Bleak House

by Charles Dickens

His family is nothing but bills, dirt, waste, noise, tumbles downstairs, confusion, and wretchedness.

"Yet the father must be garnished and tricked out," said the old lady, "because of his deportment. I'd deport him! Transport him would be better!"

Now, these tumbling tenements contain, by night, a swarm of misery.

the uncertainties and delays of the Chancery suit had imparted to his nature something of the careless spirit of a gamester

It's rather jog-trotty and humdrum. But it'll do as well as anything else!"

dismounted with great alacrity.

But why her face should be, in a confused way, like a broken glass to me,

He's as obstinate a young gonoph as I know.

It is a source of much gratification to Mr. Guppy, therefore, to find the new-comer constantly poring

over the papers in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, for he well knows that nothing but confusion and failure can come of that.

Grass?

What vegetable is this?

It is very doubtful whether Judy knows how to laugh. She has so rarely seen the thing done that the probabilities are strong the other way.

The old man shakes his head with sharp sly triumph. "No, no. We have never been readers in our family. It don't pay. Stuff. Idleness. Folly. No, no!"

prolixity,

New word (for me)

The name of poor Mr. Jellyby had appeared in the list of bankrupts

"For the love of God, don't found a hope or expectation on the family curse!

"Have you many pupils, Mr. George?" "They vary in their number, sir. Mostly they're but a small lot to live by."

You may file a strong man's heart away for a good many years, but it will tell all of a sudden at last."

skulking more or less under false names, false hair, false titles, false jewellery, and false histories,

am what they call in Scotland a ne'er-do-weel.

From my Lord Boodle, through the Duke of Foodle, down to Noodle,

is of high standing in that dreary city.

"Your maid, I suppose?" "No. My anything; pet—secretary—messenger—I

I do not regard the village school as teaching everything desirable to be known by my son's wife?"

"Never have a mission, my dear child."

they dies down in Tom-all-Alone's in heaps. They dies more than they lives, according to what I see."

In falling ill, I seemed to have crossed a dark lake

"I miss some familiar object. Ah, I know what it is, Charley! It's the looking-glass."

hope I can do without my old face very well."

the mountains of wiglomeration

me. I was very much changed—oh, very, very much.

His calling is the acquisition of secrets

had had

Past perfect example

began seriously to think that Richard could scarcely have found a worse friend than this.

That old Mr. Turveydrop should ever, in the chances and changes of life, have come to the rescue of Mr. Jellyby from Borrioboola-Gha appeared to me to be one of the pleasantest of oddities.

England has been in a dreadful state for some weeks. Lord Coodle would go out, Sir Thomas Doodle wouldn't come in, and there being nobody in Great Britain (to speak of) except Coodle and Doodle, there has been no government.

a mouth of false teeth like a pianoforte too full of keys,

the Dedlocks of the past doze in their picture-frames,

We would make him as rich as a Jew

paused at the level of a clever amateur—he

"I do assure you, you're a pretty creetur. I've seen hundreds worse looking at your time of life, I have indeed."

a breakfast of two mutton chops as a foundation to work upon, together with tea, eggs, toast, and marmalade

My Lady's name is not a name for common persons to trifle with!"

the less you PARLAY, the better, you know."

Railroads shall soon traverse all this country,

Railroads not railways

I was far from sure that I was not in a dream.

"A person of the name of Michael Jackson, with a blue welveteen waistcoat with a double row of mother of pearl buttons,"

unreason and injustice at the heart

"Well, guardian," said I, "without thinking myself a Fatima or you a Blue Beard, I am a little curious about it."

not for the weight in gold of all the mountains in Wales!"