your acquaintance that you have the greater esteem of
them, and soe make them more ready to communicate what they know to
you; whereas nothing sooner occasions disrespect and quarrels than
peremptorinesse. You will find little or no advantage in seeming
wiser, or much more ignorant than your company. Seldom discommend
anything though never so bad, or doe it but moderately, lest you
bee unexpectedly forced to an unhansom retraction. It is safer to
commend any thing more than is due, than to discommend a thing soe
much as it deserves; for commendations meet not soe often with
oppositions, or, at least, are not usually soe ill resented by men
that think otherwise, as discommendations; and you will insinuate
into men's favour by nothing sooner than seeming to approve and
commend what they like; but beware of doing it by a comparison.

--_Sir Isaac Newton to one of his pupils_

SIR ISAAC NEWTON

An honest farmer, neither rich nor poor, was Isaac Newton. He was
married to Harriet Ayscough in February, Sixteen Hundred Forty-two.

Both were strong, intelligent and full of hope. Neither had any
education to speak of; they belonged to England's middle class--that
oft-despised and much ridiculed middle class which is the hope of the
world. Accounts still in existence show that their income was thirty
pounds a year. It was for them to toil all the week, go to church on
Sunday, and twice or thrice in a year attend the village fairs or
indulge in a holiday where hard cider played an important part.

Isaac had served his two years in the army, taken a turn at sea, and got
his discharge-papers. Now he had married the lass of his choice, and
settled down in the little house on an estate in Lincolnshire where his
father was born and died.

Spring came and the roses clambered over the stone walls; the bobolinks
played hide-and-seek in the waving grass of the meadows; the skylarks
sang and poised and soared; the hedgerows grew white with
hawthorn-blossoms and musical with the chirp of sparrows; the cattle
ranged through the fragrant clover "knee-deep in June."

Oftentimes the young wife worked with her husband in the fields, or went
with him to market. Great plans were laid as to what they would do next
year, and the year after, and how they would provide for coming age and
grow old together, here among the oaks and the peace and plenty of
Lincolnshire.

In such a