Is He Living or is He Dead?

There are so many talented outstanding people in the world. But in real life, just having talent is not enough. Most often, ambitious people stand out from the crowd, such people can think not like everyone else. Mark Twain, in his satirical work “Is He Living or is He Dead”, told how a group of poor artists came up with a plan to become rich and famous. Thus, let's find out what happened there.

The writer talks about the life of four poor artists. They created their paintings, but nobody needed them. Therefore, the life of the artists was not very happy: they did not even have money for food and they were starving. In this way, poor artists would die unknown to anyone. But the brilliant idea of one of them changed their lives radically. The artist proposed this plan: one of them should pretend to be a great artist at death, while others sell his paintings at a high price - as an exclusive. Then the “great artist” (Francois Millett was chosen) pretends to be dead and his paintings are sold at an even higher price. The plan was wonderful. Francois Millet painted as many paintings as he could day and night. Then the rest of the artists went and sold the works of the dying great artist for a lot of money. At the same time they called themselves students of this artist and also sold their works. As a result, four painters became very famous and provided a comfortable life for themselves.

I really like this story. A proverb is very suitable here “Fast footwork is the key to success in life”. In my opinion, only creative, ambitious people can achieve what they wish.