I am such a weight round your neck." The man made no answer, but he put Lucy gently down, and went to the woman, and took her forehead to his bosom, and held it there; and after a while returned with silent energy to his comedy.
"Play us a tune on the fiddle, father." "Ay, do, husband.

That helps you often in your writing." Lysimachus brought him the fiddle, and Triplet essayed a merry tune; but it came out so doleful, that he shook his head, and laid the instrument down.

Music must be in the heart, or it will come out of the fingers--notes, not music.
"No," said he; "let us be serious and finish this comedy slap off.
Perhaps it hitches because I forgot to invoke the comic muse.

She must be a black-hearted jade, if she doesn't come with merry notions to a poor devil, starving in the midst of his hungry little ones." "We are past help from heathen goddesses," said the woman.

"We must pray to Heaven to look down upon us and our children." The man looked up with a very bad expression on his countenance.
"You forget," said he sullenly, "our street is very narrow, and the opposite houses are very high." "James!" "How can Heaven be expected to see what honest folk endure in so dark a hole as this ?" cried the man, fiercely.
"James," said the woman, with fear and sorrow, "what words are these ?" The man rose and flung his pen upon the floor.
"Have we given honesty a fair trial--yes or no ?" "No!" said the woman, without a moment's hesitation; "not till we die, as we have lived.