CHAPTER XIV 



WRITING AND CONSERVATISM 



As the years went OD the number of Newton's friends 

 and acquaintances grew. Most of the leading zoologists, 

 and many besides, in this and other countries were 

 personal acquaintances and many of them were frequent 

 correspondents. He never employed a secretary and 

 was always most particular to answer a letter on the 

 morning after its arrival. 



I don't know that much credit is due to me for 

 being punctual in correspondence. Experience has 

 shown me that in the end it saves trouble to be so, and 

 that is why I am never easy so long as a letter remains 

 unanswered. 



He wrote on the back of each letter the date of its 

 receipt and the date of his reply : if the letter were of 

 any importance, he wrote and kept a rough draft (which 

 he labelled " draught ") of his reply. Nearly all letters, 

 excepting the most trivial notes such as invitations to 

 dinner, etc., he kept tied up in bundles. When it is 

 remembered that he wrote to and received a letter from 

 his brother Edward almost daily, and that his letter 

 address book contains several hundreds of names, it can 

 be believed that the accumulated correspondence of 

 more than fifty years amounted to tens of thousands of 

 letters. 



Although he was invariably courteous and punctilious 

 in replying to people who wrote to him about one thing 



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