Bartleby, The Scrivener

Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of
Wall-Street

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Title: Bartleby, The Scrivener A Story of Wall-Street
Author: Herman Melville
Release Date: February 23, 2004 [EBook #11231]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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SCRIVENER ***

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BARTLEBY, THE SCRIVENER.
A STORY OF WALL-STREET.
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 of 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 _employees_, 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
tranquility 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 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 in
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