I Would Prefer Not To

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 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 employés,
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 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 skylight 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 many 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 his 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 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 indispensable, then,
in the afternoon?