Bluestone High School - Golden Link Yearbook (Skipwith, VA)

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FOREWORD Seven is a magical number. Add one and there will be eight; subtract one and there will be six; but there will not be the romance of sailing the Seven Seas, even in dreams, or of see- ing, in imagination, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Favored in legend, in history, in theology, in literature, seven may count oceans and movintains, heroes and battles, virtues and sins, or the seven ages of man. Oh, seven is a magical number. According to tradition, the city of Rome was built upon seven hills; and, in Greek legend, seven heroes besieged the walls of Thebes. History records the Seven Days ' Battle, the Seven Weeks ' War, and the Seven Years ' War. And somewhere between history and legend is the story of a spider spinning a web and making a king by teaching the fugitive Robert Bruce that a seventh attempt may be successful after six failures. In religion, the number may be the Seventh Heaven of the Mohammedan or the number of Man ' s virtues since Christian theology added faith, hope, and charity to the four cardinal virtues of the Greeks that Plato explains in the THE REPUBLIC. As allegorical figures, the Seven Deadly Sins appear in theological and literary works of the Middle Ages. They determine not only the theme but the sevenfold structure of Dante ' s DIVINE COMEDY, one book of which is organized around the seven virtues. Later it was Shakespeare who numbered the ages of man as seven: . . . one man in his time plays many parts. His acts being seven ages. Seven. You are seven when you finish the first grade and seventeen when you start your last year of high school. Bluestone High School is seven years old. Oh, seven is a magical number. We hope this seventh issue of the GOLDEN LINK tells the magic we found together at Bluestone High School, the magic of work, the magic of fun, the wonderful magic of friends. The Editors )