The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1874-06-11
The Good Fellow.

We WON if "The Good Fellow ever mis-
trusts his goodness, or realizes how selfish, how
weak, how unprincipled, and how bad fellow
he truly is. He never regards the consequent
ces of his acts as they relate to others, and
especially those of his family friends. Little
fits of generosity toward them are supposed to
atone for all his misdeeds, while he indicts
upon them the disgraces, inconveniences, and
burdens which attend sel6shly dissolute life.
The invitation of friend, the taunts of a
good .natured boon companion, the temptations
of jolly fellowship, these are enough to over
come all his scruples, and to lead him to ignore
all the possible results to those who love him
BEST and must care for him in sickness and all
the unhappy phases of his selfish life.
''The Good Fellow" is notoriously careless
of his family. Any outside friend can lead
him whithersoever he will-into debauchery,
idleness, vagabondage. He can ask favor,
and it is done. He can invite him into dis
grace and he goes. he can direct him into
job of dirty work, and he straightway under.
takes it. He can tempt him into any indul-
gence which may suit his vicious whins, and,
regardless Of wife, mother, sister, who may be
shortened in their resources so as legitimately
to claim his protecting hand regardless of
honorable father, brother-he will spend his
money, waste his time, and make himself
subject of constant and painful anxiety, or an
unmitigated nuisance to those alone who care
a straw for him. What pay does he receive
for this shameful sacrifice? The honor of be-
ing considered "Good Fellow" with set of
men who would not spend cent for him if
they should see him starving, and who would
laugh over his calamities. When he dies in
the ditch, as he is most likely to do, they
breath sigh over the swill they drink, and
say, "after all he was Good Fellow"
The feature of the "Good Fellows" case
which makes it well nigh hopeless is, that he
thinks he is "Good Fellow" He thinks that
his pliable disposition, his readiness to do
other good fellows service, and his jolly ways,
atone for all his faults. His love of praise is
fed by his companions, and thus his self-com-
sacrifice of honor and the honor and peace Of
his family, for the sake of outside praise is the
offspring of the most heartless selfshness
quite unaware that his disregard of the inter-
ests and feelings of those who are bound to
him by the closest ties of blood, is the demon
stration of his utterly unprincipled character;
he carries an unrufaed or jovial front, while
hearts bleed or break around him. Of all the
scamps society knows, the traditional good
fellow is the most despicabe. A man who, for
the sake of his own selfish delights, or the
sake of the praise of careless or unprincipled
friends, makes his home scene of'anxiety and
torture, and degrades and disgraces all who are
associated with him in his home-life, is, wheth
er he knows it or not, a brute. If man can
not be loyal to his home and to those who love
him, then he cannot be loyal to anything that
is good. There is something mean beyond
description, in any man who cares more for
anything in this world than the honor, the
confidence, and love of his family. There is
something radically wrong in such man, and
the quicker and the more thoroughly he reali-
zes it, in humiliation which bends him to
the earth in shame and confusion, the better
for them. The traditional good fellow is bad
fellow from the crown of his head to the sole
of his foot. He is as weak as baby, vain as
peacock, selfish as pig, and as unprincipled
as q thief. He has not one redeeming trait
upon which 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 friends while
his home is in need of the money he wastes,
and who gives himself no indulgence of good
fellowship at the expense of duty A man
with whom the approving smile of wife, or
mother, or sister, does not weigh more than
thousand crazy bravos of boon companions, is
lust no man at all.-Scribner's for June