Rosa, and went to the
play in her working dress. A daintily gloved man in the box next to
hers looked over in disdain, and finally went into the vestibule and
found the manager.

"Who is this woman in the box next to mine?" he said, in a rage.
"She's in an old calico dress, covered with paint and oil. The odor is
terrible. Turn her out. If you do not, I will never enter your theatre
again."

The manager went to the box, and returning, informed him that it was
the great painter.

"Rosa Bonheur!" he gasped. "Who'd have thought it? Make my apology to
her. I dare not enter her presence again."

She usually walks at the twilight, often thinking out new subjects for
her brush, at that quiet hour. She said to a friend: "I have been a
faithful student since I was ten years old. I have copied no master. I
have studied Nature, and expressed to the best of my ability the ideas
and feelings with which she has inspired me. Art is an absorbent--a
tyrant. It demands heart, brain, soul, body, the entireness of the
votary. Nothing less will win its highest favor. I wed art. It is my
husband, my world, my life-dream, the air I breathe. I know nothing
else, feel nothing else, think nothing else, My soul finds in it
the most complete satisfaction.... I have no taste for general
society,--no interest in its frivolities. I only seek to be known
through my works. If the world feel and understand them, I have
succeeded.... If I had got up a convention to debate the question of
my ability to paint '_Marche au Chevaux_' [The Horse Fair], for which
England paid me forty thousand francs, the decision would have been
against me. I felt the power within me to paint; I cultivated it, and
have produced works that have won the favorable verdicts of the great
judges. I have no patience with women who ask _permission to think_!"

For years she lived in Rue d'Assas, a retired street half made up of
gardens. Here she had one of the most beautiful studios of Paris, the
room lighted from the ceiling, the walls covered with paintings, with
here and there old armor, tapestry, hats, cloaks, sandals, and skins
of tigers, leopards, foxes, and oxen on the floor. One Friday, the day
on which she received guests, one of her friends, coming earlier
than usual, found her fast asleep on her favorite skin, that of a
magnificent ox, with stuffed head and spreading horns. She had come in
tired from the School of Design, and had thrown herself down to rest.
Usually