Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story Of Wall-Street

by Herman Melville

Bartleby in a singularly mild, firm voice, replied, "I would prefer not to."

For the first time in my life a feeling of overpowering stinging melancholy seized me.

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.

Somehow, of late I had got into the way of involuntarily using this word "prefer" upon all sorts of not exactly suitable occasions.