one--that is all.

And now our daily moralizers declare that bad company alone brought our
unhappy subject down. Yes, bad company! The boy might have grown up into
beneficent manhood; he might have helped to spread comfort and culture
and solid happiness among the people; but he fell into bad company, and
he is now pitied and scorned by the most despicable of the human race;
and I observe that one of his humorous Press patrons advises him to
drive a cab. Think of Gordon nobly spending his pittance among the poor
mudlarks; think of the good Lord Shaftesbury ekeing out his scanty means
among the poor; think of all the gallant souls that made the most of
poverty; and then think of that precious half-million gone to light
fresh fuel under the hotbeds of vice and villainy! Should I be wrong if
I said that the contrast rouses me to indignation and even horror? And
now let us consider what bad company means. Paradoxical as it may seem,
I do not by any means think that bad company is necessarily made up of
bad men. I say that any company is bad for a man if it does not tempt
him to exert his higher faculties. It is as certain as death that a
bodily member which is left unused shrinks and becomes aborted. If one
arm is hung for a long time in a sling, the muscles gradually fade until
the skin clings closely round the bone. The wing of the huge penguin
still exists, but it is no bigger than that of a wren, and it is hidden
away under the skin. The instances might be multiplied a thousandfold.
In the same way then any mental faculty becomes atrophied if it is
unused. Bad company is that which produces this atrophy of the finer
powers; and it is strange to see how soon the deadly process of
shrinkage sets in. The awful thing to think of is that the cramp may
insensibly be set in action by a company which, as I have said, is
composed of rather estimable people. Who can forget Lydgate in
"Middlemarch"? There is a type drawn by a woman of transcendent genius;
and the type represents only too many human wrecks. Lydgate was thrown
into a respectable provincial society; he was mastered by high ambition,
he possessed great powers, and he felt as though he could move the
mocking solidities of the world. Watch the evolution of his long
history; to me it is truly awful in spite of its gleams of brightness.
The powerful young doctor, equipped in frock-coat and modern hat, plays
a part in a tragedy which is as moving as any ever imagined by a