The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1918-06-17
APICTURE OF YOU
BY George Barr McCutcheon
of the viglIantes


More than that, you can make your
own canvas, your own pigments, your
own brushes, and you can close your
eyes and produce this picture. The
greatest painter In the world could not
do 1t half so well as you. Close your
eyes, lean back in YOUR chair-idly, If
you lke-with your arms folded, and
try. You will see how swiftly, how
clearly, how terribly the picture de-
velops under the magic of your mind.
Picture yourself-no one else, just
yourself-setting out TO work In the
early morning. Try, If possible, to
think how you look to yourself as well
as to other people. First of all, draw
you-be you big, little, young, old,
lame or strong-just you. You must
draw yourself alive, and breathing, and
thinking-thinking of the war and of
those brave fellows over there who
should be at home and going to work,
Just as you are, instead of being ripped
to pieces by the things they do not
see-checked out by an invisible time
keeper. Picture yourself going to work
In safety and, after while, going
home In equal security. Nothing is go
ing to happen to you--Just think as
you have always thought-nothing Is
going to happen to You. Other men
may be run down and killed by auto
mobiles; other men may be wiped out
by the wrecking Of train; other men
may be caught by the cave-in of the
subway-always ii Is the other man,
never you. You must go on putting
yourself into the picture as you have
always been-the one man to whom
nothing can happen. Always 1t Is the
other man who lies dead on the curb
stone, with you looking at him In pity
and with an awe that sickens you, for
a man who dies that way is a gray,
unlovely thing. You have been able to
picture only the other mans body look
ing like that. all limp and twisted and
In ill-fitting clothes-clothe that were
filed with the life of him little while
before and were not inert. You go
your way, wondering why the lclothes
of a dead man look dead too.
Go ON with the drrwing of the pic
ture. Keep your eyes closed. your
arms folded, your head resting com
fortably against the back of your
chair.
You have come to your place of
work You go to your appointed place
and take up the implements with
which you toil-tools which build life
for you day by day, hour by hour. You
are an honest workman, a man who
fears neither God nor man, for your
conscience Is clear. You picture your
self as such, for that is what you have
known yourself to be, whether other
men think SO or not. Your tools are
where you left them-you may choose
your tools according to the picture you
draw Of yourself-and you begin an
honest days work, looking forward to
the hour when you will set out for
home and the ones you love and cher
ish-the ones who think of you only as
a strong, alive, imperishable figure, as
sure to come home to them as the
night itself will come. Your picture
according to all that past experience
has taught you, Is complete. Your way
of looking at ii is the result of habit
that began the day. you assumed in
telligence, the day that you first begar
to think. But you are still alive, Sc
the picture Is not complete.
Go on with your drawing. Take youl
A~.~ co,,,otnlnn uncommon hoe aa
Cured. You must wipe out some o.
the lines you have drawn. You are still
drawing yourself, but somehow you
have changed. You are not the same
Try to think Of yourself as not wha
you are, but as what you are gradual!
making yourself to be on the canvas
with your eyes closed, your arms fold
ed, your head resting against the bacl
of the chair.
Something has happened. You arr
not using the tools any longer. Yol
have nothing in your hands. The place
In which you worked is not the same
Nothing is the same. Wipe the canvas
clean and begin all over again.
When you began the picture 20,
failed to take into consideration th'
possibility that you could be something
other than what you have always been
You have never seen yourself-yo,
have not even thought Of yourself-a
anything but a living, vital, compla
cent individual, immune because yol
are you. You have never thought o
how you will look dead.
The picture Is getting beyond you
You are seeing yourself as you neve
have seen yourself before.
There has been an explosion. Pic
ture yourself at your work, serenel.
unconscious of the thing that is abou
to happen. You--you, the one persol
in all the world who Is absolutely eS
empt from disaster-you are anon
! the killed.
Go on with the picture. Keep you
eyes closed, your arms folded--and 6
on with the picture you are drawing.
That crushed, twisted, shapeles
thing lying over there In the corner
| spattered with plaster, and incredibl
| still---put that In yOur picture. 1t