Another five cautionary tales: five plain lives in verse that do not turn out as expected. The first is of a scientist,
who clearly does well in his profession, becoming a well-respected name, though the family takes second place. His wife dies of cancer at
an early age, and his son turns to drugs and wrong company. Such are the costs of success.
The second is the salt of the earth, one of those unsung construction workers without whom none of what we take for granted would be built. Unfortunately,
he becomes involved in a plot to murder an exasperating fellow worker, for which he's never charged,
but nonetheless alienates him from a normal family life.
Our third example comes from a privileged family but marries, against his father's advice, out of his social
status and background. His dull work in the civil service does not entitle him to someone exceptional in his own class, and he
marries someone very pretty but clearly not inclined to stay faithful. Whether the marriage is ever consummated is not clear, but there
are no children.
Richard Postle, our fourth example is a pastor in a northern England parish, whose outlook and aspirations
are clearly at odds with those of his bishop's and parishioners'. His stunted life will be a continual test
of faith.
Stephen Munby is gaining his PhD. in economics and courting a pretty young woman whose money and background will help
enormously in his career prospects. Why does the growing socialism of his views cause him to reject this easier life
and choose one that will only be a continual battle?
The lives in this second volume are 'greyer', and the language is simpler, closer indeed to the prospects
now facing the middle classes in America and Europe.
Free ebook in pdf format.
Opening of Dr Tom Bates: Scientist
You have a name, respectable and one
attained by careful steps and practices:
that modest effort is the thing you stress
and not the accolades you may have won.
And is it difficult? No, not much, I think.
Be fair with your competitors, and do
the least to blindly force your funding through:
you’ll find some friend or colleague makes the link.
It is a mix, and not one integrated whole
of common ends, or close community
of skills and enterprise, but still they see
the papers published as the final goal.
All work’s provisional, is hedged by doubt,
and, in the usual intellectual spats,
the truth is often under several hats
but compromises will at least come out.
5. You plan and organize, you rearrange
the steps for which your previous skills suffice:
that was my father’s thought, it’s my advice:
remember too that funding sources change.
So, yes, by all means, dream of things to be,
the Nobel Prize, the honorary degrees,
but be realistic, each new coursework sees
some added strain to wife and family.
Indeed it’s not a simple choice you make,
at least not consciously: you do your best:
late hours and conferences will do the rest,
will trace the hapless paths you’ll have to take.
I wised up early when the Harvard post
came through, and talked to Beth for several weeks,
but in the end it is your conscience speaks
for knowledge is a dangerous, shaded coast
of unknown obstacles, a Janus face
of raw ambition and the mind’s fatigue,
but when you’ve made that vaunted ivy league
you’ll lapse as all do to that killing pace.
10. Of course that’s in the past. Beth’s long been dead
and Daren may have married, I’m not sure where,
but finally I hear he’s out of care,
though still the journals come, unreal, unread.
