Question

Which sentence in this excerpt from Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener" best exhibits the use of verbal irony?

Answer 1

A.
Before, I had never experienced aught but a not unpleasing sadness.
B.
Upon inspection, the drawer exhibited a great array of the shells of various sorts of nuts. Indeed, to this quick-witted youth, the whole noble science of the law was contained in a nutshell.
C.
So he sent him to my office, as student at law, errand boy, cleaner and sweeper, at the rate of one dollar a week.
D.
For the first time in my life a feeling of overpowering stinging melancholy seized me.

Answer 2

Hi brit and welcome to QuestionCove.
Verbal irony would be when someone says something that has the opposite intention of its literal meaning.
With that in mind, I think A would be the best answer, since it refers to the character as having never experienced anything but a "not unpleasing sadness". Of course, sadness is, by definition, unpleasing. Whatever, the character's actual meaning, it is not literally what he says.