Bleak House

omthe face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet aMegalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantinelizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-p

ng their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens ofthousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and slidingsince the day broke (if this day ev

wn the river, where it rolls deified among thetiers of shipping and the waterside poll

arges and small boats. Fog in the eyes andthroats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesidesof their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of t

into anether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if

e spongey fields, be seen to loom byhusbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted tw

old obstruction,appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed oldcorporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Tem

o assort with the groping and floundering conditionwhich this High Court of Chance

trar's red table and the silkgowns, with bills, cross-bills, answers, rejoinders, injunctions,affidavits, issues, references to masters, masters' reports,mountains of costly nonsense, piled before them. Well may thecourt be dim, with wasting candles here and there; well may the foghang heavy in it, as if it would never get out; well may thestained-glass windows lose their colour and admit no light of dayinto the place; well may the uninitiated from the streets, who peepin through the glass panes in the door, be deterred from entranceby its owlish aspect and by the drawl, languidly echoing to theroof from the padded dais where the Lord High Chancellor looks intothe lantern that has no light in it and where the attendant wigsare all stuck in a fog-bank! This is the Court of Chancery, whichhas its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire,which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead inevery churchyard, which has its ruined suitor with his slipshodheels and threadbare dress borrowing and begging through the roundof every man's

atches and drylavender. A sallow prisoner has come up, in custody, for the half-dozenth time to make a personal application "to purge himself ofhis contempt," which, being a solitary surviving executor who hasfallen into a state of conglomeration about accounts of which it isnot pretended that he had ever any knowledge, he is not at alllikely ever to do. In the meantime his prospects in life areended. Another ruined suitor, who periodically appears fromShropshire and breaks out into efforts to address

nnumerable oldpeople have died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriouslyfound themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce withoutknowing how or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatredswith the suit. The little plaintiff or defendant who was promiseda new rocking-horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settledhas grown up, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted awayinto the other world. Fair ward

n he was counsel at the bar. Good things have been saidabout it by blue-nosed, bulbous-shoed old benchers in select port-wine committee after dinner in hall. Articled clerks have been inthe habit of fleshing their legal wit upon it. The last LordChancellor handled it

the master upon whose impaling files reams ofdusty warrants in Jarndyce and Jarndyce have grimly writhed intomany shapes, down to the copying-clerk in t

s of all sorts, there are influences that cannever come to good. The very solicitors'

nd. Chizzle, Mizzle, and otherwise have lapsed into a habitof vaguely promising themselves that they will look into thatoutstanding little matter and see what can be done for Drizzle--whowas not well used--when Jarndyce and Jarndyce shall be got out ofthe office. Shirking and sharking in all their many varieties havebeen so

he heart of the fog, sits theLord High C

ellor, latterly somethingrestless under

dyce andJarndyce than anybody. He is famous for it--supp

no--variety of points--feel it my duty tsubmit--l

still to be heard, I believe?" say

ary of eighteen hundred sheets, bob up like eighteen hammers ina pianofo

. For the question at issue is only a question of costs,a mere bud on the fores

in a hurry; the man from Shropshire cries, "My lord!"Maces, bags, and

ho are now in myprivate room, I will see them and satisfy myself as to theexpediency of making the order for their residing with theiruncle."Mr. Tangle on his legs again. "Begludship's pardon--dead.""With their"--Chancellor looking through his double eyeglass at thepapers on his desk--"grandfather.""Begludship's pardon--victim of ras

ngin the rafters of the roof, the very little counsel drops, and t

conglomeration but his being sent back to prison, which is soondone. The man from Shropshire ventures another remonstrative "Mylord!" but the Chancellor, being aware of him, has dexterouslyvanished. Everybody else quickly vanishes too. A battery of bluebags is loaded with heavy charges of papers and carried off byclerks