Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night; God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
-Alexander Pope

Hello, blank diary. My name is Isaac Newton and I am 17 years old, living in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth. I have never before written in a diary, yet this comes rather naturally to me. I'm writing here because I need to vent. I never met my father, who died a few months prior to my birth. My mother remarried, and now she is trying to force me to become a farmer, because this father of mine whom I have never met was. The thing is: I despise the work. I was so much happier in school, and so much better in a classroom than I am out in the field. I just wish someone could talk sense into her, so that I could finish my schooling.

I am afraid it has been some time since last I wrote here. I am currently pursuing a degree at Trinity College of Cambridge University. The headmaster of The King's School - my former school - managed to talk my mother into allowing me to finish my final year of primary schooling. Over the course of my final year, I fell in love with Anne Storey - the daughter of the apothecary in whose house I was staying. Coming here, however, and delving ever deeper into the works of the scientific giants of the past demanded ever more and more of my time, and the flame between Anne and I rather died out. I have become largely enveloped in my studies, and have begun to work on some new concepts in mathematics. I hear, though, that this Plague has the university contemplating closing. I very much hope I can earn my degree before that happens.

Fancy coming across this old gem after some twenty years! How exciting. I suppose my hand of late has been busy in other writings, for I have become a rather prominent figure over the past few years. My Principia is a major reason for that. I managed in it to describe the most fundamental laws of nature. Very exciting stuff. Although I wish I had a little more to say on gravity. That has really been bothering me. I mean, it's nice to have something down about the mathematics of it all, but what is gravity, really? I suppose there is only so much to be gleaned from falling apples, and I suppose I must leave further development on the subject to other minds. I have not been busy just in mechanics. My advancements in optics - particularly my hypothesis on the particulate nature of light, and my mirror based telescopes which remove some of the problems that arise when light is refracted - have opened some eyes. There is this rather aggravating event developing around one of my former collaborators, Gottfried Leibniz. I have reason to believe his recent papers in which he does not list my name are based at least partly on my work in the calculus - work that I never published for fear it would receive a far less friendly welcome than Leibniz's papers have. I hope this does not turn into an ugly affair.

I do not know why I still bother to use this when I happen across it the rare year here and there. I suppose writing once more, just for fun, cannot hurt though. The whole dispute with the late Mr. Leibniz grew very much out of hand, I am afraid. Allegations ran rampant, and there was nothing one way or the other that could ever be proven. He was a great mind, and no doubt was able to invent the calculus eventually, whether he had help from me or no. I have here nothing more to say on the subject, and I suppose history will see the affair its own way, regardless. On a different note: I was, some fifteen years ago, knighted. Oddly enough that was for the work I did as the warden of the mint and my crusade against counterfeiting, rather than for my religious or scientific writings. As I grow older, I dwell ever more and more on the nature of God and religion. Never have I doubted the existence of God, even if my views do not coincide with those of the Anglican Church. I wonder, though, if my considerably more voluminous religious writings will be held in as high regard as my scientific ones. I fear they shan't.