Bleak House Charles Dickens (classic books to read .TXT) đ
- Author: Charles Dickens
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Mr. Jarndyce said that he condoled with him with all his heart and that he set up no monopoly himself in being unjustly treated by this monstrous system.
âThere again!â said Mr. Gridley with no diminution of his rage. âThe system! I am told on all hands, itâs the system. I mustnât look to individuals. Itâs the system. I mustnât go into court and say, âMy Lord, I beg to know this from youâ âis this right or wrong? Have you the face to tell me I have received justice and therefore am dismissed?â My Lord knows nothing of it. He sits there to administer the system. I mustnât go to Mr. Tulkinghorn, the solicitor in Lincolnâs Inn Fields, and say to him when he makes me furious by being so cool and satisfiedâ âas they all do, for I know they gain by it while I lose, donât I?â âI mustnât say to him, âI will have something out of someone for my ruin, by fair means or foul!â He is not responsible. Itâs the system. But, if I do no violence to any of them, hereâ âI may! I donât know what may happen if I am carried beyond myself at last! I will accuse the individual workers of that system against me, face to face, before the great eternal bar!â
His passion was fearful. I could not have believed in such rage without seeing it.
âI have done!â he said, sitting down and wiping his face. âMr. Jarndyce, I have done! I am violent, I know. I ought to know it. I have been in prison for contempt of court. I have been in prison for threatening the solicitor. I have been in this trouble, and that trouble, and shall be again. I am the man from Shropshire, and I sometimes go beyond amusing them, though they have found it amusing, too, to see me committed into custody and brought up in custody and all that. It would be better for me, they tell me, if I restrained myself. I tell them that if I did restrain myself I should become imbecile. I was a good-enough-tempered man once, I believe. People in my part of the country say they remember me so, but now I must have this vent under my sense of injury or nothing could hold my wits together. It would be far better for you, Mr. Gridley,â the Lord Chancellor told me last week, ânot to waste your time here, and to stay, usefully employed, down in Shropshire.â âMy Lord, my Lord, I know it would,â said I to him, âand it would have been far better for me never to have heard the name of your high office, but unhappily for me, I canât undo the past, and the past drives me here!â Besides,â he added, breaking fiercely out, âIâll shame them. To the last, Iâll show myself in that court to its shame. If I knew when I was going to die, and could be carried there, and had a voice to speak with, I would die there, saying, âYou have brought me here and sent me from here many and many a time. Now send me out feet foremost!âââ
His countenance had, perhaps for years, become so set in its contentious expression that it did not soften, even now when he was quiet.
âI came to take these babies down to my room for an hour,â he said, going to them again, âand let them play about. I didnât mean to say all this, but it donât much signify. Youâre not afraid of me, Tom, are you?â
âNo!â said Tom. âYou ainât angry with me.â
âYou are right, my child. Youâre going back, Charley? Aye? Come then, little one!â He took the youngest child on his arm, where she was willing enough to be carried. âI shouldnât wonder if we found a gingerbread soldier downstairs. Letâs go and look for him!â
He made his former rough salutation, which was not deficient in a certain respect, to Mr. Jarndyce, and bowing slightly to us, went downstairs to his room.
Upon that, Mr. Skimpole began to talk, for the first time since our arrival, in his usual gay strain. He said, Well, it was really very pleasant to see how things lazily adapted themselves to purposes. Here was this Mr. Gridley, a man of a robust will and surprising energyâ âintellectually speaking, a sort of inharmonious blacksmithâ âand he could easily imagine that there Gridley was, years ago, wandering about in life for something to expend his superfluous combativeness uponâ âa sort of Young Love among the thornsâ âwhen the Court of Chancery came in his way and accommodated
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