The Good Fellow

We wonder if " The Good Fellow ' ever mistrusts his goodness, or realizes how selfish, how weak, how unprincipled, and how bad a fellow he truly is. Ho never regards the eousequences of his acts as thry relate to othurs, and especially those of his faiiiüy friends. Little fits of geuerosity towards them are supposed to atoue for all his misdocds, while he inÜicts upou them t(in disgruces, inconveniences, and burdens which atteud a seltishly diséolute life. The invitation of a frieud, the tauutti of good-natured boon oompanious, the ten ptations of joüy fel lowsuip, these are enough to overeóme all his surupíes, if he has any scruples, and to lead hini to ignora all the possible resul ts to those who love him best, aud who must care for him in sickness and all the unhappy phases of his seltish life. The Good Fellow is notoriously careless of his faunly. Any outside friend can lead him whithersoever he will - into debauchery, idlenusa, vagabondage. He eau ask a favor, aud it is done. He can invite him into disgrace, and he goes. - He can direct him into a job of dirty work, and he straightway uudertakes it. He can tempt him into any iudulgence which may ttuit his vicious whims, and, regardless of wife, tnother, sister, who may be shorteued in their resources so as legitimately to claim his protecting hand, -regardless of honorable father aud brother, - he will spend his money, waste his time, aud make himself a subject of constant and pain tul anxiety, or an unmitigated nuisance to those alone who care a straw for him. Wbat pay does he receive for this shameful sacin'ce ' The lionor of being oonsidered a " Good FelLow,'' with a set of men who would not. spend a cent for him if they should see ■ïim starving, and who would laugh over lis calamities. When he dies in the ditcb, s he is most likely to die, they breatbe sigh over the swill they drink, and gay, " tutter all, he was a Good Fellow. The feature of the Good Fellow's caae which niakes it well nigh hopeless, is, tliut he thinks he is a Good Fellow. He thinks that his pliable disposition, his readiness to do other good iellows a serviee.aud his jolly wayt, utoiie for all his faults. His love of praise is led by his coinpanious. and thus his self-uoinplacency is nursed. Quite unaware that his good fellowshipis the result of his .weaknuss; quite unaware that his saorifice of honor, and the honor and peace of his family, for the sake of outside praise is the offspring of the most heartless selfishness; quite unaware that his disregard of the interette and feehngs of those who are bound to him by the olosest ties of blood, is the dein jnstration of his uitoily unprincipled character ; he carries an unrufüed, or a jovial front, while hearts bleed or break around him. Of all the scainps society knows, the traditional good fellow is 'the most despicable. A man wbo for the sake of his own seltish delights, or the sake of the praise of oarelesa or unprincipled friends, makes his home a scène of anxiety and torture, and degrades and disgraces all who are associuted with him in his home life, is, whether he knows it or nol, a brute. If a man cannot be loyal to his home, and to those who love hiiu, then he can not be loyal to anything that is good. There is something mean beyond description, in any man who cares more for anything in this world thau the honor, the confidence, and love of his family. There is something radically wrong in such a Lian, and the quicker, and the more tnoroughly he realizes it, in a humiliation which bends him to the earth in shame and confusión, the better for him. The traditional good fellow is a bad tellow froin the crown of his head to the sole of his loot. He is as weak as a baby, vum as a peacock, selfish as a pig, iiim as unpriucipled as a thief. He has not one redeeming trait upon which a reasonable self respect can be built and braced. . Give us the bad fellow, who stands by his personal and family honor, who sticks to his own, who does not " treat " his rienda while his home is in need of the uioney he waste; and who gives himsel' no indulgence of good fellowship at, the expense of duty ! A man with whom the approving smile of a wife, or mother, or sister, does not weigh more than a thouand crazy bravos of boon companions, is