Posted by
Frigglesnitz on Sunday, November 12, 2006 8:41:47 PM
The Truth shall set you free.
I continue to be amazed and delighted at your knowledge and the way in which you express your opinions and, more important, the truth.
It could cause so much envy, but, rather, I have only admiration.
As you may have seen in my bio, I was a legal secretary for years. My admiration for good writing knows no bounds.
One of the attorneys for whom I worked years ago, an antitrust litigator, worked very hard for days and weeks on a post-trial brief. This meant I worked just as hard at my own tasks -- before the days of computers or word processors.
When the brief was completed, he held the finished product in his hands and said to me, simply, "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." We were both filled with admiration and, yes, joy.
That was a strong compliment coming from him, for he was a nitpicking taskmaster. Ever after, I was grateful for having had the privilege of working for him.
We had parted ways, technically, just because of that nitpicking. I "quit" once but offered, graciously I thought, to stay until a replacement was found. You see, I had made an error. I found the error in his absence and made arrangements to correct the error. When he learned of the error, but not the correction thereof, I was "read out" in the presence of my fellow workers. He raved so that he could not, would not, hear my explanation or that the error had already been corrected.
The next thing I did, after I quit squalling in the ladies' room, was to march down to "Personnel" and say that I could not work for him anymore. The reason was that he needed someone who was perfect, and I was making room so that he could find that someone.
When he learned of this, from "Personnel," not from me, he was quite cool for a number of days; however, eventually he called me into his office, closed the door and apologized, asking me to continue to work for him. I had one condition: that he understand I was not perfect, and that I was human, and that as long as I lived I would make mistakes. I had no desire to make mistakes, but I knew that, being human, mistakes would be made. I may also have asked him to make his criticisms in private, but my memory of this is imperfect. Imperfect!
All this simply to say that even a legal brief (written in English) can be a thing of beauty, a joy forever.
I like these comments so much that I shall copy this and place it in my blog.