2. The hyperkinetic, controlled, impractical person. B. is, in
the fundamentals of energy and control, singularly like A., but
because of the nature of his interests and purposes their lives
have completely diverged so that no one would ordinarily
recognize the kinship in type. B. is and always has been a
worker, enthusiastic and enduring, and he has stuck to his last
with a fidelity that is remarkable. He is very likable in the
ordinary sense,--pleasant to look at, cheerful, ready to joke,
laugh or to help the other fellow. Nevertheless, he has only a
few friends and is a distinctly disappointed man at heart,
because his interests are in the ordinary sense, impractical.
B. early became interested in physiology. From the very start he
found in the workings of the human body a fascination that
concentrated his efforts. Poor, he worked hard enough to obtain
scholarships and fellowships in one university after another
until finally he became a Ph. D. Here was a great error from the
practical standpoint; for had he become an M. D., he would have
had a profession that offered an independent financial future.
But, in his zeal, he did not wish to take on the extended program
of the physician, and he saw clearly that he might become a
better scientist as a Ph. D. He became a teacher in one school
after another, did a good deal of research work, but has not been
fortunate enough to make any epoch-making discoveries. He is one
of those splendid, painstaking, energetic men found in every
university who turn out good pieces of work of which only a few
know anything, and from which in the course of time some genius
or lucky scientist culls a few facts upon which to build up a
great theory or a new doctrine. He married one of his own
students, a fine woman but unluckily not very strong, and so
there fell on him many a domestic duty that a thousand extra
dollars a year would have turned over to a maid.
Thus B. is an obscure but respected member of the faculty of a
small university. He teaches well, though he dislikes it, and he
is happy at the times when he works hard at some physiological
problem. He loves his family and has vowed that his son will be a
business man. He feels inferior as he contemplates his obscure
existence, with its precarious financial state, its drudgery and
most of all the gradual disappearance of his ideals. He is frank
to himself alone, wishes he had made money, but is apt to sneer
at the world of the "fat and successful" as less than his
intellectual equal. He compares his own rewards with that of the
successful man knowing less and with a narrower outlook.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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