Heen-1, so kind of you to ask! You haven't heard the tale of Bartleby the Balrog because I haven't written it yet, it was a bad joke on an old story-- never mind. Birdie's joke was better & more accurate. Bartleby was a clerk who one day sat down, stopped working, & eventually died because, as he explained to his employer, he 'preferred not to.' I read it in school, I think it's by Melville. It struck me as a good explanation for Balrogs having vast wings but never flying even when dropped from a great height.
There was something Balrog-like in that clerk's life-denying monomania. What would you do if Morgoth was your boss? Wouldn't shirking on the job be the noble choice?
|