Bleak House. Чарльз Диккенс. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Чарльз Диккенс
Издательство: Bookwire
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Жанр произведения: Языкознание
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9788027225163
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       Chapter XLIV. The Letter and the Answer

       Chapter XLV. In Trust

       Chapter XLVI. Stop Him!

       Chapter XLVII. Jo's Will

       Chapter XLVIII. Closing In

       Chapter XLIX. Dutiful Friendship

       Chapter L. Esther's Narrative

       Chapter LI. Enlightened

       Chapter LII. Obstinacy

       Chapter LIII. The Track

       Chapter LIV. Springing a Mine

       Chapter LV. Flight

       Chapter LVI. Pursuit

       Chapter LVII. Esther's Narrative

       Chapter LVIII. A Wintry Day and Night

       Chapter LIX. Esther's Narrative

       Chapter LX. Perspective

       Chapter LXI. A Discovery

       Chapter LXII. Another Discovery

       Chapter LXIII. Steel and Iron

       Chapter LXIV. Esther's Narrative

       Chapter LXV. Beginning the World

       Chapter LXVI. Down in Lincolnshire

       Chapter LXVII. The Close of Esther's Narrative

      Preface

       Table of Contents

      A Chancery judge once had the kindness to inform me, as one of a company of some hundred and fifty men and women not labouring under any suspicions of lunacy, that the Court of Chancery, though the shining subject of much popular prejudice (at which point I thought the judge's eye had a cast in my direction), was almost immaculate. There had been, he admitted, a trivial blemish or so in its rate of progress, but this was exaggerated and had been entirely owing to the "parsimony of the public," which guilty public, it appeared, had been until lately bent in the most determined manner on by no means enlarging the number of Chancery judges appointed—I believe by Richard the Second, but any other king will do as well.

      This seemed to me too profound a joke to be inserted in the body of this book or I should have restored it to Conversation Kenge or to Mr. Vholes, with one or other of whom I think it must have originated. In such mouths I might have coupled it with an apt quotation from one of Shakespeare's sonnets:

      "My nature is subdued

       To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:

       Pity me, then, and wish I were renewed!"

      But as it is wholesome that the parsimonious public should know what has been doing, and still is doing, in this connexion, I mention here that everything set forth in these pages concerning the Court of Chancery is substantially true, and within the truth. The case of Gridley is in no essential altered from one of actual occurrence, made public by a disinterested person who was professionally acquainted with the whole of the monstrous wrong from beginning to end. At the present moment (August, 1853) there is a suit before the court which was commenced nearly twenty years ago, in which from thirty to forty counsel have been known to appear at one time, in which costs have been incurred to the amount of seventy thousand pounds, which is A FRIENDLY SUIT, and which is (I am assured) no nearer to its termination now than when it was begun. There is another well-known suit in Chancery, not yet decided, which was commenced before the close of the last century and in which more than double the amount of seventy thousand pounds has been swallowed up in costs. If I wanted other authorities for Jarndyce and Jarndyce, I could rain them on these pages, to the shame of—a parsimonious public.

      In Bleak House I have purposely dwelt upon the romantic side of familiar things.

      1853

      Chapter I.

       In Chancery

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