Biographical Stories: (From: "True Stories of History and Biography")Hawthorne, Nathaniel
General
Biographical Stories: (From: "True Stories of History and Biography")
Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Biography -- Juvenile literature
Mouse was appointed to that important office. The new miller made a very
respectable appearance in his dark gray coat. To be sure, he had not a
very good character for honesty, and was suspected of sometimes stealing a
portion of the grain which was given him to grind. But perhaps some
two-legged millers are quite as dishonest as this small quadruped.
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As Isaac grew older, it was found that he had far more important matters
in his mind than the manufacture of toys like the little windmill. All day
long, if left to himself, he was either absorbed in thought or engaged in
some book of mathematics or natural philosophy. At night, I think it
probable, he looked up with reverential curiosity to the stars, and
wondered whether they were worlds like our own, and how great was their
distance from the earth, and what was the power that kept them in their
courses. Perhaps, even so early in life, Isaac Newton felt a presentiment
that he should be able, hereafter, to answer all these questions.
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When Isaac was fourteen years old, his mother’s second husband being now
dead, she wished her son to leave school and assist her in managing the
farm at Woolsthorpe. For a year or two, therefore, he tried to turn his
attention to farming. But his mind was so bent on becoming a scholar that
his mother sent him back to school, and afterwards to the University of
Cambridge.
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I have now finished my anecdotes of Isaac Newton’s boyhood. My story would
be far too long were I to mention all the splendid discoveries which he
made after he came to be a man. He was the first that found out the nature
of light; for, before his day, nobody could tell what the sunshine was
composed of. You remember, I suppose, the story of an apple’s falling on
his head, and thus leading him to discover the force of gravitation, which
keeps the heavenly bodies in their courses. When he had once got hold of
this idea, he never permitted his mind to rest until he had searched out
all the laws by which the planets are guided through the sky. This he did
as thoroughly as if he had gone up among the stars and tracked them in
their orbits. The boy had found out the mechanism of a windmill; the man
explained to his fellow-men the mechanism of the universe.
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While making these researches he was accustomed to spend night after night
in a lofty tower, gazing at the heavenly bodies through a telescope. His
mind was lifted far above the things of this world. He may be said,
indeed, to have spent the greater part of his life in worlds that lie
thousands and millions of miles away; for where the thoughts and the heart
are, there is our true existence.
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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