What are we to live upon? There's all sorts of clothing to be
bought; there'll be all the extra expenses of winter. Surely it's
bad enough that we have had to stay here all the summer; no
holiday of any kind. I have done my best not to grumble about it,
but I begin to think that it would be very much wiser if I did
grumble.'

She squared her shoulders, and gave her head just a little shake,
as if a fly had troubled her.

'You bear everything very well and kindly,' said Reardon. 'My
behaviour is contemptible; I know that. Good heavens! if I only
had some business to go to, something I could work at in any
state of mind, and make money out of! Given this chance, I would
work myself to death rather than you should lack anything you
desire. But I am at the mercy of my brain; it is dry and
powerless. How I envy those clerks who go by to their offices in
the morning! There's the day's work cut out for them; no question
of mood and feeling; they have just to work at something, and
when the evening comes, they have earned their wages, they are
free to rest and enjoy themselves. What an insane thing it is to
make literature one's only means of support! When the most
trivial accident may at any time prove fatal to one's power of
work for weeks or months. No, that is the unpardonable sin! To
make a trade of an art! I am rightly served for attempting such a
brutal folly.'

He turned away in a passion of misery.