Page:Life of John Boyle O'Reilly.djvu/281

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HIS LIFE, POEMS AND SPEECHES
241

in Faneuil Hall, on August 13, President Alexander Sullivan, of Chicago, presiding. Two Irish parliamentary delegates, Thomas Sexton and William E. Redmond, were present, both at the convention and at the monster meeting held on the 15th in the hall of the New England Manufacturers' Institute, where nearly 20,000 people assembled, O'Reilly took an active but unofficial part in the organization of both meetings. Patrick Egan was elected to succeed Mr. Sullivan as President of the League.

In the same month appeared a curious novel, from which I have quoted in the account of his prison life at Dartmoor, " The King's Men," written by four authors, John Boyle O'Reilly, Robert Grant, Frederic J. Stimson ("J. S. of Dale"), and John T. Wheelwright. The authors received $5000 for the work, which was said to have increased the circulation of the Boston Globe, in which it appears serially, to the extent of thirty thousand subscribers. The book was a literary curiosity, but so well had the several authors done their parts that a reader, not in the secret, would have failed to receive that it was not all the work of a single writer. It was published in book form by Charles Scribner & Sons, of New York.

Another if the delightful poems, unpolished and unpretentious, with which he used to entertain the Papyrus Club, was read at its regular meeting, on October 4 of the is year. It is entitled "The Fierce Light," and refers, of course, to that which beats upon the throne of Papyrus.

THE FIERCE LIGHT

A town there was, and lo! it had a Club—
A special set, each hubbier than the Hub;
Selection's own survival of the fit,
As rubies ere gathered from the pit,
These rare one shone amid the outer horde
Till picked ad gathered for the club's bright board.

Oh! but they made a nosegay for the soul,
Tied with a silken