no condition for communication.

Believe me, my dear boy, had I had any inkling at all of how ill you really were, I should have shown greater forbearance than to address you in such an uncharitable manner. Forgive me for an ungoverned tongue and a hasty pen.

I see now that the error was mine, and it has preyed on my mind for these many weeks. I should have recognised instantly that your letters to me were the work of a feverish mind and a disordered imagination. I shall never forgive myself for not understanding it at the time.

As to your returning to the College for further study, please rest assured that you are most certainly welcome to return. I have spoken to the proper authorities, and, after an explanation of the nature of your illness, all barriers to your re-entrance have been dropped. Let me assure you that they are well aware of what such an unhappy affliction can do to unsettle a man temporarily, and they understand and sympathise.

I can well understand your decision not to continue your studies in mathematics; I feel that overwork in attempting something that was a bit beyond one of your tender years was as much responsible for your condition as that blow on the head from that apple. It is probably that which accounts for the fact that serious symptoms did not appear until late in March.

I feel that you will do well in whatever new field you may choose, but please do not work so hard at it.

Again, my apologies,

Isaac Barrow

3 April 1687 York

To His Grace, The Most Reverend Dr. Isaac Newton, By Divine Providence the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury

My Lord Archbishop,

May I take this opportunity to give you my earnest and heartfelt thanks for the copy of your great work which you so graciously sent; I shall treasure it always.

May I say, your Grace, that, once I had begun the book, I found it almost impossible to lay it down again. In truth, I could not rest until I had completed it, and now I feel that I shall have to read it again and again.

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