In theory, the only thing preventing this power from being literally infinite is the human lifespan: some possible sentences would be too long to say even in threescore years and ten.
|
|
Azaïs, the French philosopher, postulated that happiness and misery are equally balanced. This "fifty-fifty" theory is a great comfort to David Blake. Blake is a penurious music teacher, aged thirty- five; he feels that having spent the first half of his threescore years and ten in poverty and unhappiness, Azaïs' principle should mean that his remaining years ought to be comfortable and happy. He greatly envies Stromboli, a man of his own age who has never known failure and is full of self-confidence.
|
|
Verse 10 of Pslam 90 in the King James Version of the Bible starts: "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow". The Gettysburg Address starts: "Four score and seven years ago". The Irish language also used base-20 in the past, twenty being fichid, forty dhá fhichid, sixty trí fhichid and eighty ceithre fhichid. A remnant of this system may be seen in the modern word for 40, daoichead.
|
|
Psalm 90 is the 90th psalm from the Book of Psalms. In the Greek Septuagint version of the bible, and in its Latin translation in the Vulgate, this psalm is Psalm 89 in a slightly different numbering system. Unique among the Psalms, it is attributed to Moses, thus making it the first Psalm to be written chronologically. The Psalm is well known for its reference to human life expectancy being 70 or 80 ("threescore years and ten", or "if by reason of strength ... fourscore years" in the King James Version).
|
|
On that scale man's > life is becoming briefer; his threescore years and ten are an > ever‑decreasing allowance. Owing to the property of geometrical progressions > an infinite number of our years will add up to a finite cosmic time; so that > what we should call the end of eternity is an ordinary finite date in the > cosmic calendar. But on that date the universe has expanded to infinity in > our reckoning, and we have shrunk to nothing in the reckoning of the cosmic > being. > > We walk the stage of life, performers of a drama for the benefit of the > cosmic spectator.
|
|
His best-known achievement, ironically, was the building of a folly tower, the eponymous Flounders' Folly in South Shropshire near Craven Arms and prominent on the skyline on Callow Hill, the highest point of famous Wenlock Edge. The folly commands extensive views over the surrounding Stretton Hills, Wenlock Edge, the Long Mynd and Clee Hills and even further afield to the Brecon Beacons, Radnor Hills, Malvern Hills and Black Mountains, Wales. The folly was built to celebrate his attaining 70 years, his threescore years and ten, to commemorate his lifelong endeavours and a life well spent and to celebrate the forthcoming marriage of his daughter Mary and the coming of age of his neighbour and associate in Shropshire, Lord Clive.
|
|
It dates from 1838, when it was erected by Benjamin Flounders (1768—1846) to mark the boundaries between four large estates and maybe to celebrate his attaining his 70th year, his 'threescore years and ten'. Over the years following Flounders' death the tower slowly fell into disrepair on its exposed hilltop (it stands on Callow Hill, which is part of the same system as Wenlock Edge). Already in need of restoration in the 1920s, by the 1980s it was in a dangerous and unstable condition; the castellated top of the tower collapsed in 1987. It had changed hands several times and was owned for a time at least by the actress Julie Christie who had a house nearby for a few years.
|
|