Some beautiful lines on numerical methods

I. The first obstacle may be one of sentiment. It is said that in a certain grassy part of the world a man will walk a mile to catch a horse, whereon to ride a quarter of a mile to pay an afternoon call. Similarly, it is not quite respectable to arrive at a mathematical destination, under the gaze of a learned society, at the mere footpace of arithmetic. Even at the expense of considerable time and effort, one should be mounted on the swift steed of symbolic analysis.

The following notes are written for those who desire to arrive by the easiest route, and who are not self-conscious about the respectability of their means of locomotion.