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I AM a rather elderly man. The nature of my
avocations for the last thirty years has
brought me into more than ordinary contact
with what would seem an interesting and
somewhat singular set of men, of whom as
yet nothing that I know of has ever been
written:--I mean the law-copyists or
scriveners. I have known very many of them,
professionally and privately, and if I
pleased, could relate divers histories, at
which good-natured gentlemen might
smile, and sentimental souls might weep.
But I waive the biographies of all other
scriveners for a few passages in the life of
Bartleby, who was a scrivener the strangest
I ever saw or heard of. While of other law-
copyists I might write the complete life, of
Bartleby nothing of that sort can be done. I
believe that no materials exist for a full and
satisfactory biography of this man. It is an
irreparable loss to literature. Bartleby was
one of those beings of whom nothing is
ascertainable, except from the original
sources, and in his case those are very
small. What my own astonished eyes saw of
Bartleby, that is all I know of him, except,
indeed, one vague report which will appear
in the sequel.

Ere introducing the scrivener, as he first
appeared to me, it is fit I make some
mention of myself, my employées, my
business, my chambers, and general
surroundings; because some such
description is indispensable to an adequate

understanding of the chief character about
to be presented.

Imprimis: I am a man who, from his youth
upwards, has been filled with a profound
conviction that the easiest way of life is the
best. Hence, though I belong to a profession
proverbially energetic and nervous, even to
turbulence, at times, yet nothing of that sort
have I ever suffered to invade my peace. I
am one of those unambitious lawyers who
never addresses a jury, or in any way draws
down public applause; but in the cool
tranquillity of a snug retreat, do a snug
business among rich men's bonds and
mortgages and title-deeds. All who know
me consider me an eminently safe man.
The late John Jacob Astor, a personage
little given to poetic enthusiasm, had no
hesitation in pronouncing my first grand
point to be prudence; my next, method. I do
not speak it in vanity, but simply record the
fact, that I was not unemployed in my
profession by the late John Jacob Astor; a
name which, I admit, I love to repeat, for it
hath a rounded and orbicular sound to it,
and rings like unto bullion. I will freely add ,
that I was not insensible to the late John
Jacob Astor's good opinion.

Some time prior to the period at which this
little history begins, my avocations had
been largely increased. The good old
office, now extinct in the State of New-
York, of a Master in Chancery, had been

-1-

conferred upon me. It was not a very
arduous office, but very pleasantly
remunerative. I seldom lose my temper;
much more seldom indulge in dangerous
indignation at wrongs and outrages; but I
must be permitted to be rash here and
declare, that I consider the sudden and
violent abrogation of the office of Master of
Chancery, by the new Constitution, as a
premature act; inasmuch as I had counted
upon a life-lease of the profits, whereas I
only received those of a few short years. But
this is by the way.

My chambers were up stairs at No. Wall-
street. At one end they looked upon the
white wall of the interior of a spacious sky-
light shaft, penetrating the building from top
to bottom. This view might have been
considered rather tame than otherwise,
deficient in what landscape painters call
``life.'' But if so, the view from the other end
of my chambers offered, at least, a
contrast, if nothing more. In that direction my
windows commanded an unobstructed
view of a lofty brick wall, black by age and
everlasting shade; which wall required no
spy-glass to bring out its lurking beauties,
but for the benefit of all near-sighted
spectators, was pushed up to within ten feet
of my window panes. Owing to the great
height of the surrounding buildings, and my
chambers being on the second floor, the
interval between this wall and mine not a
little resembled a huge square cistern.

At the period just preceding the advent of
Bartleby, I had two persons as copyists in
my employment, and a promising lad as an
office-boy. First, Turkey; second, Nippers;
third, Ginger Nut. These may seem names,
the like of which are not usually found in the
Directory. In truth they were nicknames,
mutually conferred upon each other by my
three clerks, and were deemed expressive
of their respective persons or characters.

Turkey was a short, pursy Englishman of
about my own age, that is, somewhere not
far from sixty. In the morning, one might say,
his face was of a fine florid hue, but after
twelve o'clock, meridian--his dinner hour--
it blazed like a grate full of Christmas coals;
and continued blazing--but, as it were, with
a gradual wane--till 6 o'clock, P. M. or
thereabouts, after which I saw no more of
the proprietor of the face, which gaining its
meridian with the sun, seemed to set with it,
to rise, culminate, and decline the following
day, with the like regularity and
undiminished glory. There are m any
singular coincidences I have known in the
course of my life, not the least among which
was the fact, that exactly when Turkey
displayed his fullest beams from his red and
radiant countenance, just then, too, at that
critical moment, began the daily period
when I considered his business capacities
as seriously disturbed for the remainder of
the twenty-four hours. Not that he was
absolutely idle, or averse to business then;
far from it. The difficulty was, he was apt to
be altogether too energetic. There was a
strange, inflamed, flurried, flighty
recklessness of activity about him. He
would be incautious in dipping his pen into
his inkstand. All his blots upon my
documents, were dropped there after
twelve o'clock, meridian. Indeed, not only
would he be reckless and sadly given to
making blots in the afternoon, but some
days he went further, and was rather noisy.
At such times, too, his face flamed with
augmented blazonry, as if cannel coal had
been heaped on anthracite. He made an
unpleasant racket with hi s chair; spilled his
sand-box; in mending his pens, impatiently
split them all to pieces, and threw them on
the floor in a sudden passion; stood up and
leaned over his table, boxing his papers
about in a most indecorous manner, very
sad to behold in an elderly man like him.
Nevertheless, as he was in many ways a

-2-

most valuable person to me, and all the time
before twelve o'clock, meridian, was the
quickest, steadiest creature too,
accomplishing a great deal of work in a
style not easy to be matched--for these
reasons, I was willing to overlook his
eccentricities, though indeed, occasionally,
I remonstrated with him. I did this very
gently, however, because, though the
civilest, nay, the blandest and most
reverential of men in the morning, yet in the
afternoon he was disposed, upon
provocation, to be slightly rash with his
tongue, in fact, insolent. Now, valuing his
morning services as I did, and resolved not
to lose them; yet, at the same time made
uncomfortable by his inflamed ways after
twelve o'clock; and being a man of peace,
unwilling by my admonitions to call forth
unseemly retorts from him; I took upon me,
one Saturday noon (he was always worse
on Saturdays), to hint to him, very kindly,
that perhaps now that he was growing old, it
might be well to abridge his labors; in short,
he need not come to my chambers after
twelve o'clock, but, dinner over, had best
go home to his lodgings and rest himself till
tea-time. But no; he insisted upon his
afternoon devotions. His countenance
became intolerably fervid, as he oratorically
assured me--gesticulating with a long ruler
at the other end of the room--that if his
services in the morning were useful, how
indispensible, then, in the afternoon?

``With submission, sir,'' said Turkey on this
occasion, ``I consider myself your right-
hand man. In the morning I but marshal and
deploy my columns; but in the afternoon I put
myself at their head, and gallantly charge
the foe, thus!''--and he made a violent
thrust with the ruler.

``But the blots, Turkey,'' intimated I.

``True,--but, with submission, sir, behold

these hairs! I am getting old. Surely, sir, a
blot or two of a warm afternoon is not to be
severely urged against gray hairs. Old age-
-even if it blot the page--is honorable. With
submission, sir, we both are getting old.''

This appeal to my fellow-feeling was hardly
to be resisted. At all events, I saw that go he
would not. So I made up my mind to let him
stay, resolving, nevertheless, to see to it,
that during the afternoon he had to do with
my less important papers.

Nippers, the second on my list, was a
whiskered, sallow, and, upon the whole,
rather piratical-looking young man of about
five and twenty. I always deemed him the
victim of two evil powers--ambition and
indigestion. The ambition was evinced by a
certain impatience of the duties of a mere
copyist, an unwarrantable usurpation of
strictly professional affairs, such as the
original drawing up of legal documents. The
indigestion seemed betokened in an
occasional nervous testiness and grinning
irritability, causing the teeth to audibly grind
together over mistakes committed in
copying; unnecessary maledictions,
hissed, rather than spoken, in the heat of
business; and especially by a continual
discontent with the height of the table where
he worked. Though of a very ingenious
mechanical turn, Nippers could never get
this table to suit him. He put chips under it,
blocks of various sorts, bits of pasteboard,
and at last went so far as to attempt an
exquisite adjustment by final pieces of
folded blotting-paper. But no invention
would answer. If, for the sake of easing his
back, he brought the table lid at a sharp
angle well up towards his chin, and wrote
there like a man using the steep roof of a
Dutch house for his desk:--then he
declared that it stopped the circulation in his
arms. If now he lowered the table to his
waistbands, and stooped over it in writing,

-3-

then there was a sore aching in his back. In
short, the truth of the matter was, Nippers
knew not what he wanted. Or, if he wanted
any thing, it was to be rid of a scrivener's
table altogether. Among the manifestations
of his diseased ambition was a fondness
he had for receiving visits from certain
ambiguous-looking fellows in seedy coats,
whom he called his clients. Indeed I was
aware that not only was he, at times,
considerable of a ward-politician, but he
occasionally did a little business at the
Justices' courts, and was not unknown on
the steps of the Tombs. I have good reason
to believe, however, that one individual who
called upon him at my chambers, and who,
with a grand air, he insisted was his client,
was no other than a dun, and the alleged
title-deed, a bill. But with all his failings, and
the annoyances he caused me, Nippers,
like his compatriot Turkey, was a very useful
man to me; wrote a neat, swift hand; and,
when he chose, was not deficient in a
gentlemanly sort of deportment. Added to
this, he always dressed in a gentlemanly
sort of way; and so, incidentally, reflected
credit upon my chambers. Whereas with
respect to Turkey, I had much ado to keep
him from being a reproach to me. His
clothes were apt to look oily and smell of
eating-houses. He wore his pantaloons
very loose and baggy in summer. His coats
were execrable; his hat not be to handled.
But while the hat was a thing of indifference
to me, inasmuch as his natural civility and
deference, as a dependent Englishman,
always led him to doff it the moment he
entered the room, yet his coat was another
matter. Concerning his coats, I reasoned
with him; but with no effect. The truth was, I
suppos e, that a man with so small an
income, could not afford to sport such a
lustrous face and a lustrous coat at one and
the same time. As Nippers once observed,
Turkey's money went chiefly for red ink.
One winter day I presented Turkey with a

highly-respectable looking coat of my own,
a padded gray coat, of a most comfortable
warmth, and which buttoned straight up
from the knee to the neck. I thought Turkey
would appreciate the favor, and abate his
rashness and obstreperousness of
afternoons. But no. I verily believe that
buttoning himself up in so downy and
blanket-like a coat had a pernicious effect
upon him; upon the same principle that too
much oats are bad for horses. In fact,
precisely as a rash, restive horse is said to
feel his oats, so Turkey felt his coat. It made
him insolent. He was a man whom
prosperity harmed.

Though concerning the self-indulgent habits
of Turkey I had my own private surmises, yet
touching Nippers I was well persuaded that
whatever might be his faults in other
respects, he was, at least, a temperate
young man. But indeed, nature herself
seemed to have been his vintner, and at his
birth charged him so thoroughly with an
irritable, brandy-like disposition, that all
subsequent potations were needless. When
I consider how, amid the stillness of my
chambers, Nippers would sometimes
impatiently rise from his seat, and stooping
over his table, spread his arms wide apart,
seize the whole desk, and move it, and jerk
it, with a grim, grinding motion on the floor,
as if the table were a perverse voluntary
agent, intent on thwarting and vexing him; I
plainly perceive that for Nippers, brandy
and water were altogether superfluous.

It was fortunate for me that, owing to its
peculiar cause--indigestion--the irritability
and consequent nervousness of Nippers,
were mainly observable in the morning,
while in the afternoon he was comparatively
mild. So that Turkey's paroxysms only
coming on about twelve o'clock, I never had
to do with their eccentricities at one time.
Their fits relieved each other like guards.

-4-

When Nippers' was on, Turkey's was off;
and vice versa. This was a good natural
arrangement under the circumstances.

Ginger Nut, the third on my list, was a lad
some twelve years old. His father was a
carman, ambitious of seeing his son on the
bench instead of a cart, before he died. So
he sent him to my office as student at law,
errand boy, and cleaner and sweeper, at
the rate of one dollar a week. He had a little
desk to himself, but he did not use it much.
Upon inspection, the drawer exhibited a
great array of the shells of various sorts of
nuts. Indeed, to this quick-witted youth the
whole noble science of the law was
contained in a nut-shell. Not the least
among the employments of Ginger Nut, as
well as one which he discharged with the
most alacrity, was his duty as cake and
apple purveyor for Turkey and Nippers.
Copying law papers being proverbially a
dry, husky sort of business, my two
scriveners were fain to moisten their
mouths very often with Spitzenbergs to be
had at the numerous stalls nigh the Custom
House and Post Office. Also, they sent
Ginger Nut very frequently for that peculiar
cake--small, flat, round , and very spicy--
after which he had been named by them. Of
a cold morning when business was but dull,
Turkey would gobble up scores of these
cakes, as if they were mere wafers--
indeed they sell them at the rate of six or
eight for a penny--the scrape of his pen
blending with the crunching of the crisp
particles in his mouth. Of all the fiery
afternoon blunders and flurried rashnesses
of Turkey, was his once moistening a
ginger-cake between his lips, and clapping
it on to a mortgage for a seal. I came within
an ace of dismissing him then. But he
mollified me by making an oriental bow,
and saying--''With submission, sir, it was
generous of me to find you in stationery on
my own account.''

Now my original business--that of a
conveyancer and title hunter, and drawer-
up of recondite documents of all sorts--
was considerably increased by receiving
the master's office. There was now great
work for scriveners. Not only must I push the
clerks already with me, but I must have
additional help. In answer to my
advertisement, a motionless young man
one morning, stood upon my office
threshold, the door being open, for it was
summer. I can see that figure now--pallidly
neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn!
It was Bartleby.

After a few words touching his
qualifications, I engaged him, glad to have
among my corps of copyists a man of so
singularly sedate an aspect, which I thought
might operate beneficially upon the flighty
temper of Turkey, and the fiery one of
Nippers.

I should have stated before that ground
glass folding-doors divided my premises
into two parts, one of which was occupied
by my scriveners, the other by myself.
According to my humor I threw open these
doors, or closed them. I resolved to assign
Bartleby a corner by the folding-doors, but
on my side of them, so as to have this quiet
man within easy call, in case any trifling
thing was to be done. I placed his desk
close up to a small side-window in that part
of the room, a window which originally had
afforded a lateral view of certain grimy
back-yards and bricks, but which, owing to
subsequent erections, commanded at
present no view at all, though it gave some
light. Within three feet of the panes was a
wall, and the light came down from far
above, between two lofty buildings, as from
a very small opening in a dome. Still further
to a satisfactory arrangement, I procured a
high green folding screen, which might
entirely isolate Bartleby from my sight,

-5-

though not remove him from my voice. And
thus, in a ma nner, privacy and society were
conjoined.

At first Bartleby did an extraordinary
quantity of writing. As if long famishing for
something to copy, he seemed to gorge
himself on my documents. There was no
pause for digestion. He ran a day and night
line, copying by sun-light and by candle-
light. I should have been quite delighted with
his application, had be been cheerfully
industrious. But he wrote on silently, palely,
mechanically.

It is, of course, an indispensable part of a
scrivener's business to verify the accuracy
of his copy, word by word. Where there are
two or more scriveners in an office, they
assist each other in this examination, one
reading from the copy, the other holding the
original. It is a very dull, wearisome, and
lethargic affair. I can readily imagine that to
some sanguine temperaments it would be
altogether intolerable. For example, I cannot
credit that the mettlesome poet Byron would
have contentedly sat down with Bartleby to
examine a law document of, say five
hundred pages, closely written in a crimpy
hand.

Now and then, in the haste of business, it
had been my habit to assist in comparing
some brief document myself, calling Turkey
or Nippers for this purpose. One object I
had in placing Bartleby so handy to me
behind the screen, was to avail myself of his
services on such trivial occasions. It was on
the third day, I think, of his being with me,
and before any necessity had arisen for
having his own writing examined, that,
being much hurried to complete a small
affair I had in hand, I abruptly called to
Bartleby. In my haste and natural
expectancy of instant compliance, I sat with
my head bent over the original on my desk,

and my right hand sideways, and somewhat
nervously extended with the copy, so that
immediately upon emerging from his
retreat, Bartleby might snatch it and
proceed to business without the least delay.

In this very attitude did I sit when I called to
him, rapidly stating what it was I wanted him
to do--namely, to examine a small paper
with me. Imagine my surprise, nay, my
consternation, when without moving from
his privacy, Bartleby in a singularly mild,
firm voice, replied, ``I would prefer not to.''

I sat awhile in perfect silence, rallying my
stunned faculties. Immediately it occurred to
me that my ears had deceived me, or
Bartleby had entirely misunderstood my
meaning. I repeated my request in the
clearest tone I could assume. But in quite as
clear a one came the previous reply, ``I
would prefer not to.''

``Prefer not to,'' echoed I, rising in high
excitement, and crossing the room with a
stride. ``What do you mean? Are you moon-
struck? I want you to help me compare this
sheet here--take it,'' and I thrust it towards
him.

``I would prefer not to,'' said he.

I looked at him steadfastly. His face was
leanly composed; his gray eye dimly calm.
Not a wrinkle of agitation rippled him. Had
there been the least uneasiness, anger,
impatience or impertinence in his manner;
in other words, had there been any thing
ordinarily human about him, doubtless I
should have violently dismissed him from
the premises. But as it was, I should have as
soon thought of turning my pale plaster-of-
paris bust of Cicero out of doors. I stood
gazing at him awhile, as he went on with his
own writing, and then reseated myself at my
desk. This is very strange, thought I. What

-6-

had one best do? But my business hurried
me. I concluded to forget the matter for the
present, reserving it for my future leisure.
So calling Nippers from the other room, the
paper was speedily examined.

A few days after this, Bartleby concluded
four lengthy documents, being
quadruplicates of a week's testimony taken
before me in my High Court of Chancery. It
became necessary to examine them. It was
an important suit, and great accuracy was
imperative. Having all things arranged I
called Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut from
the next room, meaning to place the four
copies in the hands of my four clerks, while I
should read from the original. Accordingly
Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut had taken
their seats in a row, each with his document
in hand, when I called to Bartleby to join this
interesting group.

``Bartleby! quick, I am waiting.''

I heard a slow scrape of his chair legs on the
uncarpeted floor, and soon he appeared
standing at the entrance of his hermitage.

``What is wanted?'' said he mildly.

``The copies, the copies,'' said I hurriedly.
``We are going to examine them. There''--
and I held towards him the fourth
quadruplicate.

``I would prefer not to,'' he said, and gently
disappeared behind the screen.

For a few moments I was turned into a pillar
of salt, standing at the head of my seated
column of clerks. Recovering myself, I
advanced towards the screen, and
demanded the reason for such
extraordinary conduct.

''Why do you refuse?''

``I would prefer not to.''

With any other man I should have flown
outright into a dreadful passion, scorned all
further words, and thrust him ignominiously
from my presence. But there was
something about Bartleby that not only
strangely disarmed me, but in a wonderful
manner touched and disconcerted me. I
began to reason with him.

``These are your own copies we are about
to examine. It is labor saving to you,
because one examination will answer for
your four papers. It is common usage. Every
copyist is bound to help examine his copy. Is
it not so? Will you not speak? Answer!''

``I prefer not to,'' he replied in a flute-like
tone. It seemed to me that while I had been
addressing him, he carefully revolved every
statement that I made; fully comprehended
the meaning; could not gainsay the
irresistible conclusion; but, at the same
time, some paramount consideration
prevailed with him to reply as he did.

``You are decided, then, not to comply with
my request--a request made according to
common usage and common sense?''

He briefly gave me to understand that on
that point my judgment was sound. Yes: his
decision was irreversible.

It is not seldom the case that when a man is
browbeaten in some unprecedented and
violently unreasonable way, he begins to
stagger in his own plainest faith. He begins,
as it were, vaguely to surmise that,
wonderful as it may be, all the justice and all
the reason is on the other side. Accordingly,
if any disinterested persons are present, he
turns to them for some reinforcement for his
own faltering mind.

-7-

``Turkey,'' said I, ``what do you think of this?
Am I not right?''

``With submission, sir,'' said Turkey, with
his blandest tone, ``I think that you are.''

``Nippers,'' said I, ``what do you think of
it?''

``I think I should kick him out of the office.''

(The reader of nice perceptions will here
perceive that, it being morning, Turkey's
answer is couched in polite and tranquil
terms, but Nippers replies in ill-tempered
ones. Or, to repeat a previous sentence,
Nippers's ugly mood was on duty, and
Turkey's off.)

``Ginger Nut,'' said I, willing to enlist the
smallest suffrage in my behalf, ``what do
you think of it?''

``I think, sir, he's a little luny,'' replied
Ginger Nut, with a grin.

``You hear what they say,'' said I, turning
towards the screen, ``come forth and do
your duty.''

But he vouchsafed no reply. I pondered a
moment in sore perplexity. But once more
business hurried me. I determined again to
postpone the consideration of this dilemma
to my future leisure. With a little trouble we
made out to examine the papers without
Bartleby, though at every page or two,
Turkey deferentially dropped his opinion
that this proceeding was quite out of the
common; while Nippers, twitching in his
chair with a dyspeptic nervousness, ground
out between his set teeth occasional
hissing maledictions against the stubborn
oaf behind the screen. And for his
(Nippers's) part, this was the first and the
last time he would do another man's

business without pay.

Meanwhile Bartleby sat in his hermitage,
oblivious to every thing but his own peculiar
business there.

Some days passed, the scrivener being
employed upon another lengthy work. His
late remarkable conduct led me to regard
his ways narrowly. I observed that he never
went to dinner; indeed that he never went
any where. As yet I had never of my
personal knowledge known him to be
outside of my office. He was a perpetual
sentry in the corner. At about eleven o'clock
though, in the morning, I noticed that Ginger
Nut would advance toward the opening in
Bartleby's screen, as if silently beckoned
thither by a gesture invisible to me where I
sat. The boy would then leave the office
jingling a few pence, and reappear with a
handful of ginger-nuts which he delivered in
the hermitage, receiving two of the cakes
for his trouble.

He lives, then, on ginger-nuts, thought I;
never eats a dinner, properly speaking; he
must be a vegetarian then; but no; he never
eats even vegetables, he eats nothing but
ginger-nuts. My mind then ran on in reveries
concerning the probable effects upon the
human constitution of living entirely on
ginger-nuts. Ginger-nuts are so called
because they contain ginger as one of their
peculiar constituents, and the final flavoring
one. Now what was ginger? A hot, spicy
thing. Was Bartleby hot and spicy? Not at all.
Ginger, then, had no effect upon Bartleby.
Probably he preferred it should have none.

Nothing so aggravates an earnest person
as a passive resistance. If the individual so
resisted be of a not inhumane temper, and
the resisting one perfectly harmless in his
passivity; then, in the better moods of the
former, he will endeavor charitably to

-8-

construe to his imagination what proves
impossible to be solved by his judgment.
Even so, for the most part, I regarded
Bartleby and his ways. Poor fellow! thought
I, he means no mischief; it is plain he
intends no insolence; his aspect sufficiently
evinces that his eccentricities are
involuntary. He is useful to me. I can get
along with him. If I turn him away, the
chances are he will fall in with some less
indulgent employer, and then he will be
rudely treated, and perhaps driven forth
miserably to starve. Yes. Here I can cheaply
purchase a delicious self-approval. To
befriend Bartleby; to humor him in his
strange wilfulness, will cost me little or
nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will
eventually prove a sweet morsel for my
conscience. But this m ood was not
invariable with me. The passiveness of
Bartleby sometimes irritated me. I felt
strangely goaded on to encounter him in
new opposition, to elicit some angry spark
from him answerable to my own. But indeed
I might as well have essayed to strike fire
with my knuckles against a bit of Windsor
soap. But one afternoon the evil impulse in
me mastered me, and the following little
scene ensued:

``Bartleby,'' said I, ``when those papers are
all copied, I will compare them with you.''

``I would prefer not to.''

``How? Surely you do not mean to persist in
that mulish vagary?''

No answer.

I threw open the folding-doors near by, and
turning upon Turkey and Nippers,
exclaimed in an excited manner

``He says, a second time, he won't examine
his papers. What do you think of it, Turkey?''

It was afternoon, be it remembered. Turkey
sat glowing like a brass boiler, his bald
head steaming, his hands reeling among
his blotted papers.

``Think of it?'' roared Turkey; ``I think I'll just
step behind his screen, and black his eyes
for him!''

So saying, Turkey rose to his feet and threw
his arms into a pugilistic position. He was
hurrying away to make good his promise,
when I detained him, alarmed at the effect
of incautiously rousing Turkey's
combativeness after dinner.

``Sit down, Turkey,'' said I, ``and hear what
Nippers has to say. What do you think of it,
Nippers? Would I not be justified in
immediately dismissing Bartleby?''

``Excuse me, that is for you to decide, sir. I
think his conduct quite unusual, and indeed
unjust, as regards Turkey and myself. But it
may only be a passing whim.''

``Ah,'' exclaimed I, ``you have strangely
changed your mind then--you speak very
gently of him now.''

``All beer,'' cried Turkey; ``gentleness is
effects of beer--Nippers and I dined
together to-day. You see how gentle I am,
sir. Shall I go and black his eyes?''

``You refer to Bartleby, I suppose. No, not
to-day, Turkey,'' I replied; ''pray, put up
your fists.''

I closed the doors, and again advanced
towards Bartleby. I felt additional incentives
tempting me to my fate. I burned to be
rebelled against again. I remembered that
Bartleby never left the office.

``Bartleby,'' said I, ``Ginger Nut is away;

-9-

just step round to the Post Office, won't
you? (it was but a three minutes walk,) and
see if there is any thing for me.''

``I would prefer not to.''

``You will not?''

``I prefer not.''

I staggered to my desk, and sat there in a
deep study. My blind inveteracy returned.
Was there any other thing in which I could
procure myself to be ignominiously
repulsed by this lean, penniless wight?--my
hired clerk? What added thing is there,
perfectly reasonable, that he will be sure to
refuse to do?

``Bartleby!''

No answer.

``Bartleby,'' in a louder tone.

No answer.

``Bartleby,'' I roared.

Like a very ghost, agreeably to the laws of
magical invocation, at the third summons,
he appeared at the entrance of his
hermitage.

``Go to the next room, and tell Nippers to
come to me.''

``I prefer not to,'' he respectfully and slowly
said, and mildly disappeared.

``Very good, Bartleby,'' said I, in a quiet
sort of serenely severe self-possessed
tone, intimating the unalterable purpose of
some terrible retribution very close at hand.
At the moment I half intended something of
the kind. But upon the whole, as it was

drawing towards my dinner-hour, I thought it
best to put on my hat and walk home for the
day, suffering much from perplexity and
distress of mind.

Shall I acknowledge it? The conclusion of
this whole business was, that it soon
became a fixed fact of my chambers, that a
pale young scrivener, by the name of
Bartleby, had a desk there; that he copied
for me at the usual rate of four cents a folio
(one hundred words); but he was
permanently exempt from examining the
work done by him, that duty being
transferred to Turkey and Nippers, one of
compliment doubtless to their superior
acuteness; moreover, said Bartleby was
never on any account to be dispatched on
the most trivial errand of any sort; and that
even if entreated to take upon him such a
matter, it was generally understood that he
would prefer not to--in other words, that he
would refuse point-blank.

As days passed on, I became considerably
reconciled to Bartleby. His steadiness, his
freedom from all dissipation, his incessant
industry (except when he chose to throw
himself into a standing revery behind his
screen), his great stillness, his
unalterableness of demeanor under all
circumstances, made him a valuable
acquisition. One prime thing was this, he
was always there;--first in the morning,
continually through the day, and the last at
night. I had a singular confidence in his
honesty. I felt my most precious papers
perfectly safe in his hands. Sometimes to
be sure I could not, for the very soul of me,
avoid falling into sudden spasmodic
passions with him. For it was exceeding
difficult to bear in mind all the time those
strange peculiarities, privileges, and
unheard of exemptions, forming the tacit
stipulations on Bartleby's part under which
he remained in my office. Now and then, in

-10-

the eagerness of dispatching pressing
business, I would inadvertently summon
Bartleby, in a short, rapid ton e, to put his
finger, say, on the incipient tie of a bit of red
tape with which I was about compressing
some papers. Of course, from behind the
screen the usual answer, ``I prefer not to,''
was sure to come; and then, how could a
human creature with the common infirmities
of our nature, refrain from bitterly
exclaiming upon such perverseness--such
unreasonableness. However, every added
repulse of this sort which I received only
tended to lessen the probability of my
repeating the inadvertence.

Here is must be said, that according to the
custom of most legal gentlemen occupying
chambers in densely-populated law
buildings, there were several keys to my
door. One was kept by a woman residing in
the attic, which person weekly scrubbed
and daily swept and dusted my apartments.
Another was kept by Turkey for
convenience sake. The third I sometimes
carried in my own pocket. The fourth I knew
not who had.

Now, one Sunday morning I happened to go
to Trinity Church, to hear a celebrated
preacher, and finding myself rather early on
the ground, I thought I would walk round to
my chambers for a while. Luckily I had my
key with me; but upon applying it to the lock,
I found it resisted by something inserted
from the inside. Quite surprised, I called out;
when to my consternation a key was turned
from within; and thrusting his lean visage at
me, and holding the door ajar, the
apparition of Bartleby appeared, in his shirt
sleeves, and otherwise in a strangely
tattered dishabille, saying quietly that he
was sorry, but he was deeply engaged just
then, and--preferred not admitting me at
present. In a brief word or two, he moreover
added, that perhaps I had better walk round

the block two or three times, and by that
time he would probably have concluded his
affairs.

Now, the utterly unsurmised appearance of
Bartleby, tenanting my law-chambers of a
Sunday morning, with his cadaverously
gentlemanly nonchalance, yet withal firm
and self-possessed, had such a strange
effect upon me, that incontinently I slunk
away from my own door, and did as
desired. But not without sundry twinges of
impotent rebellion against the mild
effrontery of this unaccountable scrivener.
Indeed, it was his wonderful mildness
chiefly, which not only disarmed me, but
unmanned me, as it were. For I consider
that one, for the time, is a sort of unmanned
when he tranquilly permits his hired clerk to
dictate to him, and order him away from his
own premises. Furthermore, I was full of
uneasiness as to what Bartleby could
possibly be doing in my office in his shirt
sleeves, and in an otherwise dismantled
condition of a Sunday morning. Was any
thing amiss going on? Nay, that was out of
the question. It was not to be thought of for a
moment that Bartleby was an immoral
person. But what could he be doing there?--
copying? Nay again, whatever might be his
eccentricities, Bartleby was an eminently
decorous person. He would be the last man
to sit down to his desk in any state
approaching to nudity. Besides, it was
Sunday; and there was something about
Bartleby that forbade the supposition that
we would by any secular occupation violate
the proprieties of the day.

Nevertheless, my mind was not pacified;
and full of a restless curiosity, at last I
returned to the door. Without hindrance I
inserted my key, opened it, and entered.
Bartleby was not to be seen. I looked round
anxiously, peeped behind his screen; but it
was very plain that he was gone. Upon more

-11-

closely examining the place, I surmised that
for an indefinite period Bartleby must have
ate, dressed, and slept in my office, and
that too without plate, mirror, or bed. The
cushioned seat of a ricketty old sofa in one
corner bore the faint impress of a lean,
reclining form. Rolled away under his desk, I
found a blanket; under the empty grate, a
blacking box and brush; on a chair, a tin
basin, with soap and a ragged towel; in a
newspaper a few crumbs of ginger-nuts
and a morsel of cheese. Yet, thought I, it is
evident enough that Bartleby has been
making his home here, keeping bachelor's
hall all by himself. Immediately then the
thought came sweeping across me, What
miserable friendlessness and loneliness
are he re revealed! His poverty is great; but
his solitude, how horrible! Think of it. Of a
Sunday, Wall-street is deserted as Petra;
and every night of every day it is an
emptiness. This building too, which of
week-days hums with industry and life, at
nightfall echoes with sheer vacancy, and all
through Sunday is forlorn. And here Bartleby
makes his home; sole spectator of a
solitude which he has seen all populous--a
sort of innocent and transformed Marius
brooding among the ruins of Carthage!

For the first time in my life a feeling of
overpowering stinging melancholy seized
me. Before, I had never experienced aught
but a not-unpleasing sadness. The bond of
a common humanity now drew me
irresistibly to gloom. A fraternal melancholy!
For both I and Bartleby were sons of Adam.
I remembered the bright silks and sparkling
faces I had seen that day, in gala trim,
swan-like sailing down the Mississippi of
Broadway; and I contrasted them with the
pallid copyist, and thought to myself, Ah,
happiness courts the light, so we deem the
world is gay; but misery hides aloof, so we
deem that misery there is none. These sad
fancyings--chimeras, doubtless, of a sick

and silly brain--led on to other and more
special thoughts, concerning the
eccentricities of Bartleby. Presentiments of
strange discoveries hovered round me. The
scrivener's pale form appeared to me laid
out, among uncaring strangers, in its
shivering winding sheet.

Suddenly I was attracted by Bartleby's
closed desk, the key in open sight left in the
lock.

I mean no mischief, seek the gratification of
no heartless curiosity, thought I; besides,
the desk is mine, and its contents too, so I
will make bold to look within. Every thing
was methodically arranged, the papers
smoothly placed. The pigeon holes were
deep, and removing the files of documents,
I groped into their recesses. Presently I felt
something there, and dragged it out. It was
an old bandanna handkerchief, heavy and
knotted. I opened it, and saw it was a
savings' bank.

I now recalled all the quiet mysteries which I
had noted in the man. I remembered that he
never spoke but to answer; that though at
intervals he had considerable time to
himself, yet I had never seen him reading--
no, not even a newspaper; that for long
periods he would stand looking out, at his
pale window behind the screen, upon the
dead brick wall; I was quite sure he never
visited any refectory or eating house; while
his pale face clearly indicated that he never
drank beer like Turkey, or tea and coffee
even, like other men; that he never went any
where in particular that I could learn; never
went out for a walk, unless indeed that was
the case at present; that he had declined
telling who he was, or whence he came, or
whether he had any relatives in the world;
that though so thin and pale, he never
complained of ill health. And more than all, I
remembered a certain unconscious air of

-12-

pallid--how shall I call it?--of pallid
haughtiness, say, or rather an austere
reserve about him, which had positively a
wed me into my tame compliance with his
eccentricities, when I had feared to ask him
to do the slightest incidental thing for me,
even though I might know, from his long-
continued motionlessness, that behind his
screen he must be standing in one of those
dead-wall reveries of his.

Revolving all these things, and coupling
them with the recently discovered fact that
he made my office his constant abiding
place and home, and not forgetful of his
morbid moodiness; revolving all these
things, a prudential feeling began to steal
over me. My first emotions had been those
of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but
just in proportion as the forlornness of
Bartleby grew and grew to my imagination,
did that same melancholy merge into fear,
that pity into repulsion. So true it is, and so
terrible too, that up to a certain point the
thought or sight of misery enlists our best
affections; but, in certain special cases,
beyond that point it does not. They err who
would assert that invariably this is owing to
the inherent selfishness of the human heart.
It rather proceeds from a certain
hopelessness of remedying excessive and
organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not
seldom pain. And when at last it is
perceived that such pity cannot lead to
effectual succor, common sense bids the
soul be rid of it. What I saw that morning
persuaded me that the scrivener was the
victim of innate and incurable disorder. I
might give alms to his body; but his body did
not pain him; it was his soul that suffered,
and his soul I could not reach.

I did not accomplish the purpose of going to
Trinity Church that morning. Somehow, the
things I had seen disqualified me for the
time from church-going. I walked

homeward, thinking what I would do with
Bartleby. Finally, I resolved upon this;--I
would put certain calm questions to him the
next morning, touching his history, &c., and if
he declined to answer then openly and
reservedly (and I supposed he would prefer
not), then to give him a twenty dollar bill over
and above whatever I might owe him, and
tell him his services were no longer
required; but that if in any other way I could
assist him, I would be happy to do so,
especially if he desired to return to his
native place, wherever that might be, I
would willingly help to defray the expenses.
Moreover, if, after reaching home, he found
himself at any time in want of aid, a letter
from him would be sure of a reply.

The next morning came.

``Bartleby,'' said I, gently calling to him
behind his screen.

No reply.

``Bartleby,'' said I, in a still gentler tone,
``come here; I am not going to ask you to do
any thing you would prefer not to do--I
simply wish to speak to you.''

Upon this he noiselessly slid into view.

``Will you tell me, Bartleby, where you were
born?''

``I would prefer not to.''

``Will you tell me any thing about yourself?''

``I would prefer not to.''

``But what reasonable objection can you
have to speak to me? I feel friendly towards
you.''

He did not look at me while I spoke, but kept

-13-

his glance fixed upon my bust of Cicero,
which as I then sat, was directly behind me,
some six inches above my head.

``What is your answer, Bartleby?'' said I,
after waiting a considerable time for a
reply, during which his countenance
remained immovable, only there was the
faintest conceivable tremor of the white
attenuated mouth.

``At present I prefer to give no answer,'' he
said, and retired into his hermitage.

It was rather weak in me I confess, but his
manner on this occasion nettled me. Not
only did there seem to lurk in it a certain
disdain, but his perverseness seemed
ungrateful, considering the undeniable
good usage and indulgence he had
received from me.

Again I sat ruminating what I should do.
Mortified as I was at his behavior, and
resolved as I had been to dismiss him when
I entered my office, nevertheless I strangely
felt something superstitious knocking at my
heart, and forbidding me to carry out my
purpose, and denouncing me for a villain if I
dared to breathe one bitter word against
this forlornest of mankind. At last, familiarly
drawing my chair behind his screen, I sat
down and said: ''Bartleby, never mind then
about revealing your history; but let me
entreat you, as a friend, to comply as far as
may be with the usages of this office. Say
now you will help to examine papers to-
morrow or next day: in short, say now that in
a day or two you will begin to be a little
reasonable:--say so, Bartleby.''

``At present I would prefer not to be a little
reasonable,'' was his mildly cadaverous
reply.

Just then the folding-doors opened, and

Nippers approached. He seemed suffering
from an unusually bad night's rest, induced
by severer indigestion than common. He
overheard those final words of Bartleby.

''Prefer not, eh?'' gritted Nippers--''I'd
prefer him, if I were you, sir,'' addressing
me--''I'd prefer him; I'd give him
preferences, the stubborn mule! What is it,
sir, pray, that he prefersnot to do now?''

Bartleby moved not a limb.

``Mr. Nippers,'' said I, ``I'd prefer that you
would withdraw for the present.''

Somehow, of late I had got into the way of
involuntarily using this word ''prefer'' upon
all sorts of not exactly suitable occasions.
And I trembled to think that my contact with
the scrivener had already and seriously
affected me in a mental way. And what
further and deeper aberration might it not
yet produce? This apprehension had not
been without efficacy in determining me to
summary means.

As Nippers, looking very sour and sulky,
was departing, Turkey blandly and
deferentially approached.

``With submission, sir,'' said he, ``yesterday
I was thinking about Bartleby here, and I
think that if he would but prefer to take a
quart of good ale every day, it would do
much towards mending him, and enabling
him to assist in examining his papers.''

``So you have got the word too,'' said I,
slightly excited.

``With submission, what word, sir,'' asked
Turkey, respectfully crowding himself into
the contracted space behind the screen,
and by so doing, making me jostle the
scrivener. ``What word, sir?''

-14-

``I would prefer to be left alone here,'' said
Bartleby, as if offended at being mobbed in
his privacy.

''That's the word, Turkey,'' said I ''that's
it.''

``Oh, prefer? oh yes--queer word. I never
use it myself. But, sir, as I was saying, if he
would but prefer--''

``Turkey,'' interrupted I, ``you will please
withdraw.''

``Oh, certainly, sir, if you prefer that I
should.''

As he opened the folding-door to retire,
Nippers at his desk caught a glimpse of me,
and asked whether I would prefer to have a
certain paper copied on blue paper or
white. He did not in the least roguishly
accent the word prefer. It was plain that it
involuntarily rolled from his tongue. I thought
to myself, surely I must get rid of a
demented man, who already has in some
degree turned the tongues, if not the heads
of myself and clerks. But I thought it prudent
not to break the dismission at once.

The next day I noticed that Bartleby did
nothing but stand at his window in his dead-
wall revery. Upon asking him why he did not
write, he said that he had decided upon
doing no more writing.

``Why, how now? what next?'' exclaimed I,
``do no more writing?''

``No more.''

``And what is the reason?''

``Do you not see the reason for yourself,''
he indifferently replied.

I looked steadfastly at him, and perceived
that his eyes looked dull and glazed.
Instantly it occurred to me, that his
unexampled diligence in copying by his dim
window for the first few weeks of his stay
with me might have temporarily impaired
his vision.

I was touched. I said something in
condolence with him. I hinted that of course
he did wisely in abstaining from writing for a
while; and urged him to embrace that
opportunity of taking wholesome exercise
in the open air. This, however, he did not do.
A few days after this, my other clerks being
absent, and being in a great hurry to
dispatch certain letters by the mail, I thought
that, having nothing else earthly to do,
Bartleby would surely be less inflexible than
usual, and carry these letters to the post-
office. But he blankly declined. So, much to
my inconvenience, I went myself.

Still added days went by. Whether
Bartleby's eyes improved or not, I could not
say. To all appearance, I thought they did.
But when I asked him if they did, he
vouchsafed no answer. At all events, he
would do no copying. At last, in reply to my
urgings, he informed me that he had
permanently given up copying.

``What!'' exclaimed I; ``suppose your eyes
should get entirely well--better than ever
before--would you not copy then?''

``I have given up copying,'' he answered,
and slid aside.

He remained as ever, a fixture in my
chamber. Nay--if that were possible--he
became still more of a fixture than before.
What was to be done? He would do nothing
in the office: why should he stay there? In
plain fact, he had now become a millstone
to me, not only useless as a necklace, but

-15-

afflictive to bear. Yet I was sorry for him. I
speak less than truth when I say that, on his
own account, he occasioned me
uneasiness. If he would but have named a
single relative or friend, I would instantly
have written, and urged their taking the poor
fellow away to some convenient retreat. But
he seemed alone, absolutely alone in the
universe. A bit of wreck in the mid Atlantic.
At length, necessities connected with my
business tyrannized over all other
considerations. Decently as I could, I told
Bartleby that in six days' time he must
unconditionally leave the office. I warned
him to take measures, in the interval, for
procuring some other abode. I offered to
assist him in this endeavor, if he himself
would but tak e the first step towards a
removal. ``And when you finally quit me,
Bartleby,'' added I, ``I shall see that you go
not away entirely unprovided. Six days from
this hour, remember.''

At the expiration of that period, I peeped
behind the screen, and lo! Bartleby was
there.

I buttoned up my coat, balanced myself;
advanced slowly towards him, touched his
shoulder, and said, ``The time has come;
you must quit this place; I am sorry for you;
here is money; but you must go.''

``I would prefer not,'' he replied, with his
back still towards me.

``You must.''

He remained silent.

Now I had an unbounded confidence in this
man's common honesty. He had frequently
restored to me sixpences and shillings
carelessly dropped upon the floor, for I am
apt to be very reckless in such shirt-button
affairs. The proceeding then which followed

will not be deemed extraordinary.

``Bartleby,'' said I, ``I owe you twelve
dollars on account; here are thirty-two; the
odd twenty are yours.--Will you take it?''
and I handed the bills towards him.

But he made no motion.

``I will leave them here then,'' putting them
under a weight on the table. Then taking my
hat and cane and going to the door I
tranquilly turned and added--''After you
have removed your things from these
offices, Bartleby, you will of course lock the
door--since every one is now gone for the
day but you--and if you please, slip your
key underneath the mat, so that I may have it
in the morning. I shall not see you again; so
good-bye to you. If hereafter in your new
place of abode I can be of any service to
you, do not fail to advise me by letter. Good-
bye, Bartleby, and fare you well.''

But he answered not a word; like the last
column of some ruined temple, he
remained standing mute and solitary in the
middle of the otherwise deserted room.

As I walked home in a pensive mood, my
vanity got the better of my pity. I could not but
highly plume myself on my masterly
management in getting rid of Bartleby.
Masterly I call it, and such it must appear to
any dispassionate thinker. The beauty of my
procedure seemed to consist in its perfect
quietness. There was no vulgar bullying, no
bravado of any sort, no choleric hectoring,
and striding to and fro across the
apartment, jerking out vehement
commands for Bartleby to bundle himself
off with his beggarly traps. Nothing of the
kind. Without loudly bidding Bartleby depart-
-as an inferior genius might have done--I
assumed the ground that depart he must;
and upon the assumption built all I had to

-16-

say. The more I thought over my procedure,
the more I was charmed with it.
Nevertheless, next morning, upon
awakening, I had my doubts,--I had
somehow slept off the fumes of vanity. One
of the coolest and wisest hours a man has,
is just after he awakes in the morning. My
procedure seemed as sagacious as ev er,-
-but only in theory. How it would prove in
practice--there was the rub. It was truly a
beautiful thought to have assumed
Bartleby's departure; but, after all, that
assumption was simply my own, and none
of Bartleby's. The great point was, not
whether I had assumed that he would quit
me, but whether he would prefer so to do.
He was more a man of preferences than
assumptions.

(To be continued.)

(Concluded from page 557.)

AFTER breakfast, I walked down town,
arguing the probabilities proand con. One
moment I thought it would prove a miserable
failure, and Bartleby would be found all alive
at my office as usual; the next moment it
seemed certain that I should see his chair
empty. And so I kept veering about. At the
corner of Broadway and Canal-street, I
saw quite an excited group of people
standing in earnest conversation.

``I'll take odds he doesn't,'' said a voice as I
passed.

``Doesn't go?--done!'' said I, ``put up your
money.''

I was instinctively putting my hand in my
pocket to produce my own, when I
remembered that this was an election day.
The words I had overheard bore no
reference to Bartleby, but to the success or
non-success of some candidate for the

mayoralty. In my intent frame of mind, I had,
as it were, imagined that all Broadway
shared in my excitement, and were
debating the same question with me. I
passed on, very thankful that the uproar of
the street screened my momentary absent-
mindedness.

As I had intended, I was earlier than usual at
my office door. I stood listening for a
moment. All was still. He must be gone. I
tried the knob. The door was locked. Yes,
my procedure had worked to a charm; he
indeed must be vanished. Yet a certain
melancholy mixed with this: I was almost
sorry for my brilliant success. I was fumbling
under the door mat for the key, which
Bartleby was to have left there for me, when
accidentally my knee knocked against a
panel, producing a summoning sound, and
in response a voice came to me from
within--''Not yet; I am occupied.''

It was Bartleby.

I was thunderstruck. For an instant I stood
like the man who, pipe in mouth, was killed
one cloudless afternoon long ago in
Virginia, by summer lightning; at his own
warm open window he was killed, and
remained leaning out there upon the dreamy
afternoon, till some one touched him, when
he fell.

``Not gone!'' I murmured at last. But again
obeying that wondrous ascendancy which
the inscrutable scrivener had over me, and
from which ascendency, for all my chafing, I
could not completely escape, I slowly went
down stairs and out into the street, and
while walking round the block, considered
what I should next do in this unheard-of
perplexity. Turn the man out by an actual
thrusting I could not; to drive him away by
calling him hard names would not do; calling
in the police was an unpleasant idea; and

-17-

yet, permit him to enjoy his cadaverous
triumph over me,--this too I could not think
of. What was to be done? or, if nothing could
be done, was there any thing further that I
could assume in the matter? Yes, as before
I had prospectively assumed that Bartleby
would depart, so now I might retrospectively
assume that departed he was. In the
legitimate carrying out of this assumption, I
might enter my office in a great hurry, and
pretending not to see Bartleby at all, walk
straight against him as if he were air. Such
a proceeding would in a singular degree
have the appearance of a home-thrust. It
was hardly possible that Bartleby could
withstand such an application of the
doctrine of assumptions. But upon second
thoughts the success of the plan seemed
rather dubious. I resolved to argue the
matter over with him again.

``Bartleby,'' said I, entering the office, with
a quietly severe expression, ''I am seriously
displeased. I am pained, Bartleby. I had
thought better of you. I had imagined you of
such a gentlemanly organization, that in any
delicate dilemma a slight hint would suffice-
-in short, an assumption. But it appears I
am deceived. Why,'' I added, unaffectedly
starting, ``you have not even touched the
money yet,'' pointing to it, just where I had
left it the evening previous.

He answered nothing.

``Will you, or will you not, quit me?'' I now
demanded in a sudden passion, advancing
close to him.

``I would prefer not to quit you,'' he replied,
gently emphasizing the not.

``What earthly right have you to stay here?
Do you pay any rent? Do you pay my taxes?
Or is this property yours?''

He answered nothing.

``Are you ready to go on and write now? Are
your eyes recovered? Could you copy a
small paper for me this morning? or help
examine a few lines? or step round to the
post-office? In a word, will you do any thing
at all, to give a coloring to your refusal to
depart the premises?''

He silently retired into his hermitage.

I was now in such a state of nervous
resentment that I thought it but prudent to
check myself at present from further
demonstrations. Bartleby and I were alone. I
remembered the tragedy of the unfortunate
Adams and the still more unfortunate Colt in
the solitary office of the latter; and how poor
Colt, being dreadfully incensed by Adams,
and imprudently permitting himself to get
wildly excited, was at unawares hurried into
his fatal act--an act which certainly no man
could possibly deplore more than the actor
himself. Often it had occurred to me in my
ponderings upon the subject, that had that
altercation taken place in the public street,
or at a private residence, it would not have
terminated as it did. It was the circumstance
of being alone in a solitary office, up stairs,
of a building entirely unhallowed by
humanizing domestic associations--an
uncarpeted office, doubtless, of a dusty,
haggard sort of appearance;--this it must
have been, which greatly helped to enhance
the irritable desperation of the hapless Colt.

But when this old Adam of resentment rose
in me and tempted me concerning Bartleby,
I grappled him and threw him. How? Why,
simply by recalling the divine injunction: ``A
new commandment give I unto you, that ye
love one another.'' Yes, this it was that
saved me. Aside from higher
considerations, charity often operates as a
vastly wise and prudent principle--a great

-18-

safeguard to its possessor. Men have
committed murder for jealousy's sake, and
anger's sake, and hatred's sake, and
selfishness' sake, and spiritual pride's
sake; but no man that ever I heard of, ever
committed a diabolical murder for sweet
charity's sake. Mere self-interest, then, if
no better motive can be enlisted, should,
especially with high-tempered men, prompt
all beings to charity and philanthropy. At any
rate, upon the occasion in question, I strove
to drown my exasperated feelings towards
the scrivener by benevolently construing his
conduct. Poor fellow, poor fellow! thought I,
he don't mean any thing; and besides, he
has seen hard tim es, and ought to be
indulged.

I endeavored also immediately to occupy
myself, and at the same time to comfort my
despondency. I tried to fancy that in the
course of the morning, at such time as might
prove agreeable to him, Bartleby, of his
own free accord, would emerge from his
hermitage, and take up some decided line
of march in the direction of the door. But no.
Half-past twelve o'clock came; Turkey
began to glow in the face, overturn his
inkstand, and become generally
obstreperous; Nippers abated down into
quietude and courtesy; Ginger Nut munched
his noon apple; and Bartleby remained
standing at his window in one of his
profoundest dead-wall reveries. Will it be
credited? Ought I to acknowledge it? That
afternoon I left the office without saying one
further word to him.

Some days now passed, during which, at
leisure intervals I looked a little into
``Edwards on the Will,'' and ``Priestley on
Necessity.'' Under the circumstances,
those books induced a salutary feeling.
Gradually I slid into the persuasion that
these troubles of mine touching the
scrivener, had been all predestinated from

eternity, and Bartleby was billeted upon me
for some mysterious purpose of an all-wise
Providence, which it was not for a mere
mortal like me to fathom. Yes, Bartleby, stay
there behind your screen, thought I; I shall
persecute you no more; you are harmless
and noiseless as any of these old chairs; in
short, I never feel so private as when I know
you are here. At least I see it, I feel it; I
penetrate to the predestinated purpose of
my life. I am content. Others may have loftier
parts to enact; but my mission in this world,
Bartleby, is to furnish you with office-room
for such period as you may see fit to remain.

I believe that this wise and blessed frame of
mind would have continued with me, had it
not been for the unsolicited and
uncharitable remarks obtruded upon me by
my professional friends who visited the
rooms. But thus it often is, that the constant
friction of illiberal minds wears out at last
the best resolves of the more generous.
Though to be sure, when I reflected upon it,
it was not strange that people entering my
office should be struck by the peculiar
aspect of the unaccountable Bartleby, and
so be tempted to throw out some sinister
observations concerning him. Sometimes
an attorney having business with me, and
calling at my office, and finding no one but
the scrivener there, would undertake to
obtain some sort of precise information
from him touching my whereabouts; but
without heeding his idle talk, Bartleby would
remain standing immovable in the middle of
the room. So after contemplating him in that
position for a time, the attorney would
depart, no wiser than he came.

Also, when a Reference was going on, and
the room full of lawyers and witnesses and
business was driving fast; some deeply
occupied legal gentleman present, seeing
Bartleby wholly unemployed, would request
him to run round to his (the legal

-19-

gentleman's) office and fetch some papers
for him. Thereupon, Bartleby would
tranquilly decline, and yet remain idle as
before. Then the lawyer would give a great
stare, and turn to me. And what could I say?
At last I was made aware that all through the
circle of my professional acquaintance, a
whisper of wonder was running round,
having reference to the strange creature I
kept at my office. This worried me very
much. And as the idea came upon me of his
possibly turning out a long-lived man, and
keep occupying my chambers, and denying
my authority; and perplexing my visitors;
and scandalizing my professional
reputation; and casting a general gloom
over the premises; keeping soul and body
together to the last upon his savings (for
doubtless he spent but half a dime a da y),
and in the end perhaps outlive me, and
claim possession of my office by right of his
perpetual occupancy: as all these dark
anticipations crowded upon me more and
more, and my friends continually intruded
their relentless remarks upon the apparition
in my room; a great change was wrought in
me. I resolved to gather all my faculties
together, and for ever rid me of this
intolerable incubus.

Ere revolving any complicated project,
however, adapted to this end, I first simply
suggested to Bartleby the propriety of his
permanent departure. In a calm and serious
tone, I commended the idea to his careful
and mature consideration. But having taken
three days to meditate upon it, he apprised
me that his original determination remained
the same; in short, that he still preferred to
abide with me.

What shall I do? I now said to myself,
buttoning up my coat to the last button. What
shall I do? what ought I to do? what does
conscience say I should do with this man, or
rather ghost. Rid myself of him, I must; go,

he shall. But how? You will not thrust him, the
poor, pale, passive mortal,--you will not
thrust such a helpless creature out of your
door? you will not dishonor yourself by such
cruelty? No, I will not, I cannot do that.
Rather would I let him live and die here, and
then mason up his remains in the wall. What
then will you do? For all your coaxing, he will
not budge. Bribes he leaves under your own
paperweight on your table; in short, it is
quite plain that he prefers to cling to you.

Then something severe, something unusual
must be done. What! surely you will not have
him collared by a constable, and commit his
innocent pallor to the common jail? And
upon what ground could you procure such a
thing to be done?--a vagrant, is he? What!
he a vagrant, a wanderer, who refuses to
budge? It is because he will not be a
vagrant, then, that you seek to count him as
a vagrant. That is too absurd. No visible
means of support: there I have him. Wrong
again: for indubitably he doessupport
himself, and that is the only unanswerable
proof that any man can show of his
possessing the means so to do. No more
then. Since he will not quit me, I must quit
him. I will change my offices; I will move
elsewhere; and give him fair notice, that if I
find him on my new premises I will then
proceed against him as a common
trespasser.

Acting accordingly, next day I thus
addressed him: ``I find these chambers too
far from the City Hall; the air is
unwholesome. In a word, I propose to
remove my offices next week, and shall no
longer require your services. I tell you this
now, in order that you may seek another
place.''

He made no reply, and nothing more was
said.

-20-

On the appointed day I engaged carts and
men, proceeded to my chambers, and
having but little furniture, every thing was
removed in a few hours. Throughout, the
scrivener remained standing behind the
screen, which I directed to be removed the
last thing. It was withdrawn; and being
folded up like a huge folio, left him the
motionless occupant of a naked room. I
stood in the entry watching him a moment,
while something from within me upbraided
me.

I re-entered, with my hand in my pocket--
and--and my heart in my mouth.

``Good-bye, Bartleby; I am going--good-
bye, and God some way bless you; and
take that,'' slipping something in his hand.
But it dropped upon the floor, and then,--
strange to say--I tore myself from him
whom I had so longed to be rid of.

Established in my new quarters, for a day or
two I kept the door locked, and started at
every footfall in the passages. When I
returned to my rooms after any little
absence, I would pause at the threshold for
an instant, and attentively listen, ere
applying my key. But these fears were
needless. Bartleby never came nigh me.

I thought all was going well, when a
perturbed looking stranger visited me,
inquiring whether I was the person who had
recently occupied rooms at No. Wall-street.

Full of forebodings, I replied that I was.

``Then sir,'' said the stranger, who proved a
lawyer, ``you are responsible for the man
you left there. He refuses to do any copying;
he refuses to do any thing; he says he
prefers not to; and he refuses to quit the
premises.''

``I am very sorry, sir,'' said I, with assumed
tranquillity, but an inward tremor, ``but,
really, the man you allude to is nothing to
me--he is no relation or apprentice of mine,
that you should hold me responsible for
him.''

``In mercy's name, who is he?''

``I certainly cannot inform you. I know
nothing about him. Formerly I employed him
as a copyist; but he has done nothing for me
now for some time past.''

``I shall settle him then,--good morning,
sir.''

Several days passed, and I heard nothing
more; and though I often felt a charitable
prompting to call at the place and see poor
Bartleby, yet a certain squeamishness of I
know not what withheld me.

All is over with him, by this time, thought I at
last, when through another week no further
intelligence reached me. But coming to my
room the day after, I found several persons
waiting at my door in a high state of nervous
excitement.

``That's the man--here he comes,'' cried
the foremost one, whom I recognized as the
lawyer who had previously called upon me
alone.

``You must take him away, sir, at once,''
cried a portly person among them,
advancing upon me, and whom I knew to be
the landlord of No. Wall-street. ''These
gentlemen, my tenants, cannot stand it any
longer; Mr. B----'' pointing to the lawyer,
``has turned him out of his room, and he
now persists in haunting the building
generally, sitting upon the banisters of the
stairs by day, and sleeping in the entry by
night. Every body is concerned; clients are

-21-

leaving the offices; some fears are
entertained of a mob; something you must
do, and that without delay.''

Aghast at this torrent, I fell back before it,
and would fain have locked myself in my
new quarters. In vain I persisted that
Bartleby was nothing to me--no more than
to any one else. In vain:--I was the last
person known to have any thing to do with
him, and they held me to the terrible
account. Fearful then of being exposed in
the papers (as one person present
obscurely threatened) I considered the
matter, and at length said, that if the lawyer
would give me a confidential interview with
the scrivener, in his (the lawyer's) own
room, I would that afternoon strive my best
to rid them of the nuisance they complained
of.

Going up stairs to my old haunt, there was
Bartleby silently sitting upon the banister at
the landing.

``What are you doing here, Bartleby?'' said
I.

``Sitting upon the banister,'' he mildly
replied.

I motioned him into the lawyer's room, who
then left us.

``Bartleby,'' said I, ``are you aware that you
are the cause of great tribulation to me, by
persisting in occupying the entry after being
dismissed from the office?''

No answer.

``Now one of two things must take place.
Either you must do something, or something
must be done to you. Now what sort of
business would you like to engage in?
Would you like to re-engage in copying for

some one?''

``No; I would prefer not to make any
change.''

``Would you like a clerkship in a dry-goods
store?''

``There is too much confinement about that.
No, I would not like a clerkship; but I am not
particular.''

``Too much confinement,'' I cried, ``why you
keep yourself confined all the time!''

``I would prefer not to take a clerkship,'' he
rejoined, as if to settle that little item at
once.

``How would a bar-tender's business suit
you? There is no trying of the eyesight in
that.''

``I would not like it at all; though, as I said
before, I am not particular.''

His unwonted wordiness inspirited me. I
returned to the charge.

``Well then, would you like to travel through
the country collecting bills for the
merchants? That would improve your
health.''

``No, I would prefer to be doing something
else.''

``How then would going as a companion to
Europe, to entertain some young gentleman
with your conversation,--how would that
suit you?''

``Not at all. It does not strike me that there is
any thing definite about that. I like to be
stationary. But I am not particular.''

-22-

``Stationary you shall be then,'' I cried, now
losing all patience, and for the first time in all
my exasperating connection with him fairly
flying into a passion. ``If you do not go away
from these premises before night, I shall
feel bound--indeed I am bound--to--to--
to quit the premises myself!'' I rather
absurdly concluded, knowing not with what
possible threat to try to frighten his
immobility into compliance. Despairing of
all further efforts, I was precipitately leaving
him, when a final thought occurred to me--
one which had not been wholly unindulged
before.

``Bartleby,'' said I, in the kindest tone I could
assume under such exciting circumstances,
``will you go home with me now--not to my
office, but my dwelling--and remain there
till we can conclude upon some convenient
arrangement for you at our leisure? Come,
let us start now, right away.''

``No: at present I would prefer not to make
any change at all.''

I answered nothing; but effectually dodging
every one by the suddenness and rapidity of
my flight, rushed from the building, ran up
Wall-street towards Broadway, and
jumping into the first omnibus was soon
removed from pursuit. As soon as
tranquillity returned I distinctly perceived that
I had now done all that I possibly could, both
in respect to the demands of the landlord
and his tenants, and with regard to my own
desire and sense of duty, to benefit
Bartleby, and shield him from rude
persecution. I now strove to be entirely care-
free and quiescent; and my conscience
justified me in the attempt; though indeed it
was not so successful as I could have
wished. So fearful was I of being again
hunted out by the incensed landlord and his
exasperated tenants, that, surrendering my
business to Nippers, for a few days I drove

about the upper part of the town and through
the suburbs, in my rockaway; crossed over
to Jersey City and Hoboken, and paid
fugitive visits to Manhattanville and Astoria.
In fact I almost lived in my rockaway for the
time.

When again I entered my office, lo, a note
from the landlord lay upon the desk. I
opened it with trembling hands. It informed
me that the writer had sent to the police, and
had Bartleby removed to the Tombs as a
vagrant. Moreover, since I knew more about
him than any one else, he wished me to
appear at that place, and make a suitable
statement of the facts. These tidings had a
conflicting effect upon me. At first I was
indignant; but at last almost approved. The
landlord's energetic, summary disposition
had led him to adopt a procedure which I do
not think I would have decided upon myself;
and yet as a last resort, under such peculiar
circumstances, it seemed the only plan.

As I afterwards learned, the poor scrivener,
when told that he must be conducted to the
Tombs, offered not the slightest obstacle,
but in his pale unmoving way, silently
acquiesced.

Some of the compassionate and curious
bystanders joined the party; and headed by
one of the constables arm in arm with
Bartleby, the silent procession filed its way
through all the noise, and heat, and joy of
the roaring thoroughfares at noon.

The same day I received the note I went to
the Tombs, or to speak more properly, the
Halls of Justice. Seeking the right officer, I
stated the purpose of my call, and was
informed that the individual I described was
indeed within. I then assured the functionary
that Bartleby was a perfectly honest man,
and greatly to be compassionated,
however unaccountably eccentric. I narrated

-23-

all I knew, and closed by suggesting the
idea of letting him remain in as indulgent
confinement as possible till something less
harsh might be done--though indeed I
hardly knew what. At all events, if nothing
else could be decided upon, the alms-
house must receive him. I then begged to
have an interview.

Being under no disgraceful charge, and
quite serene and harmless in all his ways,
they had permitted him freely to wander
about the prison, and especially in the
inclosed grass-platted yards thereof. And
so I found him there, standing all alone in the
quietest of the yards, his face towards a
high wall, while all around, from the narrow
slits of the jail windows, I thought I saw
peering out upon him the eyes of murderers
and thieves.

``Bartleby!''

``I know you,'' he said, without looking
round,--''and I want nothing to say to you.''

``It was not I that brought you here,
Bartleby,'' said I, keenly pained at his
implied suspicion. ``And to you, this should
not be so vile a place. Nothing reproachful
attaches to you by being here. And see, it is
not so sad a place as one might think. Look,
there is the sky, and here is the grass.''

``I know where I am,'' he replied, but would
say nothing more, and so I left him.

As I entered the corridor again, a broad
meat-like man, in an apron, accosted me,
and jerking his thumb over his shoulder
said--''Is that your friend?''

``Yes.''

``Does he want to starve? If he does, let him
live on the prison fare, that's all.''

``Who are you?'' asked I, not knowing what
to make of such an unofficially speaking
person in such a place.

``I am the grub-man. Such gentlemen as
have friends here, hire me to provide them
with something good to eat.''

``Is this so?'' said I, turning to the turnkey.

He said it was.

``Well then,'' said I, slipping some silver into
the grub-man's hands (for so they called
him). ``I want you to give particular attention
to my friend there; let him have the best
dinner you can get. And you must be as
polite to him as possible.''

``Introduce me, will you?'' said the grub-
man, looking at me with an expression
which seem to say he was all impatience for
an opportunity to give a specimen of his
breeding.

Thinking it would prove of benefit to the
scrivener, I acquiesced; and asking the
grub-man his name, went up with him to
Bartleby.

``Bartleby, this is Mr. Cutlets; you will find
him very useful to you.''

``Your sarvant, sir, your sarvant,'' said the
grub-man, making a low salutation behind
his apron. ``Hope you find it pleasant here,
sir;--spacious grounds--cool apartments,
sir--hope you'll stay with us some time--try
to make it agreeable. May Mrs. Cutlets and I
have the pleasure of your company to
dinner, sir, in Mrs. Cutlets' private room?''

``I prefer not to dine to-day,'' said Bartleby,
turning away. ``It would disagree with me; I
am unused to dinners.'' So saying he slowly
moved to the other side of the inclosure,

-24-

and took up a position fronting the dead-
wall.

``How's this?'' said the grub-man,
addressing me with a stare of
astonishment. ``He's odd, aint he?''

``I think he is a little deranged,'' said I, sadly.

``Deranged? deranged is it? Well now, upon
my word, I thought that friend of yourn was a
gentleman forger; they are always pale and
genteel-like, them forgers. I can't help pity
'em--can't help it, sir. Did you know
Monroe Edwards?'' he added touchingly,
and paused. Then, laying his hand pityingly
on my shoulder, sighed, ``he died of
consumption at Sing-Sing. So you weren't
acquainted with Monroe?''

``No, I was never socially acquainted with
any forgers. But I cannot stop longer. Look
to my friend yonder. You will not lose by it. I
will see you again.''

Some few days after this, I again obtained
admission to the Tombs, and went through
the corridors in quest of Bartleby; but
without finding him.

``I saw him coming from his cell not long
ago,'' said a turnkey, ``may be he's gone to
loiter in the yards.''

So I went in that direction.

``Are you looking for the silent man?'' said
another turnkey passing me. ''Yonder he
lies--sleeping in the yard there. 'Tis not
twenty minutes since I saw him lie down.''

The yard was entirely quiet. It was not
accessible to the common prisoners. The
surrounding walls, of amazing thickness,
kept off all sounds behind them. The
Egyptian character of the masonry weighed

upon me with its gloom. But a soft
imprisoned turf grew under foot. The heart
of the eternal pyramids, it seemed,
wherein, by some strange magic, through
the clefts, grass-seed, dropped by birds,
had sprung.

Strangely huddled at the base of the wall,
his knees drawn up, and lying on his side,
his head touching the cold stones, I saw the
wasted Bartleby. But nothing stirred. I
paused; then went close up to him; stooped
over, and saw that his dim eyes were open;
otherwise he seemed profoundly sleeping.
Something prompted me to touch him. I felt
his hand, when a tingling shiver ran up my
arm and down my spine to my feet.

The round face of the grub-man peered
upon me now. ``His dinner is ready. Won't
he dine to-day, either? Or does he live
without dining?''

``Lives without dining,'' said I, and closed
the eyes.

``Eh!--He's asleep, aint he?''

``With kings and counsellors,'' murmured I. *
* * * * * * *

There would seem little need for
proceeding further in this history.
Imagination will readily supply the meagre
recital of poor Bartleby's interment. But ere
parting with the reader, let me say, that if
this little narrative has sufficiently interested
him, to awaken curiosity as to who Bartleby
was, and what manner of life he led prior to
the present narrator's making his
acquaintance, I can only reply, that in such
curiosity I fully share, but am wholly unable
to gratify it. Yet here I hardly know whether I
should divulge one little item of rumor, which
came to my ear a few months after the
scrivener's decease. Upon what basis it

-25-

rested, I could never ascertain; and hence,
how true it is I cannot now tell. But inasmuch
as this vague report has not been without a
certain strange suggestive interest to me,
however sad, it may prove the same with
some others; and so I will briefly mention it.
The report was this: that Bartleby had been
a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter
Office at Washington, from which he had
been suddenly removed by a change in the
administration. When I think over this rumor, I
cannot adequately express the emotions
which seize me. Dead letters! does it not
sound like dead men? Conceive a man by
nature and misfortune prone to a pallid
hopelessness, can any business seem
more fitted to heighten it than that of
continually handling these dead letters and
assorting them for the flames? For by the
cart-load they are annually burned.
Sometimes from out the folded paper the
pale clerk takes a ring:--the finger it was
meant for, perhaps, moulders in the grave;
a bank-note sent in swiftest charity:--he
whom it would relieve, nor eats nor hungers
any more; pardon for those who died
despairing; hope for those who died
unhoping; good tidings for those who died
stifled by unrelieved calamities. On errands
of life, these letters speed to death.

Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!

-26-