In the mid-1850s, after novels like Moby-Dick (1851) and Pierre (1852) had chased away most of his readers, Herman Melville turned out a series of short stories for magazines. These included “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” the tale of a resistant clerk narrated by his baffled boss, who ends the story by throwing up his hands: “Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!” Another story from this period ends on a similar note of helpless wonderment: ”Oh! Paradise of Bachelors! And oh! Tartarus of Maids!” This closing exclamation, like that of “Bartleby,” is delivered by a comfortable man for whom the world’s mysteries are a little too much.