Dear Marion,

It seems impossible for me to manage my schedule. I intended
to start writing hours ago, and now it's already 10 minutes past
eleven, almost too late to summarize a hectic day.  It began
with a trip to the John Adams Courthouse with a copy of my letter,
of which I previously gave you the URL, to Kimberly Saillant,
the Nantucket lawyer. This evening I'm pessimistic about the
outcome of the litigation; I conclude that the judiciary's task
is nothing more than to provide political machinations with a
veneer of respectability and a rather thin one at that.

After I came home, I started work on Margrit's estate, a 
discouraging enterprise for various reasons: her own obvious
lack of understanding and or indifference to the consequences of
her actions, the incompetence of her lawyer, the circumstance
that she named Harold Atkinson, the patriarch of her adopted
family in Windsor, as beneficiary of her two small retirement
accounts, on the mistaken assumption that she could then control
by testamentary stipulation the disposition of the proceeds
received by the beneficiary. Meanwhile Harold died five years
ago, and I assume that the benefits assigned to him would now
as a matter of law become part of her probate estate. If I
qualified as administrator or executor, I could presumably
reimburse myself for the funeral expenses and the taxes I
have paid. But is it worth the trouble?

So far as the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas which you mentioned
are concerned, I too enjoy the music and the drama, provided
it's not too long and not too often. It seems to me Arthur Sullivan,
who as you probably know, studied in Leipzig with Mendelssohn's
students if not with Mendelssohn himself, wrote arias some of
which are very sensitive and poignant, and linger in memory
as if they were Mozart's.

As you can tell, the legal concerns of settling Margrit's estate
have gotten to me, largely because it's been twenty years since
I settled my mother's estate, - the Virginia Code, when I read
it, strikes me as if it had been written by lower track ninth
graders, who couldn't quite express what they were trying to say.
Interpretation requires familiarity with customary usage, which
might conceivably be inferred by reading cases, - but at probably
an unacceptable investment of time and effort. Maybe after I get
some sleep, I'll feel more optimistic. Good night.

Jochen