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Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener–A beautiful and exquisite conclusion

By Anita Mathias

Isn’t this a heart-breaking and exquisite conclusion to Melville’s wonderful short story, Bartleby the Scrivener.

“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 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!”

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Anita Mathias: About Me

Anita Mathias

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My Books

Wandering Between Two Worlds: Essays on Faith and Art

Wandering Between Two Worlds - Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Francesco, Artist of Florence: The Man Who Gave Too Much

Francesco, Artist of Florence - Amazom.com
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The Story of Dirk Willems

The Story of Dirk Willems - Amazon.com
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Premier Digital Awards 2015 - Finalist - Blogger of the year
Runner Up Christian Media Awards 2014 - Tweeter of the year

Recent Posts

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  • A Mind of Life and Peace in the Middle of a Global Pandemic
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  • Life- Changing Journaling: A Gratitude Journal, and Habit-Tracker, with Food and Exercise Logs, Time Sheets, a Bullet Journal, Goal Sheets and a Planner
  • On Loving That Which Love You Back
  • “An Autobiography in Five Chapters” and Avoiding Habitual Holes  
  • Shining Faith in Action: Dirk Willems on the Ice
  • The Story of Dirk Willems: The Man who Died to Save His Enemy

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What I’m Reading

Fierce Attachments: A Memoir
Vivian Gornick

Fierce Attachments  - Amazon.com
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Wanderlust
Rebecca Solnit

Solnit --  Amazon.com
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Acedia & me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life
Kathleen Norris

KATHLEEN NORRIS --  Amazon.com
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Opened Ground: Poems, 1966-96
Seamus Heaney

Opened Ground: Poems, 1966-96 Amazon.com
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