I can see that figure now—pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn! It was Bartleby.
ATTRIBUTION:
Herman Melville (1819–1891), U.S. author. “Bartleby” (1853), The Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces 1839-1860, The Writings of Herman Melville, vol. 9, eds. Harrison Hayford, Alma A. MacDougall, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1987).
