The closing tribute to his own reason, written in privacy, was, perhaps pardonably, suppressed by the modern editor, and also the reference to the insignificant who "will be dropt entirely." This sentiment is not indeed democratic, but it is significant. It seems plain that Paine's conception of the universe was dualistic. Though he discards the notion of a devil, I do not find that he ever ridicules it. No doubt he would, were he now living, incline to a division of nature into organic and inorganic, and find his deity, as Zoroaster did, in the living as distinguished from, and sometimes in antagonism with, the "not-living". In this belief he would now find himself in harmony with some of the ablest modern philosophers.* * John Stuart Mill, for instance. See also the Rev. Dr. Abbott's "Kernel and Husk" (London), and the great work of Samuel Laing, "A Modern Zoroastrian." {1806} The opening year 1806 found Paine in New Rochelle. By insufficient nourishment in Carver's house his health was impaired. His means were getting low, insomuch that to support the Bonnevilles he had to sell the Bordentown house and property.* * It was bought for $300 by his friend John Oliver, whose daughter, still residing in the house, told me that her father to the end of his life "thought everything of Paine." John Oliver, in his old age, visited Colonel Ingersoll in order to testify against the aspersions on Paine's character and habits. Elihu Palmer had gone off to Philadelphia for a time; he died there of yellow fever in 1806. The few intelligent people whom Paine knew were much occupied, and he was almost without congenial society. His hint to Jefferson of his impending poverty, and his reminder that Virginia had not yet given him the honorarium he and Madison approved, had brought no result. With all this, and the loss of early friendships, and the theological hornet-nest he had found in New York, Paine began to feel that his return to America was a mistake. The air-castle that had allured him to his beloved land had faded. His little room with the Bonnevilles in Paris, with its chaos of papers, was preferable; for there at least he could enjoy the society of educated persons, free from bigotry. He dwelt a stranger in his Land of Promise.