THE TARGET OF FOOLS. DON’T MIND THE GOSSIPS.

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14669, 4 June 1921, Page 9 (Supplement)

THE TARGET OF FOOLS. DON’T MIND THE GOSSIPS.

A noise merely annoys. Even a thunderclap is harmless. Sound never yet produced a dent. Gossip is simply the outburst of envy and malice—like a Chinese fire-cracker; often a iizz and usually dangerous only to him who explodes it. Hissing snakes are seldom deadly. The cobra, the fer-de-lance, the cop-per-head and the moccasin do not advertise. Chattering birds are always harmless. The raven and the crow are arrant cowards; the eagle swoops without an outcry. Menace does not wag a tongue. The cruelty of the calumniator lies in his words and not in his bite. Envy and malice are toothless curs ready to run at the first impulse. * Only strong men can check, you or wreck you, and the strong do not stoop to meanness. They strike with clean weapons and not with the rusty sword of slander. Every falsehood that is hurled against your reputation is in your favour. It offers you a chance to prove the truth, to show yourself as you arc, to demonstrate what you have done. Before the supreme tribunal of society only facts arc weighed and counted. If you possess right and might you will always have the opportunity to stand forth in your true light. YoU know when and where you are wrong. Your arc the only living soul who truly comprehends your acts. You are die soul judge of your real character. You cannot expect to find all men as well posted upon yourself. You cannot be sane and seem so to all persons. There arc so many weaklings, half-wits, apes, sour-brains, meddlers, hot-heads and hypocrites in the world that no course of action cun possibly appear fair and sound to c\erybody. • \ . You cannot make a move without at least treading oo one sore foot. You cannot have a cause which does not conflict with the ambitions of another. If you arc so thin-skinned and sensitive that you can he halted by disbelief and turned back by ridicule, you may as well relinquish your ambitions, retire from the contest, and acknowledge at the very outset that you are incapable of conquering your egotism. No man ever lived for an unusual hope and managed to escape from mud-slinging. It is the inevitable accomplishment of personal progress. Power is hateful to those who cannot possess it. Only a few are able to struggle to the heights, hut the arm that lacks tire sinews to reach the goal is too puny to u hurtful missile. Those who lack capability are the last to acknowledge its existence in their The dullard is the hardest to convince and least capable of measuring Hie forces which he cannot comprehend. If you are determined to rise, you must firtst learn to discard non-es-s(ntia!s;you must cease to fritter your valuable energy worrying about the opinions of people who do not count. You must employ your time and your thoughts for important and vital things. Julius Caesar, Oliver Cromwell, Napoleon Bonaparte, Abraham Lincoln, and Ulysses Grant managed to get along fairly well in spite of their doubting contemporaries. The head mat rises highest must expect to become the target of foots.