, as though it made an effort to keep up with the
business character of the street. Two brick structures rise above it
on each side and seem to have forced the roof to a frightful angle, so
different is it from its new neighbors. Once Joel Barlow went to see
Paine there, and the two spent almost an entire day beside a front
window, talking of many things. Paine recalled the troublous days of
the French Revolution, when he had written his _Age of Reason_ in the
prison of the Luxembourg, and had given it to Barlow to find a
publisher. The author of the _Columbiad_ often spoke of the visit
later.

The dusty road where the house stood, even though it was little
travelled, came to be too noisy a place for Paine, for in his illness
even the chance passer-by irritated him. So he moved away to a house
in a nearby field, so far from the road that he found absolute quiet.
In after days Grove Street swept this home away, and another building,
numbered 59, is pointed out as the place where Paine died shortly
after his removal.

The hatred of many people followed Thomas Paine even after death, and
there could be no rest for an advocate of infidel opinions in a town
where dwelt descendants of stern Huguenots. His body was taken to New
Rochelle, and there, refused burial in hallowed ground, was finally
laid to rest outside the town, in a corner of the farm given to him by
the State in recognition of his services in the cause of the colonies
against the mother country. Ten years later, William Cobbett, the
English Radical, an ardent admirer of Paine, visited New Rochelle,
and, seeing the neglected grave by the wayside, had the bones dug up
one night and spirited away to England. In another twenty years the
followers of Thomas Paine had grown in number, and the Paine
Historical Society erected a monument over the empty grave by the
roadside. But on this spot, where no rest had been permitted him in
life or in death, it seems rather to mock than to bless his grave.

Chapter V

The City that Irving Knew

Stretching from Broadway towards the east, starting from the
ivy-covered walls of the Chapel of St. Paul--here lay the scenes of
Washington Irving's childhood. Golden Hill was the name given to this
district, long before Irving was born; called so because of its golden
appearance in the autumn days. It was a wondrously beautiful place,
and set squarely upon the hill-top was an inn that, in the days of the
Revolution, came t