old-fashioned way, with rooted convictions and regular habits,
a familiar figure in the afternoons in the countryside round
Cambridge; sparing of speech to the point of taciturnity, yet whose
every recorded utterance has an invididual and arresting precision
and shapeliness, and who could unbend and talk freely and
happily to those who were unembarrassed by the legend of his
remoteness and could school themselves to refrain from harping
on A Shropshire Lad; who lived during term time in 'book-
crowded and unlovely' rooms in Whewell Court and spent part
of each vacation at luxurious French hotels in search of archi-
tecture, local dishes and local wines; who was conservative to a
degree in outlook but who read the works of modern English and
American authors with interest and even avidity. These details are
familiar enough, but in speaking of Housman's temperament and
nature opinions differ markedly.

Some, and it must be pointed out that they are usually super-
ficial acquaintances or merely readers of his printed satire, speak
of him as a cantankerous and churlish recluse. Others found in
him admirable and even lovable qualities, and were strongly
drawn to him because they could detect beneath his reserve a
passionate sincerity and sensitiveness, and a great capacity for
appreciating and even bestowing affection. In most men the
passing of years and the multiplicity of interests dull the ambitions
and induce contentment, cynical acquiescence or opportunism.
Housman had none of these things, but retained one single aim,
excellence in scholarship and in anything he undertook. His out-
look on life was steady and he saw in it 'much good, but much
less good than ill'. He never succeeded completely in manufactur-
ing from the raw material of life the fabric of happiness, because
he denied himself in later life the friendships and attachments
which he craved, while to the Cyrenaics pleasure and happiness
are a matter of moments and their philosophy can easily become a
burden. Age mellowed him but slightly, and some of the remarks
with which he prefaced the fifth and last volume of his Manilius
are as savage as any he ever wrote.

When he collected together in 1922 and gave to the world a

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