7

The playwright Charles Klein, born on the 7th of January 1867, supplies Clement's reading of this date: intellectual, philosophical, and resistant to taking advice. Clement says elsewhere, in a line that reads like a shrug, that a 7 refuses advice and is right to.

Other writers saw something darker or quieter. Walton's 1914 words are mysterious, obscure and unaccountable, while Sepharial's list has rest, happiness and equilibrium. Balliett drew on the shape of the numeral itself, a figure with a pack on its back holding its past. Cheasley's 7 likes dim lights and guards its privacy.