Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, the infamously dreary lawsuit at the center of Dickens’ Bleak House, dragged on for generations, cost a fortune, and fostered a climate of secrets, despair, and suicide, in which “. . . whole families . . . inherited legendary hatreds.” Ultimately Bleak House contributed to 19th-century reforms of the English legal system, but it has also become a shorthand term for the wasteful destructiveness that affects all participants in a lawsuit.
Character (Still) Counts: Moral Injury and the Case for Character Education
Many academic leaders remember the Character Counts! initiative from the 1990s and early 2000s. It was visible in schools and youth programs nationwide, emphasizing as core values the Six Pillars
Teresa Maggard Stephens
June 15, 2026
