Note 169 — Chapter I
Reading edition
The impression lingered on after the stir caused by the appearance of the Age of Reason. In 1803 Paine was in southern New England. His presence was disturbing, as the following comment of William Bentley will show: “Reports are circulated that Thomas Paine intends to visit New England. The name is enough. Every person has ideas of him. Some respect his genius and dread the man. Some reverence his political, while they hate his religious, opinions. Some love the man, but not his private manners. Indeed he has done nothing which has not extremes in it. He never appears but we love and hate him. He is as great a paradox as ever appeared in human nature.” (Diary, vol. iii. p. 37. Cf. ibid., vol. ii. pp. 102, 107, 145.)