When he must send one son away, due to their constant fighting, he chooses his flesh and blood over Jack, even though he has foreseen that Jack is “brilliant… a genius” stone carver, because he knows Philip will miss Jack more, and be amenable to his return in a few months. Though he has a blind spot for his son Alfred, in that he doesn’t fully want to admit to how cruel, spiteful, and wicked his own blood can be, Tom also has a pragmatic approach to all the decisions he makes.
Philip calls him an “idealist and a dreamer,” but his vision for the cathedral spurs on the builders for 35 years. He shoots down Alfred’s suggestion of a vaulted stone roof, because he believes it will crumble because the walls cannot take the weight (he is later proven right Philip allows Alfred to build it after his father’s death, and it collapses due to the weight). He tells his sons that such structures can take fifty years or more, and that if they are lucky, one of them may live to see the roof put on. He wants to make it majestic, has specific ideas about how to build a vaulted ceiling made of stone, and is determined to see it made a reality, though he also knows he will not live to see its completion. Tom is a visionary whose grand idea for the cathedral surpasses anything Philip has ever before seen.
That’s why you must never stop learning even after I’m gone.” Tom Builder But it might be 50 years before it’s finished, which is why I teach you. You might see the interior well on its way. “I won’t see this church completed.Nor will you, Alfred.
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