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This personage was, or is, an artist; and we may not be mistaken in believing that we have seen, cast aside in the vast storerooms of Haseltine's galleries in this city an example and gnomon of disenchanted glory her water-color sketch called the "Fellah Woman," and the very one of which Gautier sang: "Caprice of a fantastic brush and of an imperial leisure!... Those eyes, a whole poem of languor and pleasure, resolve the riddle and say, 'Be thou Love I am Beauty."
Up to 1140 Norman Architecture held sway, having the "Square" for its unit, its greatest symbol being the Gnomon, representing knowledge; but about that time, as we have seen, arose from the study of Geometry, the head of all learning, a Mystical form having the mysterious figure of the Vesica Piscis, the true Gothic Arch, with the Equilateral Triangle enclosed as its unit, and symbolising the Trinity in Unity.
Put the gnomon back where it was before and wait for the shadow to lessen and grow again until in the afternoon it is equal to its length in the morning, touching the circumference at the point C. Then from the points B and C describe with the compasses two arcs intersecting at D. Next draw a line from the point of intersection D through the centre of the circle to the circumference and call it E F. This line will show where the south and north lie.
This is because the length of the shadow at the equinox is used in constructing the figure of the analemma, in accordance with which the hours are marked to conform to the situation and the shadow of the gnomon. The analemma is a basis for calculation deduced from the course of the sun, and found by observation of the shadow as it increases until the winter solstice.
Vitruvius, who, at the beginning of our Era, wrote his thesis on Tectonic art, which is still the text-book of Architecture for Ancient buildings, says Pythagoras taught his followers to form a gnomon, or square, as follows: "Take three rods, of three lengths, four lengths, and five lengths long; with these form a triangle, and, if each rod be squared, you have 9, 16, and 25, and the areas of the two former will be equal to the latter."
Conscience is meant to produce that consciousness and that sorrow: but conscience may be dulled or silenced. It cannot be anyhow induced to call evil good, but it may be mistaken in what is evil. The gnomon is true, but a veil of cloud may be drawn over the sky. Further, we have here supplication. These two former may both be experienced, without this third.
The gnomon, discovered by me in December, last year, in the ruined city of Mayapan, would tend to prove that the learned men of Mayab were not only close observers of the march of the celestial bodies and good mathematicians; but that their attainments in astronomy were not inferior to those of their brethren of Chaldea.
His nose, usually the smallest article of the kind that I ever saw, was now swollen as large as my fist, and as purple as a mulberry the distension of the skin, from the venomous sting of the reptile for stung he had been by a scorpion made it semi transparent, so that it looked like a large blob of currant jelly hung on a peg in the middle of his face, or a gigantic leech, gorged with blood, giving his visage the semblance of some grotesque old fashioned dial, with a fantastic gnomon.
If we represent a unit by one dot and put round it three dots in such a way that the four form the corners of a square, three is the first gnomon. From the series of gnomons for squares we easily deduce a formula for finding square numbers which are the sum of two squares. This is the formula actually attributed to Pythagoras.
This done, apply a gnomon to these eight divisions and thus fix the directions of the different alleys. Having laid out the alleys and determined the streets, we have next to treat of the choice of building sites for temples, the forum, and all other public places, with a view to general convenience and utility.
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