From my new copy of A. S. F. Gow’s
A. E. Housman, a Sketch.*
It was Housman’s custom to spend three weeks or a month every summer in France, choosing each year a new district, exploring it by car, and studying the architecture, the local dishes and the local wines. Usually he flew to Paris, but in 1929, when the fifth volume of his Manilius was nearing completion, he went by train. He was asked why, and replied that the percentage of accidents was much higher in air-travel, and that, until his Manilius was complete, his life was too valuable to risk unnecessarily (55f).
* In addition to their inability to clear up typographical errors in monographs, OUP seems to be divesting itself of its library; which is bad for them, but good for me.