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Bartleby the Scrivener By Herman Melville
A Penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication
Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville is a publication of the Pennsylvania State University.
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Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville, the Pennsylvania State University, Electronic Classics
Series, Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, Hazleton, PA 18201-1291 is a Portable Document File produced
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Copyright © 2002 The Pennsylvania State University
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Melville
Bartleby the Scrivener
By
Herman Melville
Chapter 1
I AM A RATHER ELDERLY MAN. The nature of my avocations
for the last thirty years has brought me intomore than ordinary contact with what would seem
an interesting and somewhat singular set of men, ofwhom, as yet, nothing that I know of has ever beenwritten — I mean the law-copyists, or scriveners. Ihave known very many of them, professionally andprivately, and, if I pleased, could relate divers historiesat which good-natured gentlemen might smileand sentimental souls might weep. But I waive thebiographies of all other scriveners for a few passagesin the life of Bartleby, who was a scrivener, the strangestI ever saw or heard of. While of other law-copyists
I might write the complete life, of Bartleby nothingof that sort can be done. I believe that no materials
exist for a full and satisfactory biography ofthis man. It is an irreparable loss to literature.
Bartleby was one of those beings of whom nothingis ascertainable except from the original sources, and,in his case, those are very small. What my own astonishedeyes saw of Bartleby, that is all I know ofhim, except, indeed, one vague report, which willappear in the sequel.Ere introducing the scrivener as he first appeared
to me, it is fit I make some mention of myself, myemployees, my business, my chambers and generalto an adequate understanding of the chiefcharacter about to be presented. Imprimis: I am aman who, from his youth upwards, has been filledwith a profound conviction that the easiest way oflife is the best. Hence, though I belong to a professionproverbially energetic and nervous even to turbulenceat times, yet nothing of that sort have I ever4Bartleby the Scrivenersuffered to invade my peace. I am one of those unambitiouslawyers who never www.51lunwen.org 英语论文网提供英语论文，代写留学生论文，英国论文，澳洲论文 www.51lunwen.org qq949925041
addresses a jury or inany way draws down public applause, but, in thecool tranquillity of a snug retreat, do a snug businessamong rich men’s bonds, and mortgages, and titledeeds. All who know me consider me an eminentlysafe man. The late John Jacob Astor, a personage littlegiven to poetic enthusiasm, had no hesitation in pronouncingmy first grand point to be prudence,