A Gulab from the Gulag

I love this description of engineers.....

"An engineer? I had grown up among engineers, and I could remember the
engineers of the twenties very well indeed: their open, shining intellects,
their free and gentle humor, their agility and breadth of thought, the ease with
which they shifted from one engineering field to another, and, for that matter,
from technology to social concerns and art. Then, too, they personified good
manners and delicacy of taste; well bred speech that flowed evenly and was free
of uncultured words; one of them might play a musical instrument, another dabble
in painting; and their faces always bore a spiritual imprint."

Aleksandr I Solzhenitsyn

The Gulag Archipelago