You speak of "ideal conditions." My dear Newton, kindly keep it in mind that battles are never fought under ideal conditions; if they were, we should always win them.
If you wish to spend your time playing with airy-fairy mathematical abstrusities which have no basis in fact, that is perfectly all right with me. This is a free country, and no one proposes to dictate one's private life. However, I would appreciate it if you would do me the honor of not burdening my already overtaxed mind with such patent nonsense.
Otherwise, your work with the tabulations has been most excellent; I am enclosing a cheque for £20 to cover your work so far.
Sincerely,
Edward Ballister-ffoulkes, Bart.
12 February 1667
Cambridge
My dear Newton:
You have stretched the bonds of friendship too far. You have presumed upon me as a friend, and have quite evidently forgotten my position as head of the Department of Mathematics at this College.
The harsh language in which you have presumed to address me is too shocking for any self-respecting man to bear, and I, for one, refuse to accept such language from my social inferiors. As a Professor of Mathematics in one of the most ancient of universities, I will not allow myself or my position to be ridiculed by a young jackanapes who has no respect for those in authority or for his elders.
Your childish twaddle about glass prisms producing rainbows—a fact which any schoolboy knows—is bad enough; but to say that I am such a fool that I would refuse to recognise "one of the most important advances in mathematics" is beyond the pale of social intercourse.