The New Man

by Charles P. Snow

T

he three of us had had dinner, and walked down past the theatre to the river’s edge. There was little light in the sky, and over towards Clopton Bridge the dim shapes of swans moved upon the dark water. Under the willows, the river smell brought back a night, not here, but in Cambridge: I had been thinking of Cambridge all through dinner, after Martin had mentioned a friend of mine who had been killed that spring.

      On our way past the dark theatre, I heard Mounteney whisper to Martin: to my astonishment he seemed to be asking what was the matter with me. At any rate, as we stood by the river, he tried, with a curious brusque delicacy, to distract me: that was how the conversation began.

      So awkwardly that he did not sound kind, Monteney asked me if I were satisfied with the way I had spent my life—and at once started off saying that recently he had been examining his own. What had made him a scientist? How would he justify it? Ought his son and Martin’s to be scientists, too?

      Soon we were talking intimately. Science, said Mounteney, had been the one permanent source of happiness in his life; and really the happiness was a private, if you like a selfish, one. It was just the happiness he derived from seeing how nature worked; it would not have lost its strength if nothing he had done added sixpence to practical human betterment. Martin agreed. That was the obscure link between them, who seemed as different as men could be. Deep down, they were contemplatives, utterly unlike Luke, who was as fine a scientist as Mounteney and right out of Martin’s reach. For Luke, contemplation was a means, not a joy in itself; his happiness was to “make Mother Nature sit up and beg.” He wanted power over nature so that human beings had a better time.

      Both Mounteney and Martin wished that they shared Luke’s pleasure. For by this time, their own was beginning to seem too private: not enough justification for a life. Mounteney would have liked to say, as he might have done in less austere times, that science was good in itself; he felt it so; but in the long run he had to fall back on the justification for himself and other scientists, that their work and science in general did practical good to human lives.

NOTES AND EXERCISES:

1.   Cambridge—1) A city and county seat of Cambridgeshire and Ely, in Eastern England, about fifty miles north-east of London; site of Cambridge University; 2) A city in eastern Massachusetts, on the Charles river opposite Boston in the United States of America; site of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

2.   Verbs ending in “y” change this letter to “–i(e)” in the third person singular, the past tense and the past participle forms, in cases where the “y” is preceded by a consonant. In the present participle form of such verbs, however, the “y” remains unchanged:

      try              Þ         tries                 Þ         tried, trying

      satisfy        Þ         satisfies           Þ         satisfied, satisfying

      justify        Þ         justifies           Þ         justified, justifying

      If the “y” is preceded by a vowel in these forms of the verb, then it is preserved:

      play           Þ         plays               Þ         played             Þ         playing

      With the verbs die, lie and tie the “–i(e)” is changed to “y” in the present participle form: dying, lying, tying. The letter “y” is changed to “–i” not only in verbs but also in other parts of speech when it is preceded by a consonant: happy—happily—happiness; envy—envious.

3.   Check up the meaning of the following verbs having a common root: distract, attract, protract, abstract, retract, detract.

4.   Word study:

brusque     [bru:sk] rough and abrupt (of speech or behaviour)—безцеремонен

contemplate           1) to look at (with the eyes, or in the mind): She stood contemplating her figure/herself in the mirror. 2) to have in view as a purpose, intention, or possibility: She was contemplating a visit to London. I hope your mother does not contemplate coming to stay with us. I do not contemplate any opposition from him. 3) to meditate (especially as a religious practice)

contemplation       contemplating; deep thought; intention; expectation: He sat there deep in contemplation.

contemplative        thoughtful; fond of contemplation; given up to religious contemplation

austere                   severely moral and strict (of a person, his behaviour); simple and plain; without ornament or comfort (of a way of living, of places, of styles)

5.   Translate the following expressions and use them in sentences of your own:

      to derive happiness, to derive pleasure, to take pleasure in, to get pleasure, to derive satisfaction, to find something satisfying;

     

      in the long run—eventually: In the long run, crime does not pay.

      at any rate—in any circumstances; in any case; even so (used as a final comment on some event or situation): The Government, at any rate, is not to blame.

      birth rate, death rate, rate of interest, rate of profit, to live at a high rate (to go large), to buy at a high rate (to buy at an expensive price), to buy at an easy rate (cheaply), pulse-rate, flow-rate, at a rate of 100 miles an hour, at accelerated rates, “I rate his speech very highly,” “He rates among the best doctors in town.”