The Prayer of the Scientist

From Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis, which I am enjoying a good deal:

God give me unclouded eyes and freedom from haste.  God give me a quiet and relentless anger against all pretense and all pretentious work and all work left slack and unfinished.  God give me a restlessness whereby I may neither sleep nor accept praise till my observed results equal my calculated results or in pious glee I discover and assault my error.  God give me strength not to trust God!

Thus prays Dr. Martin Arrowsmith, whose blinding love for the laboratory I wish I could mimic in my own art.  Sinclair Lewis quipped something to the effect of, ‘Martin worked through the night at extremely tedious procedures.  He did not realize they were tedious.’  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to love your work that much?