This was written as a justification for a poem, some years ago.I have often been surprised that mathematics, the quintessence of truth should have found admirers so few and so languid. Frequent consideration and minute scrutiny have at length unravelled the cause; viz that though Reason is feasted Imagination is starved; whilst Reason is luxuriating in its proper Paradise, Imagination is wearily travelling on a dreary desert. To assist Reason by the stimulus of Imagination is the design of the following production.
Perhaps modern readers might like to supply an alternative (loosewire?)