9

Balliett's 1905 example is one John Ellicott, born October 30, 1877. October is the tenth month and gives 1, the 30th gives 3, the year adds to 23 and gives 5, and 1 + 3 + 5 = 9. Nine sits at the edge of the single digits, the very position Westcott compares to a horizon.

What 9 means depends heavily on the book. Walton in 1914 and Cheasley in 1916 write of universal love and complete expression, with sympathy, art and philanthropy close behind. Sepharial's 1911 list for name totals says grief and anxiety, and Agrippa's 1651 English notes that 9 can signify incompleteness because it stops one short of ten. Balliett, for her part, stresses that it is 3 times 3 and counts many well-loved judges under it.

Modern numerology mostly takes Walton's side and describes a broad-minded, humanitarian temperament that finds it easy to let things go. That picture is one selection, and the older books never agreed on it. Compassion and grief often sit close together, so a reader might ask which of the two accounts fits an actual memory better.