Mourning Bartleby

Bartleby is dead....alas...

In this short story by Herman Melville, a eccentric scrivener of Wall Street dies within his own little world. His view on life: "I'd prefer not to..." I would hope that we should take a lesson from Bartleby and prefer, whether we prefer a hamburger over a hot dog, a hamster over a gerbil, or even prefer life over death, to live, we must prefer.

Bartleby was a talented, good-natured man, honest in all his doings, but, as it is with us all, died slowly of apathy.

(An addendum: This story, written wonderfully by Melville, would indeed by funny, even hilarious, if it weren't so accurate and, frankly, so un-funny.)

Hire the mourners,
Don the sackcloth,
Wail, beat your breast,
For Bartleby is dead...
Bartleby is dead...
he is dead...
is dead...
dead...

alas