14. Newton was undistracted by the arts
Isaac Newton acquired a library of 1,896 books by the time of his death, none of which were the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, or William Shakespeare, though copies of two of the latter’s works, Hamlet and The Tempest, were in his collection. He did own copies of epic poems by John Milton, but referred to poetry itself as “ingenious nonsense”. According to William Stukeley, Newton once admitted to attending an opera, and said of it, “The first act I heard with pleasure, the second stretched my patience, at the third I ran away”. Once when listening to a harpsichord being played by Handel, Newton had no comment about the music. Instead, he observed the mechanics of the musician’s hands as he played.
Perhaps because of his avoidance of the arts Newton’s interactions with peers were curtailed. He was unable to join in the discussions in drawing rooms and parlors of the latest book, the latest play, the latest composition because he had not read, seen, or heard them. Already inexperienced in the social grace of conversation, his lack of knowledge would have made him appear uninformed and possibly even ill-bred in that time of class distinctions. In his publications, and even in his private letters Newton’s writing was spare in its use of adjectives and other tools of the writer. Newton’s indifference to the arts did not extend to landscaped gardens, one of which he meticulously kept while at Cambridge.