Completed · Free
Bleak House
I have endeavoured to show a world wrapped in fog: fog in the streets, fog in the courts, fog in the minds of men who have long mistaken delay for justice and confusion for wisdom. At the centre of the tale stands the great case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, that monstrous growth of Chancery which consumes hope, fortune, youth, and life itself, while all concerned wait upon a judgment that seems forever coming and never arrived. Around it move the innocent and the guilty, the proud and the neglected, the poor child in the crossing, the lady in her splendid loneliness, the suitors, lawyers, clerks, philanthropists, and ruined families whom society sees only when it is too late to save them. Yet amid the fog there are lights: kindness, loyalty, quiet courage, and the human heart’s stubborn refusal to become as cold as the institutions that oppress it. This is a story of law and delay, secrecy and inheritance, poverty and hypocrisy, but also of compassion. For where justice has lost its way among papers and procedures, mercy must sometimes be found in the hands of ordinary people.
- Language
- EN
- Genres
- fiction, classics, novel
- Published