I liked this very much, though I do have to agree with A a bit ("To the 'poor' these kinds of articles never resonate at all well.") I mean, I can't help but wonder if the story would have been different had Richard been born in a working-class family or one that took no interest in intellectual pursuits.

Then again, I suppose I'm just jealous...I wish I had an intellectual, highly educated family!

To be honest, I'm always a bit puzzled when people insist that they have no interest whatever in learning about the lives of people they admire or at least have some respect for. To me that's the most interesting part of them, no matter how "boring" or "conventional" it is, but then I always did love history and how even small things can have enormous repercussions (if circumstances had been a bit different, Darwin would never have gone on the Beagle...and how would that have effected the theory of evolution?)