“You write down at the outset the answer to the sum; then you proceed to…” — A.E.Housman

“You write down at the outset the answer to the sum; then you proceed to fabricate, not for use but for exhibition to the public, the ciphering by which you can pretend to have arrived at it.”

A vivid satire on reasoning designed merely to defend a predetermined conclusion · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

A.E.Housman

About A.E.Housman

26 March 1859–30 April 1936

Alfred Edward Housman was born on 26 March 1859 at Valley House, Fockbury, a small hamlet near Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, England, and died in Cambridge on 30 April 1936. He became, by way of an unusually divided life, both one of the most recognizable lyric poets in English and one of the most formidable classical…

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