OPENING ADDRESS, 



By Samuel Pikrpont Langley, 

 Secretary, Siiiit/isouiaii histitiitiun. 



While I am aware that it is only fittino^ that I should say something 

 here about one I knew so well as the late Doctor Goode, I feel the occa- 

 sion a trying one, for he was so dear a friend that my very nearness and 

 sense of a special bereavement must be a sulhcient excuse for asking 

 3'our indulgence, since I can not speak of him even yet without pain, 

 and I must say but little. 



Here are some who knew him still longer than I, and many who can 

 estimate him more justl}' in all his scientific work, and to those wdio can 

 perform this task so much better, I leave it. I will only try to speak, 

 however briefly, from a personal point of view, and chiefly of these 

 moral qualities in which our friendship grew, and of some things apart 

 from his scientific life which this near friendship showed me. 



As I first remember him it seems to me, looking back in the light of 

 more recent knowledge, that it was these moral qualities which I first 

 appreciated, and that if there was one which more than anotherformed the 

 basis of his character it was sincerity — a sincerity which was the ground 

 of a trust and confidence such as could h^ instinctively given, even 

 from the first, only to an absolutely loyal and truthful nature. In him 

 duplicity of motive even, seemed hardly possi1)le, for, though he was in 

 a good sense, worldly wise, he walked liy a .single inner light, and this 

 made his road clear even when he was going over obscure ways, and 

 made him often a safer guide than such wi.sdom alone would haie done. 

 He was, I repeat, a man whom you first tru.sted instinctiveh', Init also one 

 in whom every added knowledge explained and justified this confidence. 



This sincerity, which pervaded the whole character, was united with 

 an un.selfi.shness so deep-seated that it was not conscious of itself, and 

 was, perhaps, not always recognized by others. It is a subject of regret 

 to me, now it is too late, that I seem myself to have thus taken it too 

 nuich as a matter of course in the past, at times like one I remember, 

 when, as I afterwards learned, he was suffering from wretched health, 

 which he concealed so successfully while devoting himself to m}^ help, 

 that I had no suspicion till long after of the effort this must have cost 



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