Needs must when the devil drives; and the devil that drives me is an empty pocket and an unhappy home.
 Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge (1841). copy citation

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Author Charles Dickens
Source Barnaby Rudge
Topic home need
Date 1841
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/917/917-h/917-h.htm

Context

“I don’t say it because I bear you any envy, or would take away from the credit of the rise you’ll make, but if I had been bred and taught like you, I’d have been a colonel by this time.’
‘Tush, man!’ said Joe, ‘I’m not so young as that. Needs must when the devil drives; and the devil that drives me is an empty pocket and an unhappy home. For the present, good-bye.’
‘For king and country!’ cried the serjeant, flourishing his cap.
‘For bread and meat!’ cried Joe, snapping his fingers. And so they parted.
He had very little money in his pocket; so little indeed, that after paying for his breakfast (which he was too honest and perhaps too proud to score up to his father’s charge) he had but a penny left.” source