_The work is so gentlemanly_, he remarks. Often and often, after the
daily dreadful lines, the bread and butter winning lines on some
contemporary folly or frivolity, does a man take up some piece of work
hopelessly unremunerative, foredoomed to failure as far as money or fame
go, some dealing with the classics of the world, Homer or Aristotle,
Lucian or Moliere. It is like a bath after a day's toil, it is tonic and
clean; and such studies, if not necessary to success, are, at least,
conducive to mental health and self-respect in literature.
To the enormous majority of persons who risk themselves in literature,
not even the smallest measure of success can fall. They had better take
to some other profession as quickly as may be, they are only making a
sure thing of disappointment, only crowding the narrow gates of fortune
and fame. Yet there are others to whom success, though easily within
their reach, does not seem a thing to be grasped at. Of two such, the
pathetic story may be read, in the Memoir of _A Scotch Probationer_, Mr.
Thomas Davidson, who died young, an unplaced Minister of the United
Presbyterian Church, in 1869.
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