{"product_id":"2940012560278","title":"BLEAK HOUSE","description":"PREFACE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA Chancery judge once had the kindness to inform me, as one of a\u003cbr\u003ecompany of some hundred and fifty men and women not labouring under\u003cbr\u003eany suspicions of lunacy, that the Court of Chancery, though the\u003cbr\u003eshining subject of much popular prejudice (at which point I thought\u003cbr\u003ethe judge's eye had a cast in my direction), was almost immaculate.\u003cbr\u003eThere had been, he admitted, a trivial blemish or so in its rate of\u003cbr\u003eprogress, but this was exaggerated and had been entirely owing to\u003cbr\u003ethe \"parsimony of the public,\" which guilty public, it appeared,\u003cbr\u003ehad been until lately bent in the most determined manner on by no\u003cbr\u003emeans enlarging the number of Chancery judges appointed--I believe\u003cbr\u003eby Richard the Second, but any other king will do as well.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis seemed to me too profound a joke to be inserted in the body of\u003cbr\u003ethis book or I should have restored it to Conversation Kenge or to\u003cbr\u003eMr. Vholes, with one or other of whom I think it must have\u003cbr\u003eoriginated.  In such mouths I might have coupled it with an apt\u003cbr\u003equotation from one of Shakespeare's sonnets:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"My nature is subdued\u003cbr\u003e     To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:\u003cbr\u003e     Pity me, then, and wish I were renewed!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut as it is wholesome that the parsimonious public should know\u003cbr\u003ewhat has been doing, and still is doing, in this connexion, I\u003cbr\u003emention here that everything set forth in these pages concerning\u003cbr\u003ethe Court of Chancery is substantially true, and within the truth.\u003cbr\u003eThe case of Gridley is in no essential altered from one of actual\u003cbr\u003eoccurrence, made public by a disinterested person who was\u003cbr\u003eprofessionally acquainted with the whole of the monstrous wrong\u003cbr\u003efrom beginning to end.  At the present moment (August, 1853) there\u003cbr\u003eis a suit before the court which was commenced nearly twenty years\u003cbr\u003eago, in which from thirty to forty counsel have been known to\u003cbr\u003eappear at one time, in which costs have been incurred to the amount\u003cbr\u003eof seventy thousand pounds, which is A FRIENDLY SUIT, and which is\u003cbr\u003e(I am assured) no nearer to its termination now than when it was\u003cbr\u003ebegun.  There is another well-known suit in Chancery, not yet\u003cbr\u003edecided, which was commenced before the close of the last century\u003cbr\u003eand in which more than double the amount of seventy thousand pounds\u003cbr\u003ehas been swallowed up in costs.  If I wanted other authorities for\u003cbr\u003eJarndyce and Jarndyce, I could rain them on these pages, to the\u003cbr\u003eshame of--a parsimonious public.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is only one other point on which I offer a word of remark.\u003cbr\u003eThe possibility of what is called spontaneous combustion has been\u003cbr\u003edenied since the death of Mr. Krook; and my good friend Mr. Lewes\u003cbr\u003e(quite mistaken, as he soon found, in supposing the thing to have\u003cbr\u003ebeen abandoned by all authorities) published some ingenious letters\u003cbr\u003eto me at the time when that event was chronicled, arguing that\u003cbr\u003espontaneous combustion could not possibly be.  I have no need to\u003cbr\u003eobserve that I do not wilfully or negligently mislead my readers\u003cbr\u003eand that before I wrote that description I took pains to\u003cbr\u003einvestigate the subject.  There are about thirty cases on record,\u003cbr\u003eof which the most famous, that of the Countess Cornelia de Baudi\u003cbr\u003eCesenate, was minutely investigated and described by Giuseppe\u003cbr\u003eBianchini, a prebendary of Verona, otherwise distinguished in\u003cbr\u003eletters, who published an account of it at Verona in 1731, which he\u003cbr\u003eafterwards republished at Rome.  The appearances, beyond all\u003cbr\u003erational doubt, observed in that case are the appearances observed\u003cbr\u003ein Mr. Krook's case.  The next most famous instance happened at\u003cbr\u003eRheims six years earlier, and the historian in that case is Le Cat,\u003cbr\u003eone of the most renowned surgeons produced by France.  The subject\u003cbr\u003ewas a woman, whose husband was ignorantly convicted of having\u003cbr\u003emurdered her; but on solemn appeal to a higher court, he was\u003cbr\u003eacquitted because it was shown upon the evidence that she had died\u003cbr\u003ethe death of which this name of spontaneous combustion is given.  I\u003cbr\u003edo not think it necessary to add to these notable facts, and that\u003cbr\u003egeneral reference to the authorities which will be found at page\u003cbr\u003e30, vol. ii.,* the recorded opinions and experiences of\u003cbr\u003edistinguished medical professors, French, English, and Scotch, in\u003cbr\u003emore modern days, contenting myself with observing that I shall not\u003cbr\u003eabandon the facts until there shall have been a considerable\u003cbr\u003espontaneous combustion of the testimony on which human occurrences\u003cbr\u003eare usually received.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Bleak House I have purposely dwelt upon the romantic side of\u003cbr\u003efamiliar things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1853\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e* Another case, very clearly described by a dentist, occurred at\u003cbr\u003ethe town of Columbus, in the United States of America, quite\u003cbr\u003erecently.  The subject was a German who kept a liquor-shop and was\u003cbr\u003ean inveterate drunkard.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47152429826288,"sku":"2940012560278","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012560278_p0.jpg?v=1763570301","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012560278","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}