The narrator of "Bartleby"

[alice wellintown]

Here is one of his rationalizations. This after he finds the bank
Bartleby has made of his desk.

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 be 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.

The argument about Pity, is one I think William Blake would not be
offended by, but that the narrator can not reach the soul that
suffers, well...that...innate quality, incurable sure, call it a
disorder if you prefer, is as natural as the grass that springs within
the Prison yard.