Today we have a guest post from Ben Brophy. Ben is a Vice President at the Mercatus Center. He writes the Substack Grace Under Pressure. He is also a bivocational pastor at Emmanuel Baptist Church.
Introduction: fog, fog, everywhere
In Bleak House, Charles Dickens writes about fog like J.R.R. Tolkien writes about trees, which is to say, a lot. And the critics love to tell you about the fog. You’ll read that the fog is moral confusion, the fog distances people who are right next to each other, the fog represents the consequences of sinful actions in the community. But I’m interested in how the fog shows Dickens’s disdain for overly bureaucratic institutions. No matter how much you hate inefficient, bloodless systems, Dickens hated them more. The Chancery, in Bleak House and in Dickens’s day, was a labyrinth of legal disputes, procedures, delays, and expenses that failed to deliver what it promised: justice. Dickens himself saw this up close as a law clerk in his younger days.
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.
The Chancery envelops almost every character in one way or another, but Dickens’s remonstrance is about what it does to people. The Chancery dehumanizes people by turning them into predators or prey. Dickens laments the individuals oppressed by the Chancery and excoriates those who take advantage of this fog. His solution, or at least his hope, is in individuals choosing virtue and kindness despite obstacles. It’s this criticism of dehumanizing bureaucracy and emphasis on individual agency that places Bleak House firmly within the classical liberal tradition. I daresay Bleak House is a liberal novel.
Turning People into Predators
The legal system does not come off well in Bleak House. It’s not personal to my esquire friends, but two of the villains in Bleak House are lawyers. Due to its inaccessible nature, professionals who major in the minors of procedure find lucrative business in this system of fog. This procedural acumen gives them power over other people. For Dickens, the issue isn’t that lawyers profit, but that they profit off of keeping hapless individuals in the Chancery system in order to take fees. People become profit centers first and humans second. This is seen most keenly in the character of Vholes. Dickens isn’t subtle here.
‘Sir,’ returns Vholes, always looking at the client, as if he were making a lingering meal of him with his eyes as well as with his professional appetite.
Vholes keeps stringing Richard Carstone along, always giving him hope about his Chancery case and the fortune that will come with it. Yet, as Vholes knows, and every lawyer connected with the Chancery knows, Jarndyce and Jarndyce have gone on forever. Vholes even says out loud that this isn’t good for Richard, but continues right along, billing Richard until he’s buried in debt. Vholes’s suppression of his own compassion and his predatory instincts rob him of his humanity. Dickens shows us this. “So slow, so eager, so bloodless and gaunt, I felt as if Richard were wasting away beneath the eyes of this adviser, and there were something of the Vampire in him.” Vholes demeans himself by using an amorphous system to take advantage of a fellow human being.
Dickens also gives us a proper villain in Mr. Tulkinghorn, who, like Vholes, preys on other human beings. Tulkinghorn is willing to use anything to gather power over other people. He will use the Chancery in civil suits, but he’ll also use the law to further his ends. He begins the tragic character arcs by sending a law enforcement officer after a young street urchin, Jo, to gain information he can use against a noblewoman. He is cold, calculating, entirely in control, but far removed from humanity. Lady Dedlock bemoans to Esther the calamity of falling into his hands:
‘I dread one person very much.
An enemy? …Has he so little pity or compunction?’
‘He has none, and no anger. He is indifferent to everything but his calling. His calling is the acquisition of secrets, and the holding possession of such power as they give him, with no sharer or opponent in it.’
In the hands of one such as Tulkinghorn, tools of the state, from the courts to the police, are misused if there’s no check on their power. Dickens shows us the consequences of unchecked power. He also shows us that such predation robs the oppressors of their humanity. Vholes is compared to a bloodless vampire, and Tulkinghorn is never given a first name. These hint at the loss of humanity in the oppressor. But of course, the more tragic loss is that of those who are oppressed.
Turning People into Prey
Systems like the Chancery can dehumanize people by turning them into predators, but they also provide prey. Bleak House is on the side of the downtrodden, the weak, the vulnerable, and the virtuous who try to help them. But it’s no Christmas Carol. Precious human beings can be robbed of their dignity in a system that does not recognize their equal moral standing. Two examples in Bleak House bring this into relief: Gridley and Jo.
Gridley is pulled into the Chancery by an inheritance dispute. His ordinary disagreement with his brother over a small financial amount gets sucked into the Chancery’s labyrinth for years. Gridley responds by fighting. He fights hard. So much so that he becomes a laughingstock to many at the Chancery. Worse, he runs afoul of Tulkinghorn due to his angry threats. Tulkinghorn has a peace warrant issued against him, and after years of fighting, Gridley breaks.
This ends it. Of all my old associations, of all my old pursuits and hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul alone comes natural to me, and I am fit for. There is a tie of many suffering years between us two, and it is the only tie I ever had on earth that Chancery has not broken?
His battle with the Chancery consumed him and destroyed him. Gridley becomes prey for the system and an object to be crushed. It’s the nature of what the system does to individuals. He dies as one boxing the air, never landing a blow, until his body breaks.
Even more tragically, we have Jo. Jo, poor Jo. Jo is a young boy on the streets. He has no home, he has no parents, he has no hope. Tulkinghorn sees him as a source of information and an instrument to be used in a blackmail scheme. And so Bucket finds him and Tulkinghorn uses him. This episode sets off the chain of events that leads to the young boy’s death. But it’s a specific instance of a broader issue: there’s no room for Jo in the system he lives in. He is moved along from place to place and not seen as a person, only a means to an end when useful.
And there he sits, munching and gnawing, and looking up at the great Cross on the summit of St Paul’s Cathedral, glittering above a red and violet-tinted cloud of smoke. From the boy’s face one might suppose that sacred emblem to be, in his eyes, the crowning confusion of the great, confused city; so golden, so high up, so far out of his reach. There he sits, the sun going down, the river running fast, the crowd flowing by him in two streams - everything moving on to some purpose and to one end until he is stirred and told to ‘move on’ too.
Jo lives in another world, one where cathedrals offer no solace, police abuse him, and the streets serve as a bed. He cannot access anything better because he is actively moved away. The system only becomes interested in him when he has some value. Once Tulkinghorn extracts that value, with the help of Bucket the detective, he discards him.
The Hope in Bleak House
Bleak House isn’t without comforts. Dickens finds the good in local life, in community, between free individuals. Dickens writes of this quiet, peaceful virtue when he says, “I think the best side of such people is almost hidden from us. What the poor are to the poor is little known, excepting to themselves and GOD”. Here he references the poor, but virtuous individuals pervade Bleak House. Two stand out: Esther Summerson and John Jarndyce. Esther, like her biblical namesake, is positioned among many suffering people and in Jarndyce’s care “for such a time as this.” In other words, she’s uniquely placed to show benevolence, kindness, and care for the suffering individuals right in front of her. We see this from very early in the novel:
Peepy (so self-named) was the unfortunate child who had fallen down-stairs, who now interrupted the correspondence by presenting himself, with a strip of plaster on his forehead, to exhibit his wounded knees, in which Ada and I did not know which to pity most - the bruises or the dirt. Mrs Jellyby merely added, with the serene composure with which she said everything, ‘Go along, you naughty Peepy!’ and fixed her fine eyes on Africa again…I ventured quietly to stop poor Peepy as he was going out, and to take him up to nurse. He looked very much astonished at it, and at Ada’s kissing him; but soon fell fast asleep in my arms, sobbing at longer and longer intervals, until he was quiet.
The critique is for Mrs. Jellyby, who has more concern with unknown suffering far away than for her own family. But Esther serves as an example of the good and true individual by attending to the needs of those right in front of her, in this case, Peepy, who got his head stuck in a gate, fell down the stairs, and suffered from neglect. Esther’s care for her local community is seen again and again. She is moved to right action by her righteous heart and by the needs right in front of her.
Yet another scene demonstrates the virtue of both Esther and Jarndyce. The aforementioned Jo has come down with a fever. Esther, with the help of her maidservant, brings Jo into the home she shares with Jarndyce as his ward. Esther narrates the discussion of what to do with Jo:
You had better turn him out” said Mr. Skimpole…”If you put him on the road, you only put him where he was before…Even make him better off if you like! Give him sixpence, or five shillings or five pound ten…and get rid of him!’...’In the meantime’ said Mr. Skimpole cheerfully, ‘as Miss Summerson, with her practical good sense, observes, he is getting worse. Therefore I recommend your turning him out before he gets still worse.’
The amiable face with which he said it, I think I shall never forget.
‘Of course, little woman,’ observed my guardian, turning to me, ‘I can ensure his admission into the proper place…But it’s growing late, and is a very bad night, and the boy is worn out already. There is a bed in the wholesome loft-room by the stable; we had better keep him there until morning, when he can be wrapped up and removed. We’ll do that.
Esther and Jarndyce (her guardian) are resolved to care for Jo. They do so knowing that there is risk of the fever spreading, which is Skimpole’s concern. They do it because it’s the right thing to do. And it’s not cheap virtue, sickness does spread. Esther narrates for us again:
Looking up, I saw my little maid shivering from head to foot.
‘Charley,’ said I, ‘are you so cold?’
‘I think I am, miss,’ she replied. ‘I don’t know what it is. I can’t hold myself still. I felt so, yesterday; at about the same time, miss. Don’t be uneasy, I think I’m ill.’
I heard Ada’s voice outside, and I hurried to the door…and locked it. Just in time, for she tapped at it while my hand was yet upon the key…Ah! It was a long, long time, before my darling girl and I were companions again.
Esther locks herself in with her sick maid so that she may care for her and prevents her best friend from exposing herself to the fever. She both provides care and protects from harm. She does so at her own risk and loss of health. Right action driven by a right heart.
John Jarndyce is another Dickensian paradigm of virtue. He is one of the titular participants in Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce. He does what he can to care for others; indeed, he cares for orphans, he’s generous, he doesn’t waste his time in the Chancery, and he tries to encourage others away from the fog. But beyond any of this, he’s selfless to a stunning degree.
‘And now, little woman,’ said my guardian, whom I had never seen so proud and joyful as in showing me these things, and watching my appreciation of them, ‘now, last of all, for the name of this house.’
‘What is it called, dear guardian?”
‘My child,’ said he, ‘come and see.’...
We went out of the porch; and he showed me written over it, BLEAK HOUSE.
He led me to a seat among the leaves close by, and sitting down me, and taking my hand in his, spoke to me thus:
‘My darling girl, in what there has been between us, I have, I hope, been really solicitous for your happiness. When I wrote you the letter to which you brought the answer,’ smiling as he referred to it, ‘I had my own too much in view; but I had yours too. Whether, under different circumstances, I might ever have renewed the old dream I sometimes dreamed when you were very young, of making you my wife one day, I need not ask myself. I did renew it, and I wrote my letter, and you brought your answer. You are following what I say, my child?’
I was cold, and I trembled violently; but not a word he uttered was lost. As I sat looking fixedly at him, and the sun’s rays descended, softly shining through the leaves, upon his bare head, I felt as if the brightness on him must be like the brightness of the Angels.
‘Hear me, my love, but do not speak. It is for me to speak now. When it was that I began to doubt whether what I had done would really make you happy, is no matter. Woodcourt came home, and I soon had no doubt at all.’
I clasped him round the neck, and hung my head upon his breast, and wept. ‘Lie lightly, confidently, here, my child,’ said he, pressing me gently to him. ‘I am your guardian and your father now. Rest confidently here.’
Jarndyce releases Esther from their engagement even as she was resolved to keep it (and to love him) because he knows she will be happier with another. He sacrifices for Esther’s good and for her joy. But he is still more generous. He gives her a house to live in and names it Bleak House, the same name as the home he cared for her in. He’s passing her an inheritance, as her adopted father, but not a husband. And this inheritance is not simply a house. Bleak House was an almost darkly ironic name at the start of the novel, but it’s now a legacy of virtue, of caring for the people around you, and Jarndyce is passing that inheritance to Esther and her future husband. Esther sees the glory of Jarndyce’s selfless love: the sun’s rays descend, and his brightness is like that of angels. Jarndyce is a type of Christ figure, sacrificing for the benefit of his people. Here is Dickens’s hope found: in virtuous hearts, in love that is patient and hopes all things.
Conclusion: practicing true virtue
Like fog, overly bureaucratic governance obscures our vision. People become numbers. Procedure trumps human care. And the further away other people are, the more our vision is obscured by fog. The solution, of course, is to move closer. The closer we are to people, the less the fog blinds us. This metaphor reveals Bleak House’s liberal impulses. We should shun governance that puts people at a distance, and we should draw near to those closest to us to practice true virtue.
The Chancery is not the only object of Dickens’s ire. He has sharp words for religious hypocrites, uncaring churches, and people who prefer faraway causes to suffering right in front of them. He condemns those people who would abuse others for their own advantage. But his venom is for an overstepped institution. He shares a deeply liberal impulse to distrust administrative governance and to emphasize the agency of individuals. Dickens isn’t blind to human nature; he writes Vholes and Tulkinghorn, and tragic figures like Lady Dedlock, but his best hope is in free people choosing good ends. So too does classical liberalism, with its focus on individual freedoms and rights and its suspicion of centralized power. Dickens’s main concern in his writing isn’t political; it’s humanity, in all its complications and glories. Nevertheless, we find liberal impulses in Bleak House because it shows a moral vision where free individuals can pursue their best in a broken world.
