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- Чарльз Диккенс
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Cold House
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
:
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
.
There
is
only
one
other
point
on
which
I
offer
a
word
of
remark
.
The
possibility
of
what
is
called
spontaneous
combustion
has
been
denied
since
the
death
of
Mr
.
Krook
;
and
my
good
friend
Mr
.
Lewes
(
quite
mistaken
,
as
he
soon
found
,
in
supposing
the
thing
to
have
been
abandoned
by
all
authorities
)
published
some
ingenious
letters
to
me
at
the
time
when
that
event
was
chronicled
,
arguing
that
spontaneous
combustion
could
not
possibly
be
.
I
have
no
need
to
observe
that
I
do
not
wilfully
or
negligently
mislead
my
readers
and
that
before
I
wrote
that
description
I
took
pains
to
investigate
the
subject
There
are
about
thirty
cases
on
record
,
of
which
the
most
famous
,
that
of
the
Countess
Cornelia
de
Baudi
Cesenate
,
was
minutely
investigated
and
described
by
Giuseppe
Bianchini
,
a
prebendary
of
Verona
,
otherwise
distinguished
in
letters
,
who
published
an
account
of
it
at
Verona
in
1731
,
which
he
afterwards
republished
at
Rome
.
The
appearances
,
beyond
all
rational
doubt
,
observed
in
that
case
are
the
appearances
observed
in
Mr
.
Krook
’
s
case
.
The
next
most
famous
instance
happened
at
Rheims
six
years
earlier
,
and
the
historian
in
that
case
is
Le
Cat
,
one
of
the
most
renowned
surgeons
produced
by
France
.
The
subject
was
a
woman
,
whose
husband
was
ignorantly
convicted
of
having
murdered
her
;
but
on
solemn
appeal
to
a
higher
court
,
he
was
acquitted
because
it
was
shown
upon
the
evidence
that
she
had
died
the
death
of
which
this
name
of
spontaneous
combustion
is
given
.
I
do
not
think
it
necessary
to
add
to
these
notable
facts
,
and
that
general
reference
to
the
authorities
which
will
be
found
at
page
30
,
vol
.
ii
.
,
*
the
recorded
opinions
and
experiences
of
distinguished
medical
professors
,
French
,
English
,
and
Scotch
,
in
more
modern
days
,
contenting
myself
with
observing
that
I
shall
not
abandon
the
facts
until
there
shall
have
been
a
considerable
spontaneous
combustion
of
the
testimony
on
which
human
occurrences
are
usually
received
.
*
*
In
Bleak
House
I
have
purposely
dwelt
upon
the
romantic
side
of
familiar
things
.
London
.
Michaelmas
term
lately
over
,
and
the
Lord
Chancellor
sitting
in
Lincoln
’
s
Inn
Hall
.
Implacable
November
weather
.
As
much
mud
in
the
streets
as
if
the
waters
had
but
newly
retired
from
the
face
of
the
earth
,
and
it
would
not
be
wonderful
to
meet
a
Megalosaurus
,
forty
feet
long
or
so
,
waddling
like
an
elephantine
lizard
up
Holborn
Hill
.
Smoke
lowering
down
from
chimney
-
pots
,
making
a
soft
black
drizzle
,
with
flakes
of
soot
in
it
as
big
as
full
-
grown
snowflakes
—
gone
into
mourning
,
one
might
imagine
,
for
the
death
of
the
sun
.
Dogs
,
undistinguishable
in
mire
.
Horses
,
scarcely
better
;
splashed
to
their
very
blinkers
.
Foot
passengers
,
jostling
one
another
’
s
umbrellas
in
a
general
infection
of
ill
temper
,
and
losing
their
foot
-
hold
at
street
-
corners
,
where
tens
of
thousands
of
other
foot
passengers
have
been
slipping
and
sliding
since
the
day
broke
(
if
this
day
ever
broke
)
,
adding
new
deposits
to
the
crust
upon
crust
of
mud
,
sticking
at
those
points
tenaciously
to
the
pavement
,
and
accumulating
at
compound
interest
.
Fog
everywhere
.
Fog
up
the
river
,
where
it
flows
among
green
aits
and
meadows
;
fog
down
the
river
,
where
it
rolls
defiled
among
the
tiers
of
shipping
and
the
waterside
pollutions
of
a
great
(
and
dirty
)
city
.
Fog
on
the
Essex
marshes
,
fog
on
the
Kentish
heights
.
Fog
creeping
into
the
cabooses
of
collier
-
brigs
;
fog
lying
out
on
the
yards
and
hovering
in
the
rigging
of
great
ships
;
fog
drooping
on
the
gunwales
of
barges
and
small
boats
.
Fog
in
the
eyes
and
throats
of
ancient
Greenwich
pensioners
,
wheezing
by
the
firesides
of
their
wards
;
fog
in
the
stem
and
bowl
of
the
afternoon
pipe
of
the
wrathful
skipper
,
down
in
his
close
cabin
;
fog
cruelly
pinching
the
toes
and
fingers
of
his
shivering
little
’
prentice
boy
on
deck
.
Chance
people
on
the
bridges
peeping
over
the
parapets
into
a
nether
sky
of
fog
,
with
fog
all
round
them
,
as
if
they
were
up
in
a
balloon
and
hanging
in
the
misty
clouds
.
Gas
looming
through
the
fog
in
divers
places
in
the
streets
,
much
as
the
sun
may
,
from
the
spongey
fields
,
be
seen
to
loom
by
husbandman
and
ploughboy
.
Most
of
the
shops
lighted
two
hours
before
their
time
—
as
the
gas
seems
to
know
,
for
it
has
a
haggard
and
unwilling
look
.
The
raw
afternoon
is
rawest
,
and
the
dense
fog
is
densest
,
and
the
muddy
streets
are
muddiest
near
that
leaden
-
headed
old
obstruction
,
appropriate
ornament
for
the
threshold
of
a
leaden
-
headed
old
corporation
,
Temple
Bar
.
And
hard
by
Temple
Bar
,
in
Lincoln
’
s
Inn
Hall
,
at
the
very
heart
of
the
fog
,
sits
the
Lord
High
Chancellor
in
his
High
Court
of
Chancery
.
Never
can
there
come
fog
too
thick
,
never
can
there
come
mud
and
mire
too
deep
,
to
assort
with
the
groping
and
floundering
condition
which
this
High
Court
of
Chancery
,
most
pestilent
of
hoary
sinners
,
holds
this
day
in
the
sight
of
heaven
and
earth
.
On
such
an
afternoon
,
if
ever
,
the
Lord
High
Chancellor
ought
to
be
sitting
here
—
as
here
he
is
—
with
a
foggy
glory
round
his
head
,
softly
fenced
in
with
crimson
cloth
and
curtains
,
addressed
by
a
large
advocate
with
great
whiskers
,
a
little
voice
,
and
an
interminable
brief
,
and
outwardly
directing
his
contemplation
to
the
lantern
in
the
roof
,
where
he
can
see
nothing
but
fog
.
On
such
an
afternoon
some
score
of
members
of
the
High
Court
of
Chancery
bar
ought
to
be
—
as
here
they
are
—
mistily
engaged
in
one
of
the
ten
thousand
stages
of
an
endless
cause
,
tripping
one
another
up
on
slippery
precedents
,
groping
knee
-
deep
in
technicalities
,
running
their
goat
-
hair
and
horsehair
warded
heads
against
walls
of
words
and
making
a
pretence
of
equity
with
serious
faces
,
as
players
might
.
On
such
an
afternoon
the
various
solicitors
in
the
cause
,
some
two
or
three
of
whom
have
inherited
it
from
their
fathers
,
who
made
a
fortune
by
it
,
ought
to
be
—
as
are
they
not
?
—
ranged
in
a
line
,
in
a
long
matted
well
(
but
you
might
look
in
vain
for
truth
at
the
bottom
of
it
)
between
the
registrar
’
s
red
table
and
the
silk
gowns
,
with
bills
,
cross
-
bills
,
answers
,
rejoinders
,
injunctions
,
affidavits
,
issues
,
references
to
masters
,
masters
’
reports
,
mountains
of
costly
nonsense
,
piled
before
them
.
Well
may
the
court
be
dim
,
with
wasting
candles
here
and
there
;
well
may
the
fog
hang
heavy
in
it
,
as
if
it
would
never
get
out
;
well
may
the
stained
-
glass
windows
lose
their
colour
and
admit
no
light
of
day
into
the
place
;
well
may
the
uninitiated
from
the
streets
,
who
peep
in
through
the
glass
panes
in
the
door
,
be
deterred
from
entrance
by
its
owlish
aspect
and
by
the
drawl
,
languidly
echoing
to
the
roof
from
the
padded
dais
where
the
Lord
High
Chancellor
looks
into
the
lantern
that
has
no
light
in
it
and
where
the
attendant
wigs
are
all
stuck
in
a
fog
-
bank
!
This
is
the
Court
of
Chancery
,
which
has
its
decaying
houses
and
its
blighted
lands
in
every
shire
,
which
has
its
worn
-
out
lunatic
in
every
madhouse
and
its
dead
in
every
churchyard
,
which
has
its
ruined
suitor
with
his
slipshod
heels
and
threadbare
dress
borrowing
and
begging
through
the
round
of
every
man
’
s
acquaintance
,
which
gives
to
monied
might
the
means
abundantly
of
wearying
out
the
right
,
which
so
exhausts
finances
,
patience
,
courage
,
hope
,
so
overthrows
the
brain
and
breaks
the
heart
,
that
there
is
not
an
honourable
man
among
its
practitioners
who
would
not
give
—
who
does
not
often
give
—
the
warning
,
"
Suffer
any
wrong
that
can
be
done
you
rather
than
come
here
!
"
Who
happen
to
be
in
the
Lord
Chancellor
’
s
court
this
murky
afternoon
besides
the
Lord
Chancellor
,
the
counsel
in
the
cause
,
two
or
three
counsel
who
are
never
in
any
cause
,
and
the
well
of
solicitors
before
mentioned
?
There
is
the
registrar
below
the
judge
,
in
wig
and
gown
;
and
there
are
two
or
three
maces
,
or
petty
-
bags
,
or
privy
purses
,
or
whatever
they
may
be
,
in
legal
court
suits
.
These
are
all
yawning
,
for
no
crumb
of
amusement
ever
falls
from
Jarndyce
and
Jarndyce
(
the
cause
in
hand
)
,
which
was
squeezed
dry
years
upon
years
ago
.
The
short
-
hand
writers
,
the
reporters
of
the
court
,
and
the
reporters
of
the
newspapers
invariably
decamp
with
the
rest
of
the
regulars
when
Jarndyce
and
Jarndyce
comes
on
.
Their
places
are
a
blank
.
Standing
on
a
seat
at
the
side
of
the
hall
,
the
better
to
peer
into
the
curtained
sanctuary
,
is
a
little
mad
old
woman
in
a
squeezed
bonnet
who
is
always
in
court
,
from
its
sitting
to
its
rising
,
and
always
expecting
some
incomprehensible
judgment
to
be
given
in
her
favour
.
Some
say
she
really
is
,
or
was
,
a
party
to
a
suit
,
but
no
one
knows
for
certain
because
no
one
cares
.
She
carries
some
small
litter
in
a
reticule
which
she
calls
her
documents
,
principally
consisting
of
paper
matches
and
dry
lavender
.
A
sallow
prisoner
has
come
up
,
in
custody
,
for
the
half
-
dozenth
time
to
make
a
personal
application
"
to
purge
himself
of
his
contempt
,
"
which
,
being
a
solitary
surviving
executor
who
has
fallen
into
a
state
of
conglomeration
about
accounts
of
which
it
is
not
pretended
that
he
had
ever
any
knowledge
,
he
is
not
at
all
likely
ever
to
do
.
In
the
meantime
his
prospects
in
life
are
ended
.
Another
ruined
suitor
,
who
periodically
appears
from
Shropshire
and
breaks
out
into
efforts
to
address
the
Chancellor
at
the
close
of
the
day
’
s
business
and
who
can
by
no
means
be
made
to
understand
that
the
Chancellor
is
legally
ignorant
of
his
existence
after
making
it
desolate
for
a
quarter
of
a
century
,
plants
himself
in
a
good
place
and
keeps
an
eye
on
the
judge
,
ready
to
call
out
"
My
Lord
!
"
in
a
voice
of
sonorous
complaint
on
the
instant
of
his
rising
.
A
few
lawyers
’
clerks
and
others
who
know
this
suitor
by
sight
linger
on
the
chance
of
his
furnishing
some
fun
and
enlivening
the
dismal
weather
a
little
.
Jarndyce
and
Jarndyce
drones
on
.
This
scarecrow
of
a
suit
has
,
in
course
of
time
,
become
so
complicated
that
no
man
alive
knows
what
it
means
.
The
parties
to
it
understand
it
least
,
but
it
has
been
observed
that
no
two
Chancery
lawyers
can
talk
about
it
for
five
minutes
without
coming
to
a
total
disagreement
as
to
all
the
premises
.
Innumerable
children
have
been
born
into
the
cause
;
innumerable
young
people
have
married
into
it
;
innumerable
old
people
have
died
out
of
it
.
Scores
of
persons
have
deliriously
found
themselves
made
parties
in
Jarndyce
and
Jarndyce
without
knowing
how
or
why
;
whole
families
have
inherited
legendary
hatreds
with
the
suit
.
The
little
plaintiff
or
defendant
who
was
promised
a
new
rocking
-
horse
when
Jarndyce
and
Jarndyce
should
be
settled
has
grown
up
,
possessed
himself
of
a
real
horse
,
and
trotted
away
into
the
other
world
.
Fair
wards
of
court
have
faded
into
mothers
and
grandmothers
;
a
long
procession
of
Chancellors
has
come
in
and
gone
out
;
the
legion
of
bills
in
the
suit
have
been
transformed
into
mere
bills
of
mortality
;
there
are
not
three
Jarndyces
left
upon
the
earth
perhaps
since
old
Tom
Jarndyce
in
despair
blew
his
brains
out
at
a
coffee
-
house
in
Chancery
Lane
;
but
Jarndyce
and
Jarndyce
still
drags
its
dreary
length
before
the
court
,
perennially
hopeless
.
Jarndyce
and
Jarndyce
has
passed
into
a
joke
.
That
is
the
only
good
that
has
ever
come
of
it
.
It
has
been
death
to
many
,
but
it
is
a
joke
in
the
profession
.
Every
master
in
Chancery
has
had
a
reference
out
of
it
.
Every
Chancellor
was
"
in
it
,
"
for
somebody
or
other
,
when
he
was
counsel
at
the
bar
.
Good
things
have
been
said
about
it
by
blue
-
nosed
,
bulbous
-
shoed
old
benchers
in
select
port
-
wine
committee
after
dinner
in
hall
.
Articled
clerks
have
been
in
the
habit
of
fleshing
their
legal
wit
upon
it
.
The
last
Lord
Chancellor
handled
it
neatly
,
when
,
correcting
Mr
.
Blowers
,
the
eminent
silk
gown
who
said
that
such
a
thing
might
happen
when
the
sky
rained
potatoes
,
he
observed
,
"
or
when
we
get
through
Jarndyce
and
Jarndyce
,
Mr
.
Blowers
"
—
a
pleasantry
that
particularly
tickled
the
maces
,
bags
,
and
purses
.
How
many
people
out
of
the
suit
Jarndyce
and
Jarndyce
has
stretched
forth
its
unwholesome
hand
to
spoil
and
corrupt
would
be
a
very
wide
question
.
