The truth of the matter is that the word "good" is a bit like the poor fellow that went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. It has fallen among thieves that have stripped it of its raiment and have wounded it and departed, leaving it half dead. It is a word that has a hospital odor about it. It savors of plasters and poultices and invalid chairs. Its right hand has no cunning. Its tongue has no fire. Its cheeks are corpse-like in their paleness. It seems to be in the last stages of consumption. If people say we are handsome or cultured we are delighted, but who is complimented by being called good? What has wrecked this word? What is the secret of its weakness and utter insipidity? Answer: bad company. The Book says, "The companion of fools shall be destroyed." And this word is an example of the truth of that statement. It has been forced to rub elbows with bad company till it has come into utter disrepute. Its evil companions have been of two classes. First, it has been made to associate with the gentleman about town whose greatest merit was that he would smoke a cigar with you, if you would furnish the cigar, or take a drink with you, if you would furnish the liquor. He also graced a dress suit, even though it were a rented one with the rent unpaid. And he looked well in pumps. He was a graceful dancer and good at poker. He also was very skilled in never having a job. And his friends all said that "he was a good fellow." And, of course, being forced to keep company with said fellow was enough to ruin the reputation of the word forever more. But as if that were not enough calamity to befall any innocent and inoffensive word, it was forced into another association that was but little less disreputable. There was an individual--sometimes a man, sometimes a woman--who did not swear, nor lie, nor steal, nor dip snuff; whose conduct was as immaculate as that of a wax figure in a show window; who never made a mistake, nor did he ever make anything else. He was as aggressive as a crawfish and as magnetic as a mummy. He was "faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null." And one day we felt called upon to clothe this colorless insipidity, this incarnate nonentity, with some sort of an adjective, and so we threw around its scrawny shoulders this once glorious robe "good." We said, "Yes, he isn't much account, it is true, but he is a good fellow." And the garment fit him as the coat of Goliath would fit a pigmy. But little by little the once great cloak seemed to draw up and to come to fit the figure of the dwarf.