Page:A Memorial of John Boyle O'Reilly from the City of Boston.djvu/42

36 poor man or wronged woman, and I would say to him:—

"Well, what are they to you? "

"No more than they are to you, sir; but if you had heard them as I have heard them you could not help it."

That was the beautiful side of his character, which attracted me to him from the first; and we grew stronger and stronger in the bonds of affection and friendship, certainly on my part, as the other sides of his character presented themselves to me, and I could learn from him, as one side and the other came out toward me, how much there was in the man. And when the sad news of his early taking off came to me, no greater grief, save only the death of those nearest and clearest to me, has ever struck my heart.

All agree that he was a patriot to his native land, ready to give, and who did give, the highest sacrifices. All agree that to the land of his adoption he has given the best talent of his life. And if there was any drawback from that, it was, I have thought, that he was so in hopes that America should succeed, and thus save Ireland, that he was a little Irish in that as well as in everything else.

Of his genius as a poet, drawing from the very heart for inspiration, all men that have read what has been written of verse in the last twenty years know. That he was a natural orator in a very high degree is very easily expressed by saying that he was an educated