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.

The other day I was made glad by finding that John Burroughs, Poet and Prophet, says that the male thrush sings to please himself, out of pure delight; and pleasing himself, he pleases his mate.  “The female,” says Burroughs, “is always pleased with a male that is pleased with himself.”

The various controversial poems (granting for argument’s sake that controversy is poetic) were written when Burns was smarting under the sense of defeat.  These show a sharp insight into the heart of things, and a lively wit, but are not sufficient foundation on which to build a reputation.  Ali Baba can do as well.  Considering the fact that twice as many people make pilgrimages to the grave of Burns as visit the dust of Shakespeare, and that his poems are on the shelves of every library, his name now needs no defense.  The ores are very seldom found pure, and if even the work of Deity is composite, why should we be surprised that man, His creature, should express himself in a varying scale of excellence!

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There was nothing of Jack Falstaff about Francis Schlatter, whose whitened bones were found amid the alkali dust of the desert, a few years ago—­dead in an endeavor to do without meat and drink for forty days.