When a man by his brains, or by a fortunate combination of circumstances, rises to a position of prominence, he becomes a target for the envious and a pattern for the imitator. Emulation and envy are ever alert in trying to steal the fruits of the leader or the doer of things.

The man who makes a name gets both reward and punishment. The reward is his satisfaction in being a producer, a help to the world, and the glory that comes from widespread recognition and publicity of his accomplishment. The punishment is the slurs, the enmity, the envy and the detraction, to say nothing of the downright lies which are told about him.

When a man writes a great book, builds a great machine, discovers a great truth or invents a useful article, he becomes a target for the envious many.

If he does a mediocre thing, he is unnoticed; if his work is a masterpiece, jealousy wags its tongue and untruth uses its sting.

Wagner was jeered. Whistler was called a mere charlatan. Langley was pronounced crazy. Fulton and Stephenson were pitied. Columbus faced mutiny on his ship on the very eve of his discovery of land. Millet starved in his attic. Time has passed, and the backbiters are all in unmarked graves. The world, until the end of time, will enjoy Wagner's music. Whistler and Millet's paintings attract artists from all over the world, and inventors reverence the names of Fulton and Stephenson.

The leader is assailed because he has done a thing worth while; the slanderers are trying to equal his feat, but their imitations serve to prove his greatness. Because jealous ones cannot equal the leader, they seek to belittle him. But the truly worth-while man wins his laurels and he remains a leader. He has made his genius count, and has given the creature of his brain and imagination to the world.

Above the clamor and noise, above the din of the rocks thrown at him, his masterpiece and his fame endure.

And compensation, the salve to the sore, makes the great man deaf to the noise and immune to the attacks of the knockers.

In his own heart he knows he has done a thing worth while; his own conscience is clear, and he cares not for the estimate of the world.

His own character is his chief concern, and he is content in the knowledge that time will bring its reward.

If you have high ideals in business, if you achieve success on a big scale, mark well, you will be a subject of attacks, of lies, of malice, of envy, of disreputable competition. There is no way out of it.

But you will be repaid. The lover of fair play, the grateful, true, honest, worth-while people will flock to your standard; the riff-raff will skulk behind bushes and throw rocks and mud, but their acts will prove to the great mass of the people that your purposes, practices and policies are right.

Therefore, courage is to be your chief asset; patience, pride, perseverance, your lieutenants.

Be not weary, grow not discouraged when your progress is hampered by obstacles. Every truly great man of the past has had his backbiters and detractors.