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. He died young, unaccepted by the world,
unheard of, uncomplaining, soon after writing his latest song on the
first grey hairs of the lady whom he loved. And she, Miss Alison Dunlop,
died also, a year ago, leaving a little work newly published, _Anent Old
Edinburgh_, in which is briefly told the story of her life. There can
hardly be a true tale more brave and honourable, for those two were
eminently qualified to shine, with a clear and modest radiance, in
letters. Both had a touch of poetry, Mr. Davidson left a few genuine
poems, both had humour, knowledge, patience, industry, and literary
conscientiousness. No success came to them, they did not even seek it,
though it was easily within the reach of their powers. Yet none can call
them failures, leaving, as they did, the fragrance of honourable and
uncomplaining lives, and such brief records of these as to delight, and
console and encourage us all. They bequeath to us the spectacle of a
real triumph far beyond the petty gains of money or of applause, the
spectacle of lives made happy by literature, unvexed by notoriety,
unfretted by envy. What we call success could never have yielded them so
much, for the ways of authorship are dusty and stony, and the stones are
only too handy for throwing at the few that, deservedly or undeservedly,
make a name, and therewith about one-tenth of the wealth which is
ungrudged to physicians, or barristers, or stock-brokers, or dentists, or