I am reminded of what C P Snow wrote about the beautiful piece of writing called "A Mathematician's Apology" by G H Hardy: A mathematicians apology is, if read

I am reminded of what C P Snow wrote about the beautiful piece of writing called "A Mathematician's Apology" by G H Hardy: A mathematicians apology is, if read with the textual attention it deserves, a book of haunting sadness. Yes, it is witty and sharp with intellectual high spirits: yes, the crystalline clarity and candour are still there: yes, it is the testament of a creative artist. But it is also, in an understated stoical fashion, a passionate lament for creative powers that used to be and that will never come again. I know nothing like it in the language: partly because most people with the literary gift to express such a lament don't come to feel it: it is very rare for a writer to realise, with the finality of truth, that he is absolutely finished.