Hardy was forever judging, weighing, comparing. He rated mathematicians, the work they did, the books and papers they wrote. He held firm opinions on everything, and expressed them. When a Cambridge club to which he’d belonged moved to change its official colors, Hardy took six pages to attack the plan. He faulted a sacrosanct academic tradition of almost two centuries’ standing, and condemned it, unrelentingly, for more than twenty years. All his enthusiasms, peeves, and idiosyncrasies were like that—sharp, unwavering, vehement. He hated war, politicians as a class, and the English climate. He loved the sun. He loved cats, hated dogs. He hated watches and fountain pens, loved The Times of London crossword puzzles
