Page:A Memorial of John Boyle O'Reilly from the City of Boston.djvu/34

28 mediæval knight. If his adversary was so ignoble as to resort to means unworthy of honorable warfare, he withdrew from the field, preferring to be accounted vanquished rather than be defiled by contact with anything that was base or vile. As soon as a controversy became a vehicle for bitter recrimination or personal abuse he excluded it from the columns of "The Pilot," which he edited with such ability and success.

He preferred to loot at the bright side of things and the good that is in every man, and thus kept his soul at peace with all men, his temper sweet, and his mind serene. He saw and sung what was good in the Pilgrim of Plymouth Rock, the Puritan of Salem, the Virginia planter, and the Maryland colonist. He was singularly clear-sighted in the discernment of character, and hence the friends that he took into his confidence were always worthy of him, and remained loyal to the end. During his American career he was a potent force in Irish politics, one of the earliest promoters of the Land League agitation, a steady friend of the Home Rule movement, and a firm believer in the ultimate success of the Parnell Parliamentary Party.

He loved America and her institutions, but his heart was in Ireland. In spite of his bright prospects in this country, he told me some years ago that the dearest wish of his heart was to return to his native place by the River Boyne, and there edit a