When evening came, Edward acknowledged that the day had been far less wearisome than he anticipated.  But he was glad, nevertheless, when his father and mother, and George and Emily, all took their seats around his chair.  He put out his hand to grasp each of their hands, and smiled with a very bright expression upon his lips.

“Now I can see you all, with my mind’s eye,” said he; “and now, father, pray tell us another story.”

So Mr. Temple began.

SIR ISAAC NEWTON

BORN 1642.  DIED 1727.

On Christmas-day, in the year 1642, Isaac Newton was born, at the small village of Woolsthorpe, in England.  Little did his mother think, when she beheld her new-born babe, that he was destined to explain many matters which had been a mystery ever since the creation of the world.

Isaac’s father being dead, Mrs. Newton was married again to a clergyman, and went to reside at North Witham.  Her son was left to the care of his good old grandmother, who was very kind to him, and sent him to school.  In his early years, Isaac did not appear to be a very bright scholar, but was chiefly remarkable for his ingenuity in all mechanical occupations.  He had a set of little tools, and saws of various sizes, manufactured by himself.  With the aid of these, Isaac contrived to make many curious articles, at which he worked with so much skill, that he seemed to have been born with a saw or chisel in his hand.

The neighbors looked with vast admiration at the things which Isaac manufactured.  And his old grandmother, I suppose, was never weary of talking about him.

“He’ll make a capital workman, one of these days,” she would probably say.  “No fear but what Isaac will do well in the world, and be a rich man before he dies.”

It is amusing to conjecture what were the anticipations of his grandmother and the neighbors, about Isaac’s future life.  Some of them, perhaps, fancied that he would make beautiful furniture of mahogany, rose-wood, or polished oak, inlaid with ivory and ebony, and magnificently gilded.  And then, doubtless, all the rich people would purchase these fine things, to adorn their drawing-rooms.  Others probably thought that little Isaac was destined to be an architect, and would build splendid mansions for the nobility and gentry, and churches too, with the tallest steeples that had ever been seen in England.

Some of his friends, no doubt, advised Isaac’s grandmother to apprentice him to a clockmaker; for, besides his mechanical skill, the boy seemed to have a taste for mathematics, which would be very useful to him in that profession.  And then, in due time, Isaac would set up for himself, and would manufacture curious clocks, like those that contain sets of dancing figures, which issue from the dial-plate when the hour is struck; or like those, where a ship sails across the face of the clock, and is seen tossing up and down on the waves, as often as the pendulum vibrates.