Rosa Bonheur painted pictures just to please her Other Self, and never
gave a thought to any one else, nor wanted to think of any one else, and
having painted to please herself, she made her appeal to the great Common
Heart of humanity--the tender, the noble, the receptive, the earnest, the
sympathetic, the lovable. That is why Rosa Bonheur stands first among
women artists of all time: she worked to please her Other Self.

That is the reason Rembrandt, who lived at the same time Shakespeare
lived, is today without a rival in portraiture. He had the courage to make
an enemy. When at work he never thought of any one but his Other Self, and
so he infused soul into every canvas. The limpid eyes look down into yours
from the walls and tell of love, pity, earnestness and deep sincerity.
Man, like Deity, creates in his own image, and when he portrays some one
else, he pictures himself, too--this provided his work is Art. If it is
but an imitation of something seen somewhere, or done by some one else, to
please a patron with money, no breath of life has been breathed into its
nostrils, and it is nothing, save possibly dead perfection--no more.

Is it easy to please your Other Self? Try it for a day. Begin tomorrow
morning and say: "This day I will live as becomes a man. I will be filled
with good-cheer and courage. I will do what is right; I will work for the
highest; I will put soul into every hand-grasp, every smile, every
expression--into all my work. I will live to satisfy my Other Self."

Do you think it is easy? Try it for a day.

Robert Burns wrote some deathless lines--lines written out of the
freshness of his heart, simply to please himself, with no furtive eye on
Dumfries, Edinburgh, the Kirk, or the Unco Guid of Ayrshire; and these are
the lines that have given him his place in the world of letters.