Admitting that a copy of Dickens' "Bleak House" rests its worthy spine but a few feet from my own humble desk. And that I find that weighty tome's opening para

Admitting that a copy of Dickens' "Bleak House" rests its worthy spine but a few feet from my own humble desk. And that I find that weighty tome's opening paragraphs to be a classic Dickensian wall of words - which only some might appreciate to be a complex and subtle mosaic of myriad parts of Her Majesty's English*, brilliantly arrayed upon the page as brightly colored marbles might be affixed to the full expanse of a beloved garden wall. If, I will confess, rather longer and taller than the entirely practical need of such a wall, in and of itself, might be. Such now said, and more to the point at hand - instead of the causality suggested by the article's title, I'd look for a common cause. When most of the population feels that their present circumstances have fallen far from their hopes of yesteryear, and their future prospects growing ever bleaker, then they neither spend time appreciating long and clever written works, nor gravitate toward wise and foresighted political positions. Humans really ain't at their best when they're running angry, anxious, and scared. *Mr. Dickens wrote almost entirely during the reign of Her Majesty Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India. And it definitely shows.