hose who labor for the mind have but a limited
few, and therefore the supply of mental work is infinitely greater than
the demand, and thousands of the unknown and struggling, even though
possessed of much genius, must sink before the famous few who
monopolize the literary market, and so the young writer is overlooked.
He may be starving, but his manuscripts will be returned to him; the
emoluments of literature are flowing in other channels; he is one added
to the thousands too many in the writing world; his efforts may bring
him misery and madness, but not money.

The door of the room opened, and a woman entered; and advancing near the
little table on which the young man was writing, she fixed her eyes on
him with a look in which anger, and the extreme wretchedness which
merges on insanity, were mingled. She seemed nearly fifty; her features
had some remaining traces of former regularity and beauty, but her whole
countenance now was a volume filled with the most squalid suffering and
evil passions; her cheeks and eyes were hollow, as if she had reached
the extreme of old age; she was emaciated to a woeful degree; her dress
was poor dirty, and tattered, and worn without any attempt at proper
arrangement.

"Writing! writing! writing! Thank God, Andrew Carson, the pen will soon
drop from your fingers with starvation."

The woman said this in a half-screaming, but weak and broken-down voice.

"Mother, let me have some peace," said the young writer, turning his
face away, so that he might not see her red glaring eyes fixed on him.

"Ay, Andrew Carson, I say thank God that the force of hunger will soon
now make you drop that cursed writing. Thank God, if there _is_ the God
that my father used to talk about in the long nights in the bonnie
highland glen, where it's like a dream of lang syne that I ever lived."

She pressed her hands on her breast, as if some recollections of an
overpowering nature were in her soul.

"The last rag in your trunk has gone to the pawn; you have neither
shirt, nor coat, nor covering now, except what you've on.
Write--write--if you can, without eating; to-morrow you'll have neither
meat nor drink here, nor aught now to get money on."

"Mother, I am in daily expectation of receiving something for my writing
now; the post this evening may bring me some good news."

He said this with hesitation, and there was little of hope in the
expression of his face.

"Good news! good news about your wr