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 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, etc., and if he
declined to answer them openly and unreservedly (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