this small quadruped.

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.

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.

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