'You must try it, and if the life is too hard, perhaps dressmaking or tambour-work will come lighter.

Have YOU ever done anything, sir ?' (turning to his nephew.) 'No,' replied Nicholas, bluntly.
'No, I thought not!' said Ralph.

'This is the way my brother brought up his children, ma'am.' 'Nicholas has not long completed such education as his poor father could give him,' rejoined Mrs Nickleby, 'and he was thinking of--' 'Of making something of him someday,' said Ralph.

'The old story; always thinking, and never doing.

If my brother had been a man of activity and prudence, he might have left you a rich woman, ma'am: and if he had turned his son into the world, as my father turned me, when I wasn't as old as that boy by a year and a half, he would have been in a situation to help you, instead of being a burden upon you, and increasing your distress.