A.E. Housman is not an open book to me, and much of what I know about him comes from an essay I read by Alan Bennett. And the most interesting thing in that essay runs as follows, “At Cambridge, where he was professor of Latin, he took a daily walk and after it would change all his underwear – a habit he shared with Swinburne.”
The curious part of that sentence is the word “all.” Just how much, how many kinds, of underwear did he (or they) wear? More than just vest and underpants? Combinations? Drawers? Something more exotic? This kind of thing?
If a work of statuary can be believed, Housman did look like a walker.
Though this is how Swinburne looks in a portrait by Robert M.B. Paxton, at the National Portrait Gallery, which is much more persuasive.
Alan Bennett does look convincingly like a walker.
His underwear arrangements, to date, must remain a private matter, and personally I prefer it that way.
