In his unsoothing slumber he talked aloud, frequently wakening Amy; generally he seemed to be holding a dialogue with someone who had imposed an intolerable task upon him; he protested passionately, appealed, argued in the strangest way about the injustice of what was demanded.

Once Amy heard him begging for money--positively begging, like some poor wretch in the street; it was horrible, and made her shed tears; when he asked what he had been saying, she could not bring herself to tell him.
When the striking clocks summoned him remorselessly to rise and work he often reeled with dizziness.

It seemed to him that the greatest happiness attainable would be to creep into some dark, warm corner, out of the sight and memory of men, and lie there torpid, with a blessed half-consciousness that death was slowly overcoming him.

Of all the sufferings collected into each four-and-twenty hours this of rising to a new day was the worst.
The one-volume story which he had calculated would take him four or five weeks was with difficulty finished in two months.

March winds made an invalid of him; at one time he was threatened with bronchitis, and for several days had to abandon even the effort to work.