When I was in the final grade of elementary school I fell madly in love. It was a clear case of love at first sight, and it evolved into an all-consuming passion of adoration that has continued during the entire rest of my life. I had fallen head over heels in love with the enticingly beautiful goddess Mathesis. Let me tell how it came about and then expand on some of its delightful joys.

I, and my two brothers, were brought up in Paterson, New Jersey. On occasional Saturday mornings the three of us would go down Broadway to a church that ran a couple of hours of free movies for children. After the movies we would often cross the street to the Danforth Memorial Library—usually in the hope of finding there a Sherlock Holmes book we hadn't yet read. Entering the library one Saturday morning I saw a short row of books displayed on the librarian's desk. They were various British editions of Euclid's Elements. I pulled out one of the books, entitled The Harpur Euclid, and discovered that it contained an enormous number of geometrical facts all presumably deduced from a small handful of very readily accepted initial assumptions laid down at the very start of the work. I was instantly amazedand awestruck, and asked the librarian if I could take the book out. Not that one, she said, since it was on display, but she could give me a copy from the stacks.