(1) I began by laying stress on the _harmlessness_ of mathematics—'the study of mathematics is, if an unprofitable, a perfectly harmless and innocent occupation'. It was a pity the attempt had failed. But I ought to have made the effort more often than I did. They were orthodox religious people, and the Dean knew, and Hardy knew much more, that the news would give them pain—pain such as we, seventy years later, cannot easily imagine. Judged by all practical standards, the value of my mathematical life is nil; and outside mathematics it is trivial anyhow. No chess problem has ever affected the general development of scientific thought; Pythagoras, Newton, Einstein have in their times changed its whole direction. He was amiably grateful. Sometimes, for a few minutes, his old vivacity would light up. Finally, ambition, desire for reputation, and the position, even the power or the money, which it brings. Outside the windows of his room it was a calm and sunny morning