972 THE PRINCIPLES OF PERSONAL INTEGRITY
kindly helpful service, and through the operation of this same law of
retaliation he will render you a similar service.
And if he should fail to reciprocate your kindness, what then?
You will have profited nevertheless-because of the effect of your
act on your own subconscious mind.
Thus, by indulging in acts of kindness and always applying the
Golden Rule philosophy, you are sure of benefit from one source
and at the same time you have a pretty fair chance of profiting from
another source.
It might happen that you would base all your acts toward others
on the Golden Rule without enjoying any direct reciprocation for
a long period of time. It might also happen that those to whom
you rendered those acts of kindness would never reciprocate. In the
meantime, however, you have been strengthening your own character
and sooner or later this positive character you have been building
will begin to assert itself and you will discover that you have been
receiving compound interest upon compound interest in return for
those acts of kindness that appeared to have been wasted on those
who neither appreciated nor reciprocated them.
Remember that your reputation is made by others, but your
character is made by you.
You want your reputation to be a favorable one but you cannot
be sure that it will be, because that is outside of your own control,
in the minds of others. It is what others believe you to be. With your
character it is different. Your character is what you are) as the result of
your thoughts and deeds. You control it. You can make it weak, good,
or bad. When you are satisfied and know in your mind that your char-
acter is above reproach, you need not worry about your reputation, for
it is as impossible for your character to be destroyed or damaged by
anyone except yourself as it is to destroy matter or energy.
It was this truth that Emerson had in mind when he wrote: "A
political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick or the return