take on the life and thought of the inventor Nikola Tesla.

Both the stage and film versions of To Begin the World Over Again capture the turbulence and heartbreak of Thomas Paine’s life, while also exploring his most important ideas – which have shaped American political thought for more than two centuries now.

The film opens with Ruskin as Paine lighting candles on a darkened stage – an apt metaphor for our own political moment. Over the course of an hour, he recounts his tumultuous career – from poverty in England through the upheavals of the American and French Revolutions, to the public declaration of his own non-Christianity in The Age of Reason – an event which led to public censure and neglect in the years before his death in 1809. Along the way, period music and eighteenth-century art (political cartoons and portraits of Paine’s contemporaries), help to flesh out the story and re-create the atmosphere of Paine’s time in all its messiness: its rationalism (for the lucky few), its revolutions, its abject poverty (for the many) and its boisterous and often corrupt politics.

If all of that sounds a little familiar, it should.

The play was called timely by several critics even before the election of 2016. Now, as our nation endures seemingly endless corruption and chaos, meanness and hatred directed at the most vulnerable, and a looming constitutional crisis, Paine’s words and ideas take on a new and urgent relevance.

“I believe the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.”             — Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

Far from being a textbook lesson about a lone genius, Ruskin’s film is a believable human drama about patriotism and sacrifice – about the potential cost of idealism, selflessness, and speaking truth to power. As we learn, Paine sacrificed nearly all for his vision of a better, more humane world: intimate love, emotional and financial security, domestic ties to family and country – and many of his closest friendships, whether to death or to ideological disputes. Ever more abandoned and solitary, Paine ages before our eyes in this film. His bitter, late-in-life breaks with George Washington and Samuel Adams are wrenching – for him and for us. His literal appearance as a lone figure on the minimally dressed stage becomes all too symbolically fitting.

Perhaps Ruskin’s most impressive feat here is to provide us a glimpse into the heart and mind of a man whose inner life, even for scholars, remains elusive. Paine was not in the habit of self-disclosure in his writings, most of which are intended to persuade through reason and sheer force of rhetoric. Yet Ruskin somehow gets beneath the surface of the political man, using Paine’s personal correspondence, his religious writings, and the observations of scholars and contemporaries to fill in the knowledge gaps – and by making intuitive leaps as necessary. In interviews, Ruskin cites his own sense of kinship with Paine the immigrant as a factor that informs his interpretation of the character. The deeper Ruskin dives into Paine’s psyche, the more riveting his performance becomes.

In some ways, I am reminded of the musical 1776, one of my personal touchstones to the American Revolution from about the age of about eleven. Like that much longer play, To Begin the World Over Again moves from lightness and bawdy eighteenth-century jokes (Ruskin’s Paine speaks of the similarities of “politics and farting”), to the darker aspects of revolution and its human toll. The excited, almost bubbly Paine that we see in the first half of the film contrasts sharply with the somber character of the second half. It is in the film’s closing moments, when Ruskin’s delivery slows down and Paine becomes reflective, that we see the man worn down to his essentials, a weary soul battered by harsh experience, yet still unwilling to compromise his words or beliefs. As an actor, Ruskin is at his most compelling while revealing Paine’s slow emotional breakdown. The unblinking and up-close eye of the camera makes that decline harrowing. On film (as opposed to the live stage), Paine is literally no longer at arm’s length, and the effect is powerful.

For those who don’t want to wait, the film is currently available to stream at on Amazon Prime and Vimeo. The DVD can be ordered on Amazon or directly from Ruskin’s non-profit.

Thomas Paine not only knew how to rally a resistance movement – he knew the rigors of sustaining one. During the winter of 1777, as Washington’s troops retreated across the frozen Jersies and the American Revolution appeared to be doomed, he wrote the first of his Crisis papers, opening with the line: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” The essay reaches its rhetorical climax in these lines–used by President Obama in his first inaurgual address:

Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it.

I urge everyone to spare an hour over the July Fourth holiday to take in the story of America’s Founding Radical, a man who, in the most personal way, understood that “it is dearness only that gives every thing its value,” and who fought all of his life for the “celestial article [of] FREEDOM” for every single human being. At a time when America’s founding ideals are being threatened as never before, the voice of Thomas Paine, always ahead of his time, continues to speak powerfully to our own.

Watch Trailer: Thomas Paine’s To Begin the World Over Again

This is a President Obama story, an Inauguration Day story. It is also a Thomas Paine story.

While sifting through the random items that somehow made it from my old house to my new(ish) apartment this past December, I came across a large button celebrating the 2009 inauguration of then-new President Barack Obama. Round, bright white, and oversized, the button featured Obama’s portrait and the words “Hope and Virtue” in large, bold type. I had ordered it online in those giddy first days of the first Obama term, because I liked the design — and because I wanted to brag on the victory of “my” President after eight dark and fearful years of the George W. Bush administration. Good riddance, Scooter Libby and “Darth” Cheney. Hello, Hope and Virtue.

Though I have to admit that at the time, the phrase “hope and virtue” struck my ear a bit oddly. “Virtue,” seemed a quaint and old-fashioned term. When was the last time “virtue” had been invoked in American political discourse? No matter. It was still one cool piece of swag.

This button soon joined the collection of Obama swag I had amassed during the election, which in time, like many of my collections, somehow dispersed itself and then disappeared into the variegated and unorganized museum of things known as “my stuff.” I forgot about it.

During the autumn of 2009, I read a book called The Age of Reason, and instantly became fascinated with its author. A Paine biography later yielded an interesting connection: Obama’s first inaugural address contained a quote from Paine (sadly uncredited), that had been lifted from the first “Crisis Paper,” written in the winter of 1776, while Washington’s army was retreating across the frozen Jersies. It was meant to lift the spirits of both the American soldiers and citizens during the “times that tried men’s souls.” The passage Obama used:

“Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it.”

Of course, by that time I had forgotten my cute, flashy Obama button with its quaint, dated phrasing, but when it turned up again nearly eight years later, while I was sorting through some boxes of things I’d saved, it seemed ironically appropriate that I should rediscover it at the end of Obama’s second term — both literally and figuratively “in the depth of winter.” This time, of course, I instantly recognized the key words as Paine’s phrasing, indeed old-fashioned — and utterly appropriate. My (re)discovery of this ephemeral but suddenly very relevant object felt like a little nudge from the universe, the dropping of a cosmic hint – a gift and a reminder from both Thomas Paine and President Obama to hold fast to our nation’s professed ideals, even – especially – at a time when those ideals seem more fragile and in more danger than ever before.

Obama’s inauguration was a celebration of hope, an amazing display of diversity and all that was best about America. I kept the TV on for hours all through those festivities, and (it seemed) for most of the weekend after. This year, needless to say, I won’t be looking at my TV on Friday unless it’s to watch PBS Kids or the Create channel.

I will, however, find a place to display my “vintage” Obama button – probably someplace near a picture of Thomas Paine (I have several). Like Paine, I will endeavor to resist our “common danger” with word and with action, and like “my” President, I will have the audacity to hope for better days.

“Say not that thousands are gone, turn out your tens of thousands; throw not the burden of the day upon Providence, but ‘show your faith by your works,’ that God may bless you. It matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil or the blessing will reach you all. The far and the near, the home counties and the back, the rich and the poor, will suffer or rejoice alike. The heart that feels not now is dead; the blood of his children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole, and made them happy.”

– Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, Number One, 1776

On this day in 1809,  more than 200 years ago, Thomas Paine died in what is now Greenwich Village, New York. Plagued during the last weeks of his life by “visitors” – some of whom forced entry into his rooms – who sought to convert him from deism to Christianity, Paine held firm to his belief in a benevolent creator God who was not to be found in the Bible, but rather in the wonders of the natural world.

It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a word of God can unite. The Creation speaketh an universal language, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they be. It is an ever existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God. —Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794

Of Paine’s trying last days, W. T. Sherwin, one of his earliest sympathetic biographers, writes:

The men who had fled from the force of his arguments during his life-time, were the first to flock around him in his dying moments, thinking that, in the excess of bodily anguish, he might be induced to drop a word in opposition to his former opinions, or conceiving that, through their often repeated exhortations, he might be persuaded to subscribe to their system of faith. If these gentlemen were not on every occasion so politely received as they expected, they met with no more than they deserved…

The night before Paine died, he was asked by his physician: “Do you wish to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?”

Paine responded with words as carefully chosen as any he had even written:

“I have no wish to believe on the subject.”

He died peacefully early the following morning.

To this day, unfounded rumors and urban legends persist of Paine’s supposed recantation of his Deism, his purported terror of the fires of hell. Paine knew no such fears. The historical record shows that Thomas Paine died “placidly, and almost without a struggle,” in the words of his friend Clio Rickman. “[He] died,” says Rickman, “as he had lived, a deist.”

About a century later, John E. Remsberg, a teacher, Civil War Union veteran, and prolific writer of freethought literature, imagined and described Paine’s death this way:

Tempestuous as life’s voyage had been, the old man reached his port in peace. Nature, whom he had deified, fondly and pityingly held him in her all-embracing arms, and soothed him in that last sad hour as with a mother’s love. The morning sun looked kindly down and kissed his throbbing temples; gentle breezes, fragrant with the odors of a thousand roses, fanned his fevered brow; joyous birds, whose songs he loved so well, came to his window and sang their cheeriest notes; while faithful friends were at his bedside, ministering to every want. And so, bravely and peacefully, with that serenity of soul which only the consciousness of a well-spent life can give, the grand old patriot passed away.

Remsberg writes in the florid and sentimental language of nineteenth-century popular literature, a style that is often mocked and disparaged today, but I have always loved this passage because of the writer’s obvious feeling for Paine, and his clear desire to reach back across time and envision — or offer — comfort to the lonely soul who had sacrificed so much in fighting for the rights and liberties of others.

It is worth remembering that as a veteran of the Civil War, Remsberg would have been witness to battlefield deaths and suffering on a scale that Americans had never before experienced. As historian Drew Gilpin Faust notes in This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, Americans of the Civil War era shared Victorian sensibilities about death. A “good death” meant being surrounded by family and making peace with God. Books were written expressly to instruct Christian readers on how to die properly — with grace, dignity, and appropriate piety. The brutality of the Civil War, with its massive, indiscriminate, and often anonymous slaughter, shattered this mythology for many.

It is interesting to think that in some sense, Remsburg, steeped in the traditions of this era, may in fact have been striving to give Thomas Paine the gift, if only in memory, of a good death.

I came across this story — really a fragment — written out longhand in one of my journals. I had forgotten I’d written it, but it seemed exactly the piece with which to launch this blog, which is all about the intersections between story and history.

Sigh. “I can’t do this anymore, Thomas.”

The bewigged head snaps up from the writing desk. The blue eyes fix like bright daggers.

“Do what?”

“This …” My gestures are formless, helpless. I wave my hands vaguely at the cluttered apartment. The towels dumped in a pile in the middle of the sofa, the papers scattered – everywhere.

“This.”

The blue eyes regard me solemnly, unsurprised. He lays down the quill, adjusts the spectacles on his large nose.

“You mean this – bit of untidiness?”

“My life,” I correct him.

A decisive shake of the head. The wig goes askew and he pushes it back in place, an impatient gesture. “This is not your life.”

Ink-stained fingers pick up the quill, tap it gently but pointedly against the paper. “This – is your life.”

“It was supposed to be.”

“So what’s changed?”

“Oh, I don’t know. A kid. A divorce. A need to pay rent.”

The blue eyes never waver. I almost want to look away.

“But that’s everyone’s life, you know,” he says, not judging now. Just stating fact.

“I know.”

“But not everyone has this–” The quill again, flicking against the side of the table. “Gifts are meant to be used.”

It is an argument I cannot win. Ever.

“You’re right, Thomas.”

Lifted brows. “And?”

“And … I guess I should just do it, huh?”

A slight nod of approval, and then his nose is back in his parchment again. The quill scratching busily.

I sit down, pull up a blank page on my monitor, curl my fingers over the keys – and begin.

–July 11, 2015

My dialogue with Mr. Paine tells a story, of course, a story that is only tangentially about history or about a historical character, but reveals a great deal about me and particularly me-as-writer. The words came spontaneously in a moment of frustration, as much journal-writing does. But my casting of Thomas Paine in the role of mentor was hardly a random choice.

I’ve been absorbing the details Paine’s life and writings since 2009. The historical details used here, though sparse, are drawn from what I know of his character, his appearance, his habits, and his life. I know he had blue eyes and a frequently piercing gaze, noted by many of the people who met him. I know that he was sometimes observed to be untidy, and that, like many eighteenth-century men, he sometimes wore a wig (described by at least one observer as “tattered”). I actually saw Paine’s metal-frame spectacles in a display case at Iona College, which houses several artifacts belonging to the Thomas Paine National Historical Association. All these bits and pieces of data manage to creep into my text.

More importantly, I know that Paine was a fiercely devoted writer, and that he wrote under hardships I can only imagine: while broke and unemployed, while waiting in the dead of night to be carried off to prison – and probable beheading – during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror (which he survived). He continued to write and publish as an old man, when his body was so frail and broken that it required supreme effort just to sit at a desk. In at least one biography, I read that Paine dictated work during times when his hands were so wracked with gout that he couldn’t manage a quill.

Yet almost until the day he died, Thomas Paine never stopped writing. I don’t say that in my journal entry, but the knowledge of that fact lies at the heart of my little story. It underlies my entire sense of who Paine was and why I should try to emulate him.

In these ways, my story is informed by history and in small ways even interprets it. Yet its clear purpose is making sense of my own life during a specific moment in time. To that end, my storyteller’s imagination borrowed a real-life historical character and spun a kind of fable — with a “moral,” yet — out of the facts of his life.

Professional historians, seeking truer, more accurate, and richer understandings of the past in its “pastness” (yes, that’s a real academic term) are forever having to warn the rest of us – as both readers and writers – against the pitfalls of seeing history as mere entertainment, or only through the narrow window of our particular moment, as though we and our time were the ultimate purpose of everything and everyone that has gone before. Yet we cannot seem to resist the appeal of recreating other times in our own image, of telling stories about the people who inhabited those times – people who were and were not like ourselves, but who were, after all, our ancestors.

When we tell historical tales, we are spinning the myth of our own origin.

Stories about the American Founders, including Thomas Paine (who wasn’t always considered a Founder, by the way – but we’ll get to that later …) are part of our national mythology – and I don’t use the word “mythology” here as a term of disparagement. Cultural and personal mythologies capture our beliefs and values. They reveal what we believe about ourselves.

They tell us, and the rest of the world, who we think we are.

… to my very own Thomas Paine blog! More to come soon …