Paine's recovery after such prolonged and perilous suffering was a sort of resurrection. In April (1796) he leaves Monroe's house for the country, and with the returning life of nature his strength is steadily recovered. What to the man whose years of anguish, imprisonment, disease, at last pass away, must have been the paths and hedgerows of Versailles, where he now meets the springtide, and the more healing sunshine of affection! Risen from his thorny bed of pain—
"The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise."
So had it been even if nature alone had surrounded him. But Paine had been restored by the tenderness and devotion of friends. Had it not been for friendship he could hardly have been saved. We are little able, in the present day, to appreciate the reverence and affection with which Thomas Paine was regarded by those who saw in him the greatest apostle of liberty in the world. Elihu Palmer spoke a very general belief when he declared Paine "probably the most useful man that ever existed upon the face of the earth." This may sound wild enough on the ears of those to whom Liberty has become a familiar drudge. There was a time when she was an ideal Rachel, to win whom many years of terrible service were not too much; but now in the garish day she is our prosaic Leah,—a serviceable creature in her way, but quite unromantic. In Paris there were ladies and gentlemen who had known something of the cost of Liberty,—Colonel and Mrs. Monroe, Sir Robert and Lady Smith, Madame Lafayette, Mr. and Mrs. Barlow, M. and Madame De Bonneville. They had known what it was to watch through anxious nights with terrors surrounding them. He who had suffered most was to them a sacred person. He had come out of the succession of ordeals, so weak in body, so wounded by American ingratitude, so sore at heart, that no delicate child needed more tender care. Set those ladies and their charge a thousand years back in the poetic past, and they become Morgan le Fay, and the Lady Nimue, who bear the wounded warrior away to their Avalon, there to be healed of his grievous hurts. Men say their Arthur is dead, but their love is stronger than death. And though the service of these friends might at first have been reverential, it had ended with attachment, so great was Paine's power, so wonderful and pathetic his memories, so charming the play of his wit, so full his response to kindness.
One especially great happiness awaited him when he became convalescent. Sir Robert Smith, a wealthy banker in Paris, made his acquaintance, and he discovered that Lady Smith was no other than "The Little Corner of the World," whose letters had carried sunbeams into his prison.* An intimate friendship was at once established with Sir Robert and his lady, in whose house, probably at Versailles, Paine was a guest after leaving the Monroes. To Lady Smith, on discovering her, Paine addressed a poem,—"The Castle in the Air to the Little Corner of the World":
* Sir Robert Smith (Smythe in the Peerage List) was born in
1744, and married, first, Miss Blake of London (1776). The
name of the second Lady Smith, Paine's friend, before her
marriage I have not ascertained.
"In the region of clouds, where the whirlwinds arise,
My Castle of Fancy was built;
The turrets reflected the blue from the skies,
And the windows with sunbeams were gilt.
"The rainbow sometimes, in its beautiful state,
Enamelled the mansion around;
And the figures that fancy in clouds can create
Supplied me with gardens and ground.
"I had grottos, and fountains, and orange-tree groves,
I had all that enchantment has told;
I had sweet shady walks for the gods and their loves,
I had mountains of coral and gold.
"But a storm that I felt not had risen and rolled,
While wrapped in a slumber I lay;
And when I looked out in the morning, behold,
My Castle was carried away.
"It passed over rivers and valleys and groves,
The world it was all in my view;
I thought of my friends, of their fates, of their loves,
And often, full often, of you.
"At length it came over a beautiful scene,
That nature in silence had made;
The place was but small, but't was sweetly serene,
And chequered with sunshine and shade.
"I gazed and I envied with painful good will,
And grew tired of my seat in the air;
When all of a sudden my Castle stood still,
As if some attraction were there.
"Like a lark from the sky it came fluttering down,
And placed me exactly in view,
When whom should I meet in this charming retreat
This corner of calmness, but—you.
"Delighted to find you in honour and ease,
I felt no more sorrow nor pain;
But the wind coming fair, I ascended the breeze,
And went back with my Castle again."
Paine was now a happy man. The kindness that rescued him from death was followed by the friendship that beguiled him from horrors of the past. From gentle ladies he learned that beyond the Age of Reason lay the forces that defeat Giant Despair.
"To reason [so he writes to Lady Smith] against feelings is as vain as to reason against fire: it serves only to torture the torture, by adding reproach to horror. All reasoning with ourselves in such cases acts upon us like the reasoning of another person, which, however kindly done, serves but to insult the misery we suffer. If Reason could remove the pain, Reason would have prevented it. If she could not do the one, how is she to perform the other? In all such cases we must look upon Reason as dispossessed of her empire, by a revolt of the mind. She retires to a distance to weep, and the ebony sceptre of Despair rules alone. All that Reason can do is to suggest, to hint a thought, to signify a wish, to cast now and then a kind of bewailing look, to hold up, when she can catch the eye, the miniature shaded portrait of Hope; and though dethroned, and can dictate no more, to wait upon us in the humble station of a handmaid."
The mouth of the rescued and restored captive was filled with song. Several little poems were circulated among his friends, but not printed; among them the following:
"Contentment; or, if you please, Confession. To Mrs. Barlow, on her pleasantly telling the author that, after writing against the superstition of the Scripture religion, he was setting up a religion capable of more bigotry and enthusiasm, and more dangerous to its votaries—that of making a religion of Love.
"O could we always live and love,
And always be sincere,
I would not wish for heaven above,
My heaven would be here.
"Though many countries I have seen,
And more may chance to see,
My Little Corner of the World
Is half the world to me.
"The other half, as you may guess,
America contains;
And thus, between them, I possess
The whole world for my pains.
"I'm then contented with my lot,
I can no happier be;
For neither world I 'm sure has got
So rich a man as me.
"Then send no fiery chariot down
To take me off from hence,
But leave me on my heavenly ground—
This prayer is common sense.
"Let others choose another plan,
I mean no fault to find;
The true theology of man
Is happiness of mind."