He thought of what Asbjörn All-fat had told him one day of the art of reckoning—how the nature of God was revealed in figures, through the law and order that reigned in them. Arithmetica, he thought it had such a fine sound; and all that the priest had expounded about the harmony of figures—how they swelled and cleft one another according to mystic and immovable laws; it was like being given an insight into one of the heavenly kingdoms; on golden chains of numbers the whole of creation was suspended, and angels and spirits ascended and descended along the links. And his heart was exalted in
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