Or Iago:
“This is the night,
That either makes me, or fordoes me quite.”
Or Ophelia, with whose beautiful aphorism I closed my leading editorial, in the first number of the Herald:
“Lord, we know that we are,
But know not what we may be.”
But darm the rhyme. We want bread and butter. I have been starving on truth and poetry, and I intend to lie, and cheat, and black mail, during the residue of my days. Do you understand me?
John—Yes, sir, but I can’t lie. I had rather be poor, and tell the truth, than lie, and cheat, and wrong my fellow creatures, and be loathed by my parents, and be despised by myself, and by others, and have sleepless nights, and be in constant fear of death, and be in danger of a prison or the scaffold. So, you had better get another boy.
Bennett—I am sorry to part with you, dear Johnny, because you have been so true and kind to me.
John—I would like to remain, but I must leave, if you require me to lie. And yet I dread to inform my poor father and mother that I have left you, and have no means to aid them. But I had rather go hungry than tell lies, and I hope and believe that my parents will forgive me for leaving you.