God gave him a Mickey Mouse

The flood of human life, not in the islands and reefs, it is difficult to stir up beautiful spray. -- Ostrovsky

This is a lonely young painter who has nothing but his ideals.

In pursuit of his ideal, he decided to go out to Kansas City to make a living.

At first he applied for a job at a newspaper. There was a good artistic atmosphere around the editorial office, which was what he needed. But the chief editor read his work and shook his head, thought it lacked originality and rejected it.

This made him feel very disappointed and depressed. Like all young men who go out into the world, he had his first taste of failure.

Eventually, he got a job painting for a church. But the pay was so low that he could not afford to rent a room, so he used an abandoned garage as a temporary office. He worked late into the night in his gas-scented garage.

It was especially annoying to hear the rats squeaking and hopping on the floor every time the lights went out. He endured in order that he might have enough energy to work tomorrow.

Perhaps he was so tired that he could sleep soundly while lying on the floor. The peaceful coexistence of a mouse and an impoverished painter makes the abandoned garage come alive.

One day, when the tired painter looked up, he saw a pair of small eyes shining in the dim yellow light. It was a little mouse. Years ago, he would have devised all sorts of schemes to kill the mouse, but now he did not. Was a dead mouse more interesting than a live one?

Suffering had endowed him with the compassion of a great artist. He smiled at the cute little elf, but it slipped away like a shadow.

Listening to the sound of the wind outside his window, he felt that he was not alone, that at least there was a mouse in his neighbourhood, and that it would come again, and with that conviction he worked hard, like a timid little girl.

The little mouse did appear again and again, and not just at night. He had never hurt it, not even frightened it. It is doing many kinds of sports on the floor and performing wonderful acrobatics. As the only spectator, he rewarded it with a crumb of bread. Gradually, they trusted each other and built up a friendship.

The mouse kept away from him at first, and, seeing that he meant no harm to it, came closer and closer. At last the mouse dared to climb up the drawing board on which he was working, and jumped rhythmically over it. He, on the other hand, would never drive it away, but quietly enjoyed the intimacy with it.

Soon the young painter left Kansas City and was introduced to Hollywood to make animal-based cartoons. It was one of his rare opportunities, and he seemed to see the ideal door open a crack.

Unfortunately, he failed again, and was left penniless and unemployed again.

Many sleepless nights he thought in the dark, he doubted his talent, he doubted that he was really worth nothing, he thought of his way out.

Then one night, when he was down and out, he remembered the mouse that had climbed up and jumped on his drawing board in his garage in Kansas City, and his inspiration flashed brightly in the dark.

He quickly got up, pulled on the light, set up his easel, and at once drew the outline of a mouse.

And so Mickey Mouse, the greatest cartoon animal of all time, was born. Inspiration favors only the thinking mind.

The young painter was to become one of America's most famous figures, the brilliant Walt Disney.