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More "Oracle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... them himselfe, that he was reputed for a natiue member of that countrey: and by the same dexteritie he attained to manie languages. This man the Tartars hauing intelligence of by their spies, drew him perforce into their societie and being admonished by an oracle or vision, to challenge dominion ouer the whole earth, they allured him by many rewards to their faithfull seruice, by reason that they wanted interpreters. But concerning their maners and superstitions, of the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... frankly, "Who are they waiting for? Why, Quidnunc. Mister Quidnunc. That's who it is. Him they call Quidnunc. So now you know." In fact, I did not know. He had told me nothing, would tell me no more, and while I stood pondering the oracle I was sensible of some common movement run through the company with a thrill, unite them, intensify them, draw them together to be one people with one faith, one hope, one assurance. And then the nun, who stood near me, fell to her knees, ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... So the Hebrews depended on him, and were of good hopes great things would be done by him; but the Egyptians were suspicious of what would follow such his education. Yet because, if Moses had been slain, there was no one, either akin or adopted, that had any oracle on his side for pretending to the crown of Egypt, and likely to be of greater advantage to them, they abstained from ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... consulting seers and soothsayers, or augurs,—persons who were supposed to have the power of foretelling events. There were temples also where the gods gave answers through priests. Such answers were called Orʹa-cles, and this name was also given to the priests. The most celebrated oracle of ancient times was in the temple of Apollo at Delʹphi, in Greece. To this place people came from all parts of the world to consult the god, whose answers were given ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... sacred for common ears, and therefore whispered it into Mrs. Pennel's bonnet with a knowing nod and a look from her black spectacles which would not have been bad for a priestess of Dodona in giving out an oracle. In this secret direction about the mace lay the whole mystery of corn-oysters; and who can say what consequences might ensue from casting it in an unguarded ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... be brought about? Therein lay all the difficulty. The philosophers were not wise enough for this. To make the princess cry was as impossible as to make her weigh. They sent for a professional beggar; commanded him to prepare his most touching oracle of woe; helped him, out of the court charade-box, to whatever he wanted for dressing up, and promised great rewards in the event of his success. But it was all in vain. She listened to the mendicant artist's story, and gazed at his marvellous make-up, till she could contain herself ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... ancient Snake, Wine-eyed, bronze-gleaming in the brake Of deep-leaved laurel, ruled the dell, Sent by old Earth from under Strange caves to guard her oracle— A thing of ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides
... moment to persuade his fellow-countrymen to adopt his own far-sighted plans. Even when most of them had accepted his leadership and were obeying his orders, a handful of desperate men refused to go. They took refuge on the hill of the Acropolis, and acting upon the literal meaning of the oracle toiled with axe and hammer, building up wooden barriers before the gates of ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... suis vatibus, i.e. by the captured Etruscan soothsayer (haruspex). 1-2. ab externis oraculis, i.e. by the Delphic Oracle. 2-3. iam in partem ... (alios) deos. Camillus had vowed to give to Apollo the tenth part of the spoils of Veii. 3-4. alios ... spectare, i.e. Juno. 'It was a Roman practice to invite the patron deity of a place or ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... condition in which a given state finds itself at a given time? It seems too easy a solution of our problems to seek dogmatic answers to our questionings by having recourse to the "natural light," that ready oracle of the ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... religion, language; for the touch of the child is upon them all, and the debt of humanity to the little children has not yet been told. They have figured in the world's history and its folk-lore as magi and "medicine-men," as priests and oracle-keepers, as physicians and healers, as teachers and judges, as saints, heroes, discoverers, and inventors, as musicians and poets, actors and labourers in many fields of human activity, have been compared to ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... and the offerings made by 4 various kings, and other curiosities which the Greek passion for archaeology attributes to a dim antiquity. He then consulted the oracle first about his voyage. Learning that the sea was calm, and that no obstacles stood in his way, he sacrificed a large number of victims, and put covert questions about his own fortunes. The priest, whose name was Sostratus, seeing that the entrails were uniformly ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... a mistake," I went on in my character as matrimonial oracle. "Love never made a law so cruel, a law that would rob true lovers of each other's society for a whole month in a year, stretching them on the rack of absence—" There my period broke down, so I began another ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... accidentally set in a field spread into a neighboring town, and destroyed, among other buildings, a temple consecrated to Minerva. After this, Alyattes found himself quite unsuccessful in all his expeditions and campaigns. He sent to a famous oracle to ask ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... signified no style, but an unslakable thirst for information, and a bustling human sympathy, and power of carrying things through. Or take two names often found in conjunction—Johnson and Boswell. Had the dear great oracle been named Boswell, and had the sitter-at-his-feet been named Johnson, would the two names seem to us less appropriate than they do? Should we suffer any greater loss than if Salmon were Gluckstein, and Gluckstein Salmon? Finally, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... relic of the heathen custom of destroying Morana or Mora, the goddess of night, of darkness, winter, and death, who, the country-folk say, sits on men at night and drinks their blood, and of Mrak (twilight), her helper, who brings little children to her by twilight. The priest, who used to be an oracle to his flock, was asked first to every festivity, and consulted in every difficulty. "The priest says so" put an end to all questioning. With their religious feeling, superstition goes hand in hand. ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... growing warmth: "Oracle and regulator of the fashions, my praise or censure made the law; I was quoted, copied, extolled, admired, and that by the best company in Paris, that is to say, Europe, the world. The women partook of the general ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... delivered ore rotundo, the haymakers ceased laughing. For even in lay matters they held the Parson to be an oracle, and words so long must have a ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... of earthly happiness, its promises only for those who lived to mortify their natural desires. Yet here was the very word of God encouraging him in his heart's hope. Were not men wont to use the Bible as their oracle, opening the pages at hazard, even ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... obscure their meaning: A ray of truth through error gleaming, Thus you the best elixir brew, To charm mankind, and edify them too. Then youth's fair blossoms crowd to view your play, And wait as on an oracle; while they, The tender souls, who love the melting mood, Suck from your work their melancholy food; Now this one, and now that, you deeply stir, Each sees the working of his heart laid bare. Their tears, their laughter, you command ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the mountain-stream fell in a snowy sheet. The pines above and around grew so thick and close, that not a sunbeam could enter, and a kind of mysterious twilight pervaded the spot. In Greece it would have been chosen for an oracle. I have seen, somewhere, a picture of the Spirit of Poetry, sitting beside just such a cataract, and truly the nymph could choose no more appropriate dwelling. But alas for sentiment! while we were admiring its picturesque beauty, ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... ix., p. 457., &c.).—The late Sir Charles Bunbury, who was long the father of the Jury, and considered as an oracle in all matters relating to it, told me, many years ago, that Charles II. was nicknamed "Old Rowley" after a favourite stallion in the royal stud so called; and he added, that the same horse's appellation had been ever since preserved in the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... a colonia probably by Octavian (coins of 1st century A.D.), and there must have been a Baal temple there in which Trajan consulted the oracle. The foundation of the present buildings, however, dates from Antoninus Pius, and their dedication from Septimius Severus, whose coins first show the two temples. The great courts of approach were not finished before the reigns of Caracalla and Philip. In commemoration, no doubt, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... subjects and villeins had to play at Greece and Rome, year in and year out. Temples were erected to Thetis, Diana, Flora, etc., and peasants went about dressed up as haruspices and augurs. The Pontifex slaughtered a sheep on the sacrificial altar, the oracle was consulted in a cave, and in a temple dedicated to the sun young priests kept up an ever-flaming fire. On this estate an actor was master of the hunt, librarian, theatre director, high priest of the sun ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... infallible 525 As three or four-legg'd oracle, The ancient cup, or modern chair; Spoke ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... York oracle, discoursing lately upon Canadian affairs, concludes that American ideas are pervading that region because the people speak of "baggage" and take the right hand in driving on the road. Having traveled somewhat in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and "the Island," I have never ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... the world, until the members of it left off talking and dwelling upon its former opulence. This remark, founded in a long and clear observation of mankind, I have seen verified in numerous instances in my own connections, who, to use the words of my oracle, will never thrive until they can become poor folks. He added, they may make some struggles, and with apparent success, to recover lost ground; they may, and sometimes do, get half way up again; but they are sure to fall back, unless, reconciling themselves to circumstances, they become in form, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... of the oracle and ex-councillor could not rest. He wrote direct to King Charles and Queen Marie to warn them of the danger. To him it seemed that there could be no good in the damsel. He mistrusted her for three reasons: first, because ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... incident was her introduction to the writings of Fenelon—an author whom, in later years, she came to regard as an oracle of spiritual wisdom. In the letter just quoted, she writes: "I am reading Fenelon's 'Maximes des Saints,' and many of his ideas please me exceedingly. Some of his 'Lettres Spirituelles' are delicious—so heavenly, so child-like in ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... the government, it is not a legitimate sovereignty, but a usurpation. And he is deceived who expects lasting prosperity in that kingdom which is not ruled by the sceptre of God, that is, his holy word; for that heavenly oracle cannot fail, which declares that "where there is no vision, the people perish,"[1] Nor should you be seduced from this pursuit by a contempt of our meanness. We are fully conscious to ourselves how very mean and abject we are, being miserable sinners before God, and ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... to the sphere of his influence, and the leader of a nation is less incensed at a rival's triumph than the great man of a village. If we pursue this descending scale, what a desperately jealous person the oracle of oyster-dredges and cockle-women must be! Such ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... in editions for the people, and sold at the price of railway novels. Foreigners from all countries read his books as attentively as his most eager English disciples, and sought his opinion as to their own questions with as much reverence as if he had been a native oracle. An eminent American who came over on an official mission which brought him into contact with most of the leading statesmen throughout Europe, said to the present writer:—'The man who impressed me most of them all was Stuart Mill; you placed before him the facts on which you sought his opinion. ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... this important year, the oracle of the traders, and the idol of the rabble, and by consequence was feared and courted by all to whom the kindness of the traders or the populace was necessary. The Drapier was a sign; the Drapier was a health; and which way soever the eye or the ear was turned, some tokens were found of the nation's ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... don't be so ridiculous!" said Margaret. "You know perfectly well I am no oracle; but I have a notion in my head. It is this: why should not those splendid-looking girls, the Vivians, join the Specialities? They did look rather funny, I will admit, yesterday; but even then one could see that clothes matter ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... with a heav'nly ray Of the first flame, and interwreathed bay, Inform my soul in labour to begin, Ios or Anthems, Poeans or a Hymne. Shall I a hecatombe on thy tripod slay, Or my devotions at thy altar pay? While which t' adore th' amaz'd world cannot tell, The sublime Urim or deep oracle. ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... time of the Judges, the Idol of Micah was consulted as a kind of oracle.[125] Gideon made, in his house and his city, an Ephod, accompanied by a superstitious image, which was for his family, and to all the people, the ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... needeth not to be stood upon. It is enough to point at it; that no nation which doth not directly profess arms, may look to have greatness fall into their mouths. And on the other side, it is a most certain oracle of time, that those states that continue long in that profession (as the Romans and Turks principally have done) do wonders. And those that have professed arms but for an age, have, notwithstanding, commonly attained that ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... through the darkness and the night called life. I do not depend upon hearsay for that. I do not have to take the word of any other man, nor get upon my knees before a book. Here, in the temple of the mind, I go and consult the God—that is to say, my reason—and the oracle speaks to me, and I obey the oracle. What should I obey? Another man's oracle? Shall I take another man's word and not what he thinks, but what ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... invariably women, with this one remembered exception: I dreamed that Oscar Wilde, one of my photographs of him incarnate, approached me with a buffoon languishment and perpetrated fellatio, an act verbally expounded shortly before by my oracle. For a month or more, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... numbered by hundreds, he inserted a prediction that such movements would be made at the North, with most disastrous results. "Wot ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine!" Mr. Paulding has already been taught by Judge Jay, that he who aspires to the fame of an oracle, without its inspiration, must resort to other expedients to prevent detection, than the clumsy ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... must be. The revelation was indeed come. Presentiment had not been mistaken in her impulse: there is a kind of presentiment which never is mistaken; it was I who had for a moment miscalculated; not seeing the true bearing of the oracle, I had thought she muttered of vision when, in ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... a god could not make up his mind easily to render service to a mere mortal. So he traveled to Delhi and questioned the oracle as to what he should do. This ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... by origin, and with some talent, suddenly becomes the Sir Oracle of his village; and, because the Governor-General does not advance his protege or connexions, or because he does not imagine that the welfare of the province hinges upon his support, turns sulky, and obtaining, by very easy means, a seat in the Assembly, ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... you," she merely repeated. Though she disclaimed the prophetic vision she was at this instant the nearest approach he had ever met to the priestess of the oracle. The light was in her eyes. "You must face ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... Cyriacus, their hiding-place is revealed. When the nails were brought to the queen she wept aloud, and the fountain of her tears flowed over her cheeks and down upon the jewels of her apparel. XIV. She seeks guidance by oracle as to the disposal of the nails. She is directed to make of them rings for the bridle of the chief of earthly kings. He who rides to war with such a bridle should be invincible; and a prophecy to that effect is quoted! Helena obeys, and ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... will thy face be turned, While Erech desolate doth cry to thee? Thy towers magnificent, oh, hast thou spurned? Her blood like water in Ul-bar,[2] oh, see! The seat of thine own oracle behold! The fire hath ravaged all thy cities grand, And like the showers of Heaven them all doth fold. O Ishtar! broken-hearted do I stand! Oh, crush our enemies as yonder reed! For hopeless, lifeless, kneels thy bard to thee, ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... direction; was more or less luminous; was visible during a certain lapse of time, and then disappeared under such and such circumstances. When the Tchurtchun has obtained all the necessary information, he recites a few prayers, opens his book of divination, and finally pronounces his oracle, while the Tartars, who have come to consult him, listen to his words, kneeling, and rapt in profound devotion. Your Grand Lama, he says, is come to life again, in Thibet, at such a distance from your house; you will find him in such a family. When ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... this worke is the placing of Poales, of which we will first speake of the choise thereof, wherein if I discent from the opinion of other men, yet imagine I set downe no Oracle, but referre you to the experience or the practise, and so make your owne discreation the arbiter betweene our discentions. It is the opinion of some, that Alder-poales are most proper and fit for the Hoppe-garden, both ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... This brief oracle of comfort was addressed, in the first instance, specially to Martha. It had a primary reference, doubtless, to the vast miracle which was on the eve of performance. But there were more hearts ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... of the leaders of the Liberty party, "was a warm man, but with little reflection; McDougall was strong-minded; and Jay, appearing to fall in with the measures of Sears, tempered and controlled them; but Hamilton, after these great writings, became our oracle." ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... I say, then, to speak comprehensively (and I might be justly considered in so saying to speak as an oracle, not to be delivering a mere precept), that a good education and sound bringing-up is of the first and middle and last importance; and I declare it to be most instrumental and conducive to virtue and happiness. For all other human blessings compared to this are petty and ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... smaller prospects, like the youth of conquered Athens. Xenophon thought it right to consult his spiritual guide, Socrates, on the propriety of abandoning his country for hireling service. The philosopher advised him to consult the oracle at Delphi, but the young man only asked what gods he might best conciliate before his departure, and Socrates, though noting the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... philodoggist, is an honest oracle in his way, and when he opes his mouth we hope no cur will be ungrateful enough to bark. He says in his last lecture that dumb animals are creatures like unto himself. That accounts for Mr. BERGH being Deer to the quadrupeds, and such a Terrier ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... blatant land," who was calm, steadfast, unmovable, and always at home. He did not want you, whoever you were; he was perfectly indifferent to you and your concerns. Preach? No! he never preached, he never cared to speak till he was spoken to. If you went to him as an oracle, then he spake as ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... from his wife, nine times in ten she will inquire from her father confessor whether or not she can grant him his request, and the poor husband will have to wait patiently for the permission of the master or the rebuke of the lord, according to the answer of the oracle which had to be consulted! If he gets impatient under the yoke, and murmurs, the wife will soon go to the feet of her confessor; to tell him how she has the misfortune to be united to a most unreasonable man, and ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... "Nosce Teipsum. This Oracle expounded in Two Elegies. 1. Of Humane Knowledge. 2. Of the Soule of Man, and the Immortalitie thereof. London, Printed by Richard Field, for ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 66, February 1, 1851 • Various
... Society; and which, notwithstanding such malicious assertions, waxed stronger as it grew. There was one noticeable feature of affairs at this juncture, that the uninitiated were at a loss to account for, and that was the studied neutrality maintained by the oracle of the village, who had been wont to utter his momentous decisions, upon the current topics of the day, through the medium of that "valuable" and popular paper ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... and 1737 appeared the Weekly Oracle; or, Universal Library. Published by a Society of Gentlemen. One folio sheet was published weekly, usually ending in the middle of a sentence. (Query. What is the technical name for this mode of publication? ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850 • Various
... all the world made their court to Hermione, that if any body had any petitions, or addresses to make to the Prince, it was by her sole interest; she sat in their closest councils, and heard their gravest debates; and she was the oracle of the board: the Prince paying her perfect adoration, while she, whose charms of youth were ended, being turned of thirty, fortified her decays with all the art her wit and sex were capable of, and kept her illustrious lover as perfectly her slave, as if she had engaged him by all ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... prevailed, and began interpreting the language of the leaves, not greatly to my own advantage or that of any being in the universe. I was no prophet of good, but full of melancholy bodings, and something that bordered upon despair. Had I but commanded an oracle, as ancient visionaries were wont, I should have ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... who descends to ruffle the hitherto calm waters of the lake may be near at hand. Soon sorrow to some of these will give place to proportioned gladness. He who can first bathe his limbs in the blessed wave, says the sacred oracle, shall find relief from every infirmity. First: It is a short and simple word, yet how much of meaning it contains, and in its connection here how much instruction it affords! It is ever thus under the moral and providential government of God. The first to ask ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... of the king was to summon Hermione to be tried for having loved Polixenes too well. Already he had had recourse to an oracle; and the answer, sealed up, was brought into court and opened in the ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... with the childlike simplicity displayed by the taker of the oracle In the particular case wherein a pipe was employed, the party wished to discover whether it would be safe for him to proceed on a journey the following day. The pipe by a slight gyratory motion at once intimated its assent. He then besought it to make no mistake, and, after carefully stilling ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... of any service to the positivist; for this something can only be of power or value if the prophecy it inevitably developes into be regarded as a true one. In the consciousness of the ancient world it lay undeciphered like the dark sentence of an oracle; and though it might be revered by some, it could not be denied by any. But its meaning is now translated for us, and there is a new factor in the case. We now can deny it; and if we do, its ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... The machinery of oracles was resorted to. The Greek oracles were of Egyptian origin. So profound was the respect paid to their commands that even the sovereigns were obliged to obey them. It was thus that a warning from the oracle of Amun caused Necho to stop the construction of his canal. For the determination of future events, omens were studied, entrails inspected, and nativities ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... rests mainly on his achievements as a precursor of the Revolution, to the eighteenth century he was as much a poet as a reformer. The whole of Europe beheld at Ferney the oracle, not only of philosophy, but of good taste; for thirty years every scribbler, every rising genius, and every crowned head, submitted his verses to the censure of Voltaire; Voltaire's plays were performed before crowded houses; his epic was pronounced superior to Homer's, Virgil's, ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... event, it can be said also, according to Molina, that there is a mediate knowledge between that of intuition and that of intelligence. Instance is given of the famous example of David asking the divine oracle whether the inhabitants of the town of Keilah, where he designed to shut himself in, would deliver him to Saul, supposing that Saul should besiege the town. God answered yes; whereupon David took a different course. Now some advocates of this mediate knowledge are of opinion that God, foreseeing ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... his only oracle; Who could buy lands and pleasure at his will, Yet slighted that which silver could ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... with a tender pain and pleasure, for each baby was laid on grandma's knee, its small virtues, vices, ailments, and accomplishments rehearsed, its beauties examined, its strength tested, and the verdict of the family oracle pronounced upon it as it was cradled, kissed, and blessed on the kind old heart which had room for every care and joy of those who called her mother. It was a sight the girl never forgot, because ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... shipmaster on board who had left his vessel in Rio Janeiro, with directions to the mate to bring her to San Francisco, by way of Cape Horn. The oracle was consulted as to the position of the ship at that particular time. Without a moment's hesitation, the latitude and longitude of the vessel were given, placing her somewhere off Valparaiso (Chili). "That's just where I put her!" cried the master with an ejaculation of unfeigned ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... through the two hundred pages devoted to the word Sleep, the venerable wizard was very uneasy, but he was a persevering person and he did not abandon his endeavours. Merlin's wise books having failed him, he cast about for other means to learn what he desired, and consulted his oracle. ...
— The Sleeping Beauty • C. S. Evans
... discussion, they allowed themselves an excursion into the domain of agreeable frivolity which constitutes the common basis of worldly conversation. Monsieur Gravier called this "from grave to gay." The Abbe Duret's rubber made another pleasing variety on the monologues of the oracle. The three rivals, tired of keeping their minds up to the level of the "high range of discussion"—as they called their conversation—but not daring to confess it, would sometimes turn with ingratiating hints to ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... Roxy's reputation of vast experience in all the facts relating to those last fateful hours, which are the only certain event in every human existence, caused her to be regarded as a sort of Delphic oracle in such matters, and therefore Mrs. Kittridge, not without a share of the latent superstition to which each human heart must confess at some hours, drew confidentially near to Miss Roxy, and asked if she had anything particular ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... account which Herodotus gives us of the actions of the Greeks at Plataea, when their army confronted the remnant of the army of Xerxes, in the year 479 B.C. Here we see each side hesitating to attack the other, merely because the oracle had declared that whichever side struck the first blow would lose the conflict. Even after the Persian soldiers, who seemingly were a jot less superstitious or a shade more impatient than their opponents, had begun the attack, we are told that the Greeks ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... Delos the stony, so empty that everything there now seems dead; and I am striving to reach the Delphian oracle before its inspiring vapour should be completely lost. The mules browse on its laurel. The pythoness, gone astray, ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... Mrs. Talbot, that man is never so flattered as when some woman thinks him an oracle. Besides, although yours is the best mind in any pretty woman's head I know of—in any woman's head for that matter—you still have much to learn, and I should feel very jealous if you ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... ceased paying it privately, as before, but would come to him on the first day of the year and give, some more, some less. He, after adding as much or more again, would return it, not only to the senators but to all the rest. I have also heard the story that on one day of the year, following some oracle or dream, he would assume the guise of a beggar and would accept money from those who passed. This, whether trustworthy or not, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... to be an oracle to which an appeal is always made in all discussions. The men of facts wait their turn in grim silence, with that slight tension about the nostrils which the consciousness of carrying a "settler" in the form of a fact or a revolver gives the individual thus armed. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of the pulleys, and the manufacture of the thunders. They saw the natural faces and heard the natural voices of the actors. Distant nations looked on the Pope as the Vicegerent of the Almighty, the oracle of the All-wise, the umpire from whose decisions, in the disputes either of theologians or of kings, no Christian ought to appeal. The Italians were acquainted with all the follies of his youth, and ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the answer was to come. Twice before had they consulted that dread oracle, whose response was certain death to one of their number. Twice before had they recognised and submitted to its decree. No preliminaries needed to be discussed. These had been long ago arranged. There was nothing more to do than ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... evening that I visited this modern Delphic oracle; and, strangely enough, as is often the case, other events seemed to lead up to this one. The very lesson on Sunday evening was full of astrology. It was, I may mention, the story of the handwriting on the wall and the triumph of Daniel over ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... wonn confidence enough to beg his advice, how I might carry my self securely there, without offence of mine own conscience. Signor Arrigo mio (sayes he) I pensieri stretti, & il viso sciolto, will go safely over the whole World: Of which Delphian Oracle (for so I have found it) your judgement doth need no commentary; and therfore (Sir) I will commit you with it to the best of all ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... know most is, however, quite differently engaged. He has devoted his life to a mission to his fellow men, and especially to his fellow citizens. If we may so far trust Plato's Apology, the occasion of that was the answer received from the Delphic oracle by Chaerephon, whom we know from Aristophanes as one of the leading disciples of Socrates in the earlier part of his life. Chaerephon asked the god of Delphi whether there was any one wiser than Socrates, and ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... him with assurances of his being restored to his former fortune. And being most inclined to believe the latter prediction, upon losing Britain and Armenia, he imagined he had run through all the misfortunes which the fates had decreed him. But when, upon consulting the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, he was advised to beware of the seventy-third year, as if he were not to die till then, never thinking of Galba's age, he conceived such hopes, not only of living to advanced years, but of constant and singular good fortune, that having ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... sobriety and moderation; the decorum, and respect for religion, which he maintained among his subjects; the industry he promoted by wholesome laws and his own example; his consummate sagacity, which crowned all his enterprises with brilliant success, and made him the oracle of the princes ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... drench. Fear not, my good lad, lest a superabundance of liquid should either weaken or chill your stomach; far from thy better judgment be that silly fear of unadulterated drink. I will insure you against all consequences; and if my authority will not serve your turn, read Celsus. That oracle of the ancients makes an admirable panegyric on water; in short, he says in plain terms that those who plead an inconstant stomach in favor of wine, publish a libel on their own viscera, and make their constitution a pretense for ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... time after time that he is not an Egyptian governor, but a tributary ally and vassal of the Pharaoh, and that he had received his royal power, not by inheritance from his father or mother, but through the arm (or oracle) of "the Mighty King." As "the Mighty King" is distinguished from the "great King" of Egypt, we must see in him the god worshipped by Ebed-Tob, the "Most High God" of Melchizedek, and the prototype of "the Mighty God" of Isaiah. It is this same mighty king, Ebed-Tob assures the Pharaoh ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce
... more attention among the rustics or at the squire's hall than the passing by of a plough or a sheep. The fixed shop has deprived him of his utility, and daily newspapers of his attractions. He is content to sell his waistcoat or handkerchief pieces; but he is no longer the oracle of the village inn or the housekeeper's room. In the days however when neither draper's nor haberdasher's wares could be purchased without taking a day's journey at the least through miry ways to some considerable market-town, the ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... an Apuleius turned inside out, that you should suspect that an Ass lies hid under the Form of a Man. But do you believe this very Person to be the very Messiah whom the Types of the Law shadowed out, which the Oracle of the Prophets promised, which the Jews looked for so ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... spent almost her whole life out of doors, in heat and cold, storm and rain, she had come to be intimately acquainted with all the signs foreboding change of weather, and was looked upon by her acquaintances as a perfect oracle. She had also a most retentive memory, and being of a joyous nature, with a bodily frame that never knew illness, had learnt every verse or melody that was sung within her hearing, until her mind became a very storehouse of songs. To John, old Granny ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... engaged in battle without consulting priest or augur. It was not only their goods, but their families, their life, the honor of their country, and the sanctuary of their religion, that the Greeks were defending, and they might rely on the protection of the gods. The oracle of Apollo had answered, "I and the white virgins will provide for this matter." The people surrounded the temple, and the priests supported and encouraged the people. During the night small bodies of AEtolians, Amphisseans, and Phocidians arrived one after another. Four thousand men had joined within ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... department of our literary stores in 1821 with his "Cook's Oracle," which was very successful, and passed ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... Year Anniversary Song The Spring Oracle The Happy Couple Song of Fellowship Constancy in Change Table Song Wont and Done General Confession Coptic Song Another Vanitas! vanitatum vanitas! Fortune of War Open Table ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... muttered something about Trixie being always headstrong and never given to serious things, but even she was a little shaken by the unexpected testimony of her favourite oracle, ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... secondly he has not been "pre-eminently virtuous or just." This is true in its way. Oedipus is too passionate to be just; but he is at least noble in his impetuosity, his devotion, and his absolute truthfulness. It is important to realise that at the beginning of the play he is prepared for an oracle commanding him to die for his people (pp. 6, 7). And he never thinks of refusing that "task" any more than he tries to elude the doom that actually comes, or to conceal any fact that tells against him. If Oedipus had ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... military oracle of the Administration in the first days of the war. His ability and great experience entitled him to regard and deference on all questions relating to military operations. No one appreciated his ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... frail crafts into havens which we never sought! Perhaps the act which Pepeeta was about to perform had more ethical and spiritual value than the casual observer would suppose, because of the perfect sincerity with which she undertook its performance. No priestess ever entered an oracle, no vestal virgin a temple, nor saint a shrine with more reverence than she felt, as she passed into the silence of ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... is an exile, bred in the desperate hopes and wild schemes of exile; he is a prince without a kingdom, always dreaming of his wrongs and his restoration; and driven by the old savage doctrine, which an oracle has confirmed, of the duty and manliness of revenge. He is, as was shown by his later history, a man subject to overpowering impulses and to fits of will-less brooding. Lastly, he is very young, and is swept away by his ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides
... when a few great nobles controlled public affairs, that such a man could have been so recognized, rewarded, and honored. He died beloved and universally lamented, and his writings are still classics, and likely to remain so. He was not an oracle in general society, like Mackintosh and Macaulay; but among congenial and trusted friends he gave full play to his humor, and was as charming as Washington Irving is said to have been in his chosen circle of admirers. Although he was a Whig, we do not read of any particular intimacy ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... sanctified by him in the Spirit? And, therefore, he is here "anointed," not that he may become God, for he was so even before; nor that he may become king, for he had the kingdom eternally, existing as God's image, as the sacred oracle shows; but in our behalf is this written, as before. For the Israelitish kings, upon their being anointed, then became kings, not being so before, as David, as Ezekias, as Josias, and the rest; but the Savior, on the contrary, being God, and ever ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... comprehension. To the last moment they had been sceptical, for Lady Maclaughlan had shook her head and humphed whenever the subject was mentioned. For several months they had therefore vibrated between their own sanguine hopes and their oracle's disheartening doubts; and even when the truth was manifest, a sort of vague tremor took possession of their mind, as to what Lady Maclaughlan ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... treaty with such rogues, even at the cost of an unrecovered Flush, could not but oppose the new trade of elaborate deception. But his feeling was intensified by the personal repulsiveness of the professional medium. The vain, sleek, vulgar, emasculated, neurotic type of creature, who became the petted oracle of the dim-lighted room, was loathsome in his eyes. And his respect for his wife's genius made him feel that there was a certain desecration in the neighbourhood to her of men whom he regarded as verminous impostors. Yet he recognised her right to think for herself, and she, on ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... whose chief and oracle he had been for so long, asked him what they ought to do; Cavalier replied that if they would follow him, their best course and his would be to take the first opportunity of gaining the frontier and leaving the country. They all declared ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... lowest we are all extremely happy.—Dorcas stands well in her lady's graces. Polly has asked her advice in relation to a courtship-affair of her own. No oracle ever gave better. Sally has had a quarrel with her woollen-draper; and made my charmer lady-chancellor in it. She blamed Sally for behaving tyrannically to a man who loves her. Dear creature! to stand against a glass, and to shut her eyes because ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... household. He had come to dine with them informally almost every alternate Sunday evening. To leave him out would be a dreadful cut; but what else could she do? What would be said of her set of old china if she inserted such a piece of new porcelain? What would Miss Lavinia Vandeleur, special oracle on the genealogy of the exclusive families, think, if Mrs. Gouverneur should be so recreant to right principles as to invite a young man without a single grandfather to his back, only because he ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... singer who has been told by the village oracle that she has a great voice and all she needs is a little "finishing," balks at the idea of devoting three or four years to the process, and so she looks for some one who will do it quickly and she always ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... Elsewhere Swift speaks of his "old Presbyterian housekeeper," "who has been my Walpole above thirty years, whenever I lived in this kingdom." "Joe Beaumont is my oracle for public affairs in the country, and an old Presbyterian ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... Ivy worshipped very far off. Her friend was to her the embodiment of all knowledge and goodness and greatness. She marvelled to see him so at home in what was to her so strange. Every word that fell from his lips was an oracle. She secretly contrasted him with all the men she had ever met, to the utter discomfiture of the latter. Washington, the Apostle Paul, and Peter Parley were the only men of the past or present whom she considered at all worthy to be compared with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the isles of the Pacific unless his pedigree be long and in the upper regions mythical. And our king counts cousinship with most of the high families in the archipelago, and traces his descent to a shark and a heroic woman. Directed by an oracle, she swam beyond sight of land to meet her revolting paramour, and received at sea the seed of a predestined family. "I think lie," is the king's emphatic commentary; yet he is proud of the legend. From this illustrious beginning the fortunes of the race must ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... himself it may be necessary to say a word, in order that so remarkable an intellectual prodigy should fill his proper place in our frail and short-lived catalogue of the worthies of that day. He was the usual oracle of his neighbourhood, when a condensation of its ideas on any great event, like the one just mentioned, became necessary. His learning was justly computed, by comparison, to be of the most profound and erudite ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... the king's ears like the voice of an oracle. Standing in his place with staring eyes and trembling fingers, he repeated falteringly ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... driven his fellow countrymen into a corner at the point of a logical bayonet from which they felt that there was no escape, he proposed that the question what was to be done should be referred to an oracle in which the whole country had the greatest confidence, and to which recourse was always had in times of special perplexity. It was whispered that a near relation of the philosopher's was lady's-maid to the priestess who delivered the oracle, and the Puritan party declared that ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... bases of moral and political progress. The inevitable sympathy between the editor and his daily readers—the action and reaction which constantly take place and insensibly lead the journalist into the paths of popular opinion and passion—these are too apt to render him altogether unfit to be an oracle in the great work of social organization and government. The common sense of the multitude is often an invaluable corrective of speculative error; but the impulses and strong prejudices of communities, though calculated to sweep along with them ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Physiology. Foster's Physiology. Youman's Chemistry. Johnston's Chemistry of Common Life. Lewes's Physiology of Common Life. Gray's How Plants Grow. Rand's Vegetable Kingdom. Brillat Savarin's Art of Dining. Brillat Savarin's Physiologie du Gout. The Cook's Oracle, Dr. Kitchener. Food and Dietetics, by Dr. Chambers. Food and Dietetics, by Dr. Pary. Food and Digestion, by Dr. Brinton. Food, by Dr. ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... when an Armada is at my heels, the cares of the moon do not concern me," went on Baldry, with the gravity of an oracle. "Had Nero not fiddled, perhaps ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... tall, large-boned man, brawny and angular; with a face tanned by the sun, and graven with those considerate lines which New England so early writes on the faces of her sons. He was reputed an oracle in matters of agriculture and cattle, and, like oracles generally, was prudently sparing of his responses. Amaziah was one of those uncouth over-grown boys of eighteen whose physical bulk appears to have so suddenly developed that the soul has more matter ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... considered to flatter, making his concealment more insinuating than his speech. He approaches with fictitious humility to the creature of his praise, and hangs with rivetted attention upon his lips, as though he spake with the voice of an oracle. He repeats what phrase or sentence may particularly gratify him, and both hands are little enough to bless him in return. Sometimes he extols the excellencies of his friend in his absence, but it is in the presence of those who he is pretty certain ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... was a sort of oracle, in such circumstances. He had passed his youth at sea, having often doubled the Horn, and was known to possess a very respectable amount of knowledge on the subject of vessels of all sorts and sizes, rig and qualities. He was now ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... profit by it: something else was needed. His mission was to the Athens of his day; he was going to save Athens if he could. So he went into the marketplace, the agora, and loafed about (so to say), and drew groups of young men and old about him, and talked to them. The Delphic Oracle had made pronouncement: Sophocles is wise; Euripides is wiser; but Socrates is the wisest of mankind. Sometimes, you see, the Delphic Oracle could get off a distinctly good thing. But Socrates, with his usual sense of humor, had never considered himself in that light at all; ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... Jewish prayer, for the Jews never prayed but when they were in trouble, and never for anything but victory, vengeance, or riches.—Author. (Prov. xxx. 1, and xxxi. 1) the word "prophecy" in these verses is translated "oracle" or "burden" (marg.) in the revised version.—The prayer of Agur was quoted by Paine in his plea for the officers ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Ogden (now the Newmarket oracle) the same person who, five-and-twenty years since, was an annual pedestrian to Ascot, covered with dust, amusing himself with "PRICKING in the belt," "HUSTLING in the hat," &c., among the lowest class of rustics, at the inferior booths ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... abuse The Gentiles; henceforth oracles are ceased, And thou no more with pomp and sacrifice Shalt be enquired at Delphos or elsewhere— At least in vain, for they shall find thee mute. God hath now sent his living Oracle 460 Into the world to teach his final will, And sends his Spirit of Truth henceforth to dwell In pious hearts, an inward oracle To all truth requisite for men to know." So spake our Saviour; but the subtle Fiend, Though inly stung with anger and disdain, Dissembled, and this answer smooth returned:— ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... were an oak tree," he said, "I'd think you were consulting an oracle; but since it isn't, maybe you're just a Dryad who's fallen out of the branches. What are you doing away up here anyway? I guess you startled me almost as much as I seem to have startled you. I'm mighty sorry I scared ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... Burns says that in 1889 "Lane's chief hero was Cleveland, and his oracle Godkin, of the EVENING POST"—later, the NATION. "When I knew him in New York he represented a San Francisco newspaper, the CHRONICLE, I think, as correspondent. He was not whole-heartedly in sympathy with his proprietor, nor indeed with the sensational aspect of journalism, and ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... in the ear, of malicious laughter from gnomes and imps grinning over the weaknesses of man—his paralytic facility in believing—his fraudulent villany in abusing this facility—but in no point accounting for those real effects of diffusive social benefits from the Oracle machinery, which must arrest the attention of candid students, amidst some opposite monuments of incorrigible credulity, or of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... inhabit the city of Pandion, to be mindful of Bacchus, all together throughout the wide streets to return fit thanks to the Bromian, and crowned with wreaths, to cause the odor of sacrifice to rise from the altars. In this oracle, Athens is the city of Pandion, because it was reported that under his rule the worship of Dionysus was introduced into the city. This and the other commands from Dodona and Delphi concerning Dionysus refer to the introduction of the worship of the god; for in every one the ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... "Thy potent aid." The goddess heard their words, And instant gave reply. "The temple leave, "Ungird your garments, veil your heads, and throw "Behind your backs your mighty mother's bones." Astonish'd long they stood! and Pyrrha first The silence broke; the oracle's behest Refusing to obey; and earnest pray'd, With trembling tongue for pardon for her sin: Her mother's shade to violate she dreads, Her bones thus rudely flinging. But meantime Deep in their minds, in dark mysterious veil Obscurely hid, the sentence they revolve. At length Deucalion sooths ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... a kind of mysticism which did actually absorb him at a later period, he confined himself to a positive worship of nature, which appeared to him then in the glorious shape of the mountains and lakes of Helvetia. Wordsworth was his oracle, and thus cultivating a poetry which deified nature, Shelley, in reality, remained at heart an atheist, and doubtless tried to imbue Byron with his ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... dispute about it, [Footnote: The sense of these words is not clear. Boissevain conjectures that there may have been some who doubted whether an emperor so diseased would ever live to reach Mysia.] seemed to bring to fulfillment the following verse, according to some oracle: ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... made subordinate. Money, which exalts the lowly, and sheds honour upon the exalted—money, which makes sin appear goodness, and gives to viciousness the seeming of chastity—money, which silences evil report, and opens wide the mouth of praise—money, which constitutes its possessor an oracle, to whom men listen with deference—money, which makes deformity beautiful, and sanctifies crime—money, which lets the guilty go unpunished, and wins forgiveness for wrong—money, which makes manhood and age respectable, and is commendation, surety, and ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... other words rationalise, about the gods.[93] Every one also has rather marvelled at the somewhat lame and impotent conclusion of the play when Athene—herself in reality one of the most infamous of the Olympian deities—is brought on the stage to save the prestige of the oracle at Delphi and to explain away the altogether disreputable behaviour of the no less infamous Apollo. But no one before Verrall had thought of coupling together the free-thinking and the episode in ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... when he had retired on the death of the baronet and marriage with the housekeeper he had brought away a red volume, by name Burke's Peerage, by which, as well as by his previous knowledge, he was enabled to serve as an oracle respecting all owners of yachts worthy of consideration. If their names were not recorded in that book, he scorned them as 'parvenoos,' however perfect their vessels might be in the eyes of mariners. The edition ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Dean. He was honoured by the populace as the champion, patron, and instructor of Ireland; and gained such power as, considered both in its extent and duration, scarcely any man has ever enjoyed without greater wealth or higher station. He was from this important year the oracle of the traders, and the idol of the rabble, and by consequence was feared and courted by all to whom the kindness of the traders or the populace was necessary. The Drapier was a sign; the Drapier was a health; and which way soever the eye or the ear was turned, some tokens were found ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... obscured the April sun that afternoon, so that the new baby could be carried out under the elm tree and there rocked to his first sleep. My next excursion, so the family traditions aver, was to Uncle Peter's, the nearest neighbor, the oracle of the community for all signs, omens and country folk-lore, who, taking me in his arms, carried me to the attic of his house and touched my head to the ridgepole: "What did you do that for?" my mother asked. "Oh, that's the way to make him a great man sometime. I does it to all the ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... referred to, it was first embraced by persons in a certain grade of comfort and respectability; by persons approaching to what we should call the MIDDLE CLASSES in their condition, their education, and their moral views. Of this class Seneca himself was the idol, the oracle; he was, so to speak, the favourite preacher of the more intelligent and humane disciples of nature and virtue. Now the writings of Seneca show, in their way, a real anxiety among this class to raise the ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... the impossibility of such a thing, that I would justify Lord G from this piece of complaisance to the Jacobins, and convince the worthy magistrate he had been imposed upon: yet this man is the Professor of Eloquence at a college, is the oracle of the Jacobin society; and may perhaps become a member of the Convention. This seems so almost incredibly absurd, that I should fear to repeat it, were it not known to many besides myself; but I think ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... eyes were turned upon Paul, as the oracle of the group of wondering scouts. He shrugged his shoulders, as if he thought he had as much right as any of the others to ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... that'll be exact," replied our oracle: "If the rain comes down pretty, we shan't have no hurricane; if it holds up ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... the sufferer was an evil-doer, justly hateful to the gods."[9] Jehu and his house were blamed for the blood spilt at Israel, although Jehu was commissioned by Elisha to destroy the house of Ahab.[10] This is like the case of OEdipus, who obeyed an oracle, but suffered for his act as for a crime. Jehovah caused the ruin of those who had displeased him, by putting false oracles in the mouths of prophets.[11] Hezekiah expostulated with God because, although he had walked before God with a perfect heart and had done what was right ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... sympathized with Luther in his religious feelings, treated him with great kindness, and recommended the reading of the Scriptures, and also the works of St. Augustine whose theological views he himself had embraced. Although St. Augustine was a great oracle in the Roman church, still, his doctrines pertaining to personal salvation differed in spirit from those which were encouraged by the Roman Catholic divines generally, who attached less importance to justification by faith ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... child,' Mr. Noah aggravatingly replied, 'except to go to bed and get a good night's rest. To-morrow we will return to the city and see what can be done. We must consult the oracle.' ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... of Ithaca; and be't of less expect That matter needless, of importless burden, Divide thy lips than we are confident, When rank Thersites opes his mastic jaws, We shall hear music, wit, and oracle. ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... she confided to the night, with something of the awe with which one suddenly comprehends a hidden oracle; "there must be a difference, ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... than these, though temple thou hast none, Nor altar heap'd with flowers; Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan 30 Upon the midnight hours; No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet From chain-swung censer teeming; No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat Of pale-mouth'd ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... was evident that we were going to have a prolonged spell of grand weather SOME TIME, and read out a poem which was printed over the top of the oracle, about ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... is thine aged Grove, Prophetic Fount, and Oracle divine? What valley echoed the response of Jove? What trace remaineth of the Thunderer's shrine? All, all forgotten—and shall Man repine That his frail bonds to fleeting life are broke?[152] Cease, Fool! the fate of Gods may well be thine: Wouldst thou ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... approval of conscience that transfigured the face of the martyred Stephen or Savonarola. For all happiness comes only through peace with one's self, one's record, and one's God. All the great, from AEschylus and Sophocles to Channing and Webster, have emphasized man's conscience as the oracle divine. Let the witnesses speak. Here is the Judge, famous in English history: It became his duty to sentence a servant for murdering his master. Suddenly, before the astounded onlookers, the Judge arose and took his place in the dock beside the prisoner. He ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... this sweetness was lost forever, both in this world and in the next, because it had been seen and heard on the stage. Frau von Eschenhagen had often expressed her views on that subject, and her son, a good, obedient son always, looked upon her as an oracle. But now he heaved a deep sigh, as ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... into the West Bengal jungles, and have descended from the North to their present site. They are called the finest specimens of the native savage. The guardian of the tribe is its deceased ancestor, and his ghost is consulted as an oracle. Their race-god is the 'Great Mountain,' but the sun represents the highest spirit; though they worship spirits of every sort, and regard beasts as divine; the men revering the tiger, and the women, elephants. The particularly ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... I was just reflecting how foolish is all this thing—the tomb—the epitaph. I think I would 'av none—no, no epitaph. We regard them first for the oracle of the dead, and find them after only the folly of the living. So I despise. Do you think your house of Knowl down there is what you call ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... gloom of the woods where the lonely pickets stand. Pipes are out now. An oracle outlines the general campaign of the war as it will be and as it should have been. A long-winded, innocent braggart tells of his personal prowess that day. A little group is guying the new recruit. A wag shaves a bearded comrade on ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... my selfe again, with thinking that peraduenture this was shee, according to the sacred Oracle and true speech, of the mighty Queene Eleutherillida: and therefore, that I should not shrinke or stoope vnder my burthen; for if I were not greatly deceiued, this was shee indeede. And hauing made thys amorous and discoursiue thought and ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... Gospel was being read, he received the admonition as if what was read was addressed to him: "Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me" [Matt. 19:21]. And by such oracle was he forthwith converted unto Thee. So quickly I returned to the place where Alypius was sitting; for there had I put down the volume of the Apostles, when I rose thence. I seized, I opened, and in silence I read that paragraph on which my eye first fell: "Not in rioting ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... session" of 1891, had it not been for two disasters which overtook the Liberals: The publication of Blake's letter and the revelation of the rascalities of the Mercier regime. Perhaps of the two blows, that delivered by Blake was the more disastrous. The letter was the message of an oracle. It required an interpretation which the oracle refused to supply; and in its absence the people regarded it as implying a belief by Blake that annexation was the logical sequel to the Liberal policy of unrestricted reciprocity. The ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... distended braces. We never met but one exception to the above rule—it was John Smith. Every reader has a friend of the name of John Smith—in confidence, that is the man. We would have sworn by him; in fact, we did swear by him, for ten long years he was our oracle. Never shall we forget the first, the only time our faith was shaken. We gazed upon and loved his honest face; we reciprocated the firm pressure of his manly grasp; our eyes descended in admiration even unto the ground on which he stood, and there, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... mothers decided to consult the bronze oracle in the temple of Fo. After burning gilt paper and perfume before the oracle, Madame Tou received the unsatisfactory answer that, until the jasper appeared, the pearl would unite with no one, and Madame ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... in the tones of the oracle, "that drinking alone is a pernicious habit. No, I don't think I feel like playing this evening. If we are going to reform we may as well abandon the ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... it your father placed his trust, in it he found his reward, in it lives my only hope; consult it, my beloved niece, day and night, as the oracle of life.' ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... Babylon, the capital of the Assyrian empire, it was so little valued, that a law of the country even obliged every woman once in her life to depart from it. This abominable law, which, it is said, was promulgated by an oracle, ordained, That every woman should once in her life repair to the temple of Venus; that on her arrival there, her head should be crowned with flowers, and in that attire, she should wait till some stranger performed with her the rites ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... die in her place; likewise a custom whereby a nymph between fifteen and twenty years of age is annually sacrificed to the goddess. When besought to release the land from this tribute Diana through her oracle replies: ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... was far more than a Mason, he was a high initiate—the supreme oracle to which the secret societies applied for guidance. All this was disclosed a few years ago in the correspondence between Savalette de Langes and the Marquis de Chefdebien referred to in the previous chapter. Thus in the dossiers of the leading occultists supplied by Savalette ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... are true—for thus my vision ran; Surely some oracle has been with me, The gods have chosen me to reveal their plan, To warn an unjust judge of destiny: I, slumbering, heard and saw; awake I know, Christ's coming death, and Pilate's ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... to the spoken word, which begins again with fresh methods of attack and is ready to vary the paths that lead to the open, the book says what it says and nothing more. Having finished its demonstration, whether you understand or no, the oracle is inexorably dumb. You reread the text and ponder it obstinately; you pass and repass your shuttle through the woof of figures. Useless efforts all: the darkness continues. What would be needed to supply the illuminating ray? Often enough, a trifle, ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... the arrangement of the pulleys, and the manufacture of the thunders. They saw the natural faces and heard the natural voices of the actors. Distant nations looked on the Pope as the Vicegerent of the Almighty, the oracle of the All-wise, the umpire from whose decisions, in the disputes either of theologians or of kings, no Christian ought to appeal. The Italians were acquainted with all the follies of his youth, and with all the dishonest arts by which he had ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... struck the king's heart with sudden terror, as filled him with anxious solicitude. Accordingly when Etrurian soothsayers only were employed for public prodigies, terrified at this as it were domestic apparition, he determined on sending persons to Delphos to the most celebrated oracle in the world; and not venturing to intrust the responses of the oracle to any other person, he despatched his two sons to Greece through lands unknown at that time, and seas still more so. Titus and Aruns were the two who went. To them were added, as a companion, ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... an oracle in times of danger, the seamen caught every word which was uttered from my mouth; and what they gathered from what I had said, satisfied them that they were in no immediate danger. Nevertheless, the master walked the deck as if ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... the other a pilgrim, and one who was out with the bear flag and under Fremont when California was taken by the States. They are both true frontiersmen, and most kind and pleasant. Captain Smith, the bear-hunter, is my physician, and I obey him like an oracle. ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Oracle and regulator of the fashions, my praise or censure made the law; I was quoted, copied, extolled, admired, and that by the best company in Paris, that is to say, Europe, the world. The women partook of the general infatuation; the most charming disputed for the pleasure of coming to some very ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... opening of the rose. One stalks this earth agog for miracles. It is full of hints—you catch a moment—for flashed instants you are God. Then the mist wraps you, and you blunder forward, two-legged man swaying for a balance. Translate the oracle as you will— with your paint-pans, with your words—we get broken lights, half-phrases. But we guess the rest, and so we strain and grow. Who are you or I, that we should ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... Caius, who was blind, learned from an oracle that he should repair to the temple, put up his fervent prayers, cross the sanctuary from right to left, place his five fingers on the altar, then raise his hand and cover his eyes. He obeyed, and instantly ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... the Oracle of the Divine Bottle," exclaimed Pantagruel, "before you enter on so dangerous an undertaking. Come, let us ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... Minos, his father, put the Athenians to extreme distress by a perpetual war, but the gods also laid waste their country; both famine and pestilence lay heavy upon them, and even their rivers were dried up. Being told by the oracle that if they appeased and reconciled Minos, the anger of the gods would cease and they should enjoy rest from the miseries they labored under, they sent heralds, and with much supplication were at last reconciled, entering into an agreement to send to Crete every nine years a tribute of seven ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... imagined that the priests were the most powerful agents of the chiefs in forwarding the interests of their masters, for, as in ancient Greece or Rome, nothing of importance was undertaken without first consulting the oracle. ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... washing.' He had the same sort of droll sardonic way about every thing. A wild Irishman, named F——, one evening beginning to say something at a large supper at Cambridge, Matthews roared out 'Silence!' and then, pointing to F——, cried out, in the words of the oracle, 'Orson is endowed with reason.' You may easily suppose that Orson lost what reason he had acquired, on hearing this compliment. When H—— published his volume of poems, the Miscellany (which Matthews would call ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... man is sincere," the Oracle declared, "the country needs him. If he is a charlatan, then for heaven's sake, even at the expense of all the laws that were ever framed, away with him! There is no man breathing to-day who is developing a more potent, a more ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... now rests mainly on his achievements as a precursor of the Revolution, to the eighteenth century he was as much a poet as a reformer. The whole of Europe beheld at Ferney the oracle, not only of philosophy, but of good taste; for thirty years every scribbler, every rising genius, and every crowned head, submitted his verses to the censure of Voltaire; Voltaire's plays were performed before crowded houses; his epic was pronounced superior to Homer's, Virgil's, and Milton's; ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... that Psyche's heart had somehow escaped love, she sent a spell upon the maiden. From that time, lovely as she was, not a suitor came to woo; and her parents, who desired to see her a queen at least, made a journey to the Oracle, and asked counsel. ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... perplexity, he wandered almost as by instinct to the lodgings of the Lemprieres. He had long been accustomed to regard the simple good faith and courage of Mme. de Maufant as an infallible oracle in cases of conscience. Never had so hard a need for an infallible oracle presented itself ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... there's a story going about of an oracle, an oracle which says that the Republic reached its acme under Trajan, that the Empire kept up its prosperity under Hadrian and my Grandfather and Father, but that the glory of Rome is fated to fade and wane and that its decline will date from ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... oracle of the Administration in the first days of the war. His ability and great experience entitled him to regard and deference on all questions relating to military operations. No one appreciated his qualities more than the President, unless it was General Scott himself, who with great self-esteem ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... of Apothegms which he collected, we see that he esteemed it more honour to make himself but a pair of tables, to take the wise and pithy words of others, than to have every word of his own to be made an apothegm or an oracle[109].' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... casual words, would have defeated the purpose. A well-known variety of augury, conducted upon this principle, lay in the "Sortes Biblicae," where the Bible was the oracular book consulted, and far more extensively at a later period in the "Sortes Virgilianae," [2] where the Aeneid was the oracle consulted. ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... on Loch Rannoch, under the appointment of the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge. Never, it is believed, were the duties of a calling discharged with more zeal and efficiency. The catechist was, both in and out of the strict department of his office, a universal oracle,[102] and his name is revered in the scene of his usefulness in a degree to which the honours of canonization could scarcely have added. Pious, to the height of a proverbial model, he was withal frank, cheerful, and social; and from his ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... men of small means and smaller prospects, like the youth of conquered Athens. Xenophon thought it right to consult his spiritual guide, Socrates, on the propriety of abandoning his country for hireling service. The philosopher advised him to consult the oracle at Delphi, but the young man only asked what gods he might best conciliate before his departure, and Socrates, though noting the evasion of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... alms, he will never obtain it! They are on guard with him; for reply he receives a shrug of the shoulders, and, if he rouses himself in his impatience, they rise in righteous indignation like an outraged vestal, while there falls from their lips the great feminine oracle that suspicion destroys love, and they refuse to pardon an accusation which they are unable to meet. Ah! just God! How weary I am! When will all ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Mandarins are so fond of calling them. For this rubbish they freely spend their hard-earned wages, consulting some favourite prophet on most of their domestic and other affairs with the utmost gravity and confidence. Few Chinamen make a money venture without first applying to the oracle, and certainly never marry without arranging a lucky day for the event. Ignorance and credulity combine to support a numerous class of the most consummate adepts in the art of swindling; the supply, however, is not more than adequate to the demand, albeit they swarm in ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... that left the old man's sails all shivering. By and by the congregation will get ahead of him, and then it must, have another new skipper. The priest holds his own pretty well; the minister is coming down every generation nearer and nearer to the common level of the useful citizen,—no oracle at all, but a man of more than average moral instincts, who, if he knows anything, knows how little he knows. The ministers are good talkers, only the struggle between nature and grace makes some of 'em a little awkward occasionally. The women do their best to spoil 'em, as they do the poets; you ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the setting up a great new monarchy on the ruins of the fallen kingdom, his own ambitious projects were blown into fresh activity by the desire for private revenge. Misled by his own interpretation of the oracle he consulted as to the likelihood of success in an expedition against the Persians, he advanced to withstand the conquering march of Cyrus; and his first success was against the Syrians of Cappadocia, a people subject to Cyrus, as having formed a part of the Median Kingdom. Cyrus, with a ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... indolence of the great bard not to have provided in the oracular response (Act ii. sc. 2.) some ground for Hermione's seeming death and fifteen years' voluntary concealment. This might have been easily effected by some obscure sentence of the oracle, as for example:— ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... Their parapets are dimmer, perhaps, but from them still they lean and laugh. They are immortal as the hexameters in which their loves unfold. Yet, oddly enough, presently the oracle of Delphi strangled. In his cavern Trophonios was gagged. The voice ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... in ominous tone, spoke this oracle. "Patsy Ann, how yo' pappy doin' sence Matildy died?" ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... tenderest moonrise. 'T was, in truth, a study, To mark his spirit, alternating between A decent and professional gravity And an irreverent mirthfulness, which often Laughed in the face of his divinity, Plucked off the sacred ephod, quite unshrined The oracle, and for the pattern priest Left us the man. A shrewd, sagacious merchant, To whom the soiled sheet found in Crawford's inn, Giving the latest news of city stocks And sales of cotton, had a deeper meaning Than the great presence of the awful mountains Glorified ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... signifying the fleet, and though thought to be peculiarly English, was used by the Delphic oracle, when applied to by the Athenians on the Persian invasion: "Defend yourselves by ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... awful—awful in its physical adherence to realism, and singular in that it does not disgust, or even horrify, but leaves a memory of peace with the listener, who has not failed to catch the last strain for sight of the divine and dying eyes." So the critic of the London oracle wrote ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... except Leontes, her husband. Leontes had sent some messengers to ask the god, Apollo, whether he was not right in his cruel thoughts of the Queen. But he had not patience to wait till they came back, and so it happened that they arrived in the middle of the trial. The Oracle said— ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... receiver-general in the department of Montenotte. M. Firmiani died in Greece about 1822, and she became Mme. de Camps in 1824 or 1825. At this time she dwelt on rue du Bac and had entree into the home of Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, the oracle of Faubourg Saint-Germain. An accomplished and excellent lady, loved even by her rivals, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, her cousin, Mme. de Macumer—Louise de Chaulieu—and the Marquise d'Espard. [Madame Firmiani.] She welcomed and protected Mme. Xavier Rabourdin. [The Government Clerks.] ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... would gain an honest and a useful member. There ends all we can say in his praise. As a speaker, he wants the fire and enthusiasm which engage the popular sympathies. He has the ear of the House, not the heart of the country. An oracle on subjects of mere business, in the great questions of policy he is comparatively a failure. He never embraces any party heartily; he never espouses any question as if wholly in earnest. The moderation on which he is said to pique himself often exhibits itself in fastidious crotchets and an attempt ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the Rose-leaves of a thousand summers. All the pretty heads so curly That shall hold a riper wisdom Than our youthful planet dreams of; All the ranks of dimple shoulders, That shall move Time's rolling chariot Nearer to the golden city; Vieweth these the blue-eyed prophet, Still the oracle says calmly, Speaks the seer with golden tresses— "No! there never was, nor will be Such a child as our Harry, Such a noble boy ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... purpose; the child was not to be found in their camps. It was however soon afterwards discovered, drowned in one of its father's pits, who was a tanner. Thus was this pretended astrologer exposed to the ridicule of those who but a short time before foolishly looked on him as an oracle. ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... in earnest I could not divine; his face, like a mystic oracle, might bear manifold interpretations; verily his speech went to my heart. And albeit hitherto life had brought me an hundredfold more reasons for thanksgiving than sorrow, meseemed that it had many griefs in store. The Queen indeed replied full solemnly: ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... dissimulation of Mazarin, the judicious temerity of Richelieu, the penetration, the exquisite tact, the almost instinctive presentiment of approaching events which gave so much authority to the counsel of Shaftesbury, that "it was as if a man had inquired of the oracle of God." In this school Thucydides studied; and his wisdom is that which such a school would naturally afford. He judges better of circumstances than of principles. The more a question is narrowed, the better he reasons upon it. His work suggests many most important considerations ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... tea-table, over which the amiable hostess presided, had also its standing votaries: mostly grave parliamentary-looking gentlemen, with powdered heads, and very long-waisted black coats, among whom the Sir Oracle was a functionary of his Majesty's High Court of Chancery, though I have reason to believe, not, Lord Manners: meanwhile, in all parts of the room might be seen Blue Peter, distributing tea, coffee, and biscuit, and occasionally interchanging a joke with ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... Not at all likely. She was too old to know much of love, or its symptoms in a girl. Would Nina St. Claire know? Possibly, for she and Jerrie were great friends, and girls always told each other their secrets, so Maude said, and Maude was just then his oracle. He had seen so much of her the last few months that he felt as if he knew her even better than he did Jerrie, and he was certainly more at his ease in her presence. Then why not talk with Maude and enlist her as a partisan. He might certainly ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... that they may bee kepte in order with wood, which otherwise would not bee kepte in order, heere is fons latus pedibus tribus, a fountaine to wash three mens legs, that they which have bene aurium tenus, over shoes, heere may be crurum tenus over bootes too, This your Lordshippe's oracle or Tripos, out of which malefactors tell the truth and foretell of their amendment. Nay, I wil bee bould to compare it to your Lordshippe's braine, for what is there designed is heere executed. In these sells or ventricles are fancy, understanding, and memory. For such as your ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... in her place; likewise a custom whereby a nymph between fifteen and twenty years of age is annually sacrificed to the goddess. When besought to release the land from this tribute Diana through her oracle replies: ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... though thus greatly honoured, spake not greatly of himself; but when the oracle of God was delivered to him out of the bush, he said, Who am I, that thou dost send me? I am of a slender voice, and a ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... a word the meanin' whereof is goin' to depend a heap on what you brands with it." This was said like an oracle. "Also, the same means more or less accordin' to who all puts the word in play. I remembers a mighty decent sort of sport, old Cape Willingham it is; an' yet Dan Boggs is forever referrin' to old Cape as 'ornery.' An' I reckon Dan thinks ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... from his daughter as an oracle from heaven; and no longer thought of recalling his ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... kingdom upon earth. Such opinions, which took a strong colour from their assiduous study of the Old Testament, reacted and disposed them all the more to search its pages for illustrations and precedents, and to regard it as an oracle, almost as a talisman. In every propitious event they saw a special providence, an act of divine intervention to deliver them from the snares of an ever watchful Satan. This steadfast faith in an unseen ruler and guide was to them a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. It was ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... Such an oracle as I am with the girls! There's nothing like it, Gustav; for every fan or bracelet you give your sisters, you'll be amply rewarded by revelations and love; and it's something to have a dear, white, undulating wreath of a girl in your arms, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... into which poured the mountain streams, passed to the sea through a narrow gorge, the famous Vale of Tempe. In the mountainous region of Epirus were numerous streams flowing through the valleys. Within it was the ancient Dodona, the seat of the oracle. Magnesia, east of Thessaly, on the coast, comprised within it the two ranges of Ossa and Pelion. Central Greece contained eleven states. Malis had on its eastern edge the pass of Thermopylae. In Phocis, on the southern slope of ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... proconsul of Cilicia to do so; but as Pompey wished to have the business, the senate found itself in a difficulty, not wishing to put him in military command, or daring to offend him by an open refusal (Dio, xxxix. 12). The tribune C. Cato found up a Sibylline oracle forbidding the employment of an army for the purpose, which served the senate as a decent excuse. The commission to Lentulus was eventually withdrawn by an auctoritas senatus, and Lentulus did not venture to do it. Ptolemy, ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the oracle! [Urgently, pointing up towards the heights.] But don't you see that the storm is upon us? Don't you hear the ...
— When We Dead Awaken • Henrik Ibsen
... had no opportunity of enquiring what I wished of that so holy oracle of Thine, his breast, unless the thing might be answered briefly. But those tides in me, to be poured out to him, required his full leisure, and never found it. I heard him indeed every Lord's day, rightly expounding the Word of ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... in obeying this oracle, and on arriving at the wild and lonely spot he made a swing of morning-glory vine, which here grows very long, and let himself down, having first smeared himself with rancid grease to make the shades believe he was dead. Thousands of spirits were ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... to that of other people. He thinks that he makes a deep impression upon the company as to his literary attainments; but the fact is, the impression is made that he knows nothing as he ought to know. He may, perchance, with the lowest of the illiterate, be heard as an oracle, and looked up to as a Solon; but the moment he rises into higher circles he loses caste, and falls down into a rank below that with which he would have stood associated had he not elevated himself on the pedestal of his own folly. He is viewed with disgust in his fall; and becomes the object of ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... very daughters underwent death, for the safety of their fellow-citizens: they instance Codrus, who threw himself into the midst of his enemies, dressed like a common man, that his royal robes might not betray him, because the oracle had declared the Athenians conquerors, if their king was slain. Menoeceus[29] is not overlooked by them, who, in compliance with the injunctions of an oracle, freely shed his blood for his country. Iphigenia ordered ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... and consulting the oracle. "Here's two people, a man and a woman, from a great distance, and, yes, here's money, too. ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... room—a little general shop. She had no idea what stock she had, or what the price of anything in it was; but there was a little greasy memorandum-book kept in a drawer, which served as a Catalogue of Prices, and by this oracle Biddy arranged all the shop transaction. Biddy was Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's granddaughter; I confess myself quiet unequal to the working out of the problem, what relation she was to Mr. Wopsle. She was an orphan like myself; like me, too, had been brought up by hand. She was most noticeable, ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... War. Phalaecus surrendered. Phocis was crushed. Philip took its place in the Amphictyonic Council, and was thus established as a Greek power in the very centre, at the sacred hearth, of Greece. The right of precedence in consultation of the oracle ([Greek: promanteia]) was transferred from Athens to Philip. While indignant Athenians were clamouring for the revocation of the peace, Demosthenes upheld it in his speech "On the Peace" in September. It ought never to have been made on such terms, he said. But, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... seven hundred souls in the valley when I came to it, and now the population numbers some two thousand. I had gained the good opinion of every one in that matter of the last cretin; and when I had constantly shown that I could rule both mildly and firmly, I became a local oracle. I did everything that I could to win their confidence; I did not ask for it, nor did I appear to seek it; but I tried to inspire every one with the deepest respect for my character, by the scrupulous ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... civil war with their own flesh and blood. The threadbare author hates the gaudy coat; And swears at the gilt coach, but swears afoot: 10 For 'tis observed of every scribbling man, He grows a fop as fast as e'er he can; Prunes up, and asks his oracle, the glass, If pink and purple best become his face. For our poor wretch, he neither rails nor prays; Nor likes your wit, just as you like his plays; He has not yet so much of Mr Bayes. He does his best; and if he ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... been amiss to believe a thought was all the life there was in him. He certainly did believe in astrology. Had not men been always ruled by what they imagined heavenly signs? How distinctly he remembered the age of the oracle and the augur! Upon their going out he became a believer in the stars as prophets, and then an adept; afterwhile he reached a stage when he habitually mistook the commonest natural results, even coincidences, for confirmations of planetary ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... us another echo of the story of Minos in the shape of the reasons which led the Cretans to refuse aid to the rest of the Greeks during the Persian invasion. The Delphian oracle, which they consulted at this crisis, suggested to them that they had known enough of the misery caused by foreign expeditions. 'Fools, you complain of all the woes that Minos in his anger sent you, for aiding Menelaus, because they would not assist you in avenging his death at Kamikos, and yet you ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... is consistent, at least it does not condemn itself. Consistency is not truth, but truth is consistency. Now, I am not a fit judge whether or not a certain system is true, but I may be quite a judge whether it is consistent with itself. When an oracle equivocates it carries with it its own condemnation. I almost think there is something in Scripture on this subject, comparing in this respect the pagan and the inspired prophecies. And this has struck me, too, that St. Paul gives ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... that evening he began to perceive why the oracle had spoken. Claude having excused himself from dressing for dinner on the ground of another mysterious engagement with Billy Cheever, and Mrs. Masterman having retired up-stairs, Thor was alone in ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... nature were all wrong. The world was full of prejudice. We were heirs of all the mistakes of our forefathers for a thousand generations. "Every thing wants destroying," said one, "that every thing may be created anew." The oracle of the universe cries, "Behold, I make all things new;" and that oracle we ought to echo; and on that oracle we ought to act. "'When I was a child, I thought as a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child; ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... friends. But after we'd been so—oh, do you believe all that? Do you believe you'll be killed by your dearest friend, and that nobody else can harm you? Because that, you know, is just superstition; it's just like the ancient Greeks when they consulted the oracle, and the Indians, and Italians and such ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... "Damn your oracle of Delphi, you old rascal," cried the Prince, with great good-humour. "That's a crumb of the mouldy bread of learning you used to cram down my throat in the old days. It makes Master Wheatman writhe to hear it. The only advantage I ever ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... suggestion—by allegation—by collusion— and in fact! Now, if I was one o' them Hindus I could hire a priest to sing a hymn and start me clean again from the beginning. Trouble is, I'm a complacent liar! I'll do it again, and I know it! Brandy's the right oracle ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... this, no doubt, "industry must be our oracle, and reason our Apollo," as Sir T. Browne says; but surely it is no unreasonable estimate; yet how far do we fall short of it? General culture is often deprecated because it is said that smatterings ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... the resistance her almogavares, or garrison soldiers, would offer to the forces of the baron, still she would do her utmost to avoid a conflict. She then proceeded to another room, in which she kept her magic mirror, and having closed the door, we must leave her consulting the oracle. ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... sympathetic boy, with a dancing-school manner, instead of an awkward and shy youth (although an exceedingly handsome one), we cannot tell. That is the great secret behind the veil. The answer is not yet made, the oracle has not spoken, and we must not ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... of the road, or roll if they wished, while a man was put at both ends of that stretch of road to prevent their straying. Then the others would lie in the shade or sun themselves on the bank opposite the homestead, sleeping, smoking, reading or playing cards. Scarcely ever did the oracle fail to work. The door of the house would open and a fair maid appear, anon, a mother and a sister. The first would come tripping down the path to the soldiers ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... "I should be too prolix were I to tell all the honours conferred upon him, and all the great nobles and learned men that arrived at his house from the very ends of the earth, to see and converse with him as if he had been an oracle. Many strangers, in fact, came to France for no other ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... or Savonarola. For all happiness comes only through peace with one's self, one's record, and one's God. All the great, from AEschylus and Sophocles to Channing and Webster, have emphasized man's conscience as the oracle divine. Let the witnesses speak. Here is the Judge, famous in English history: It became his duty to sentence a servant for murdering his master. Suddenly, before the astounded onlookers, the Judge arose and ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... ancient Indians. Sagara, the king of Ayodhya (Oude), was without offspring—in almost all eastern countries the most grievous calamity incident to man, more especially to those of noble or royal race. By the most surpassing penances he obtains an oracle from the wise Brighu, predicting that one of his wives will bring forth a single son, the other sixty thousand! Accordingly the fair Cesina gives birth to Asamanja; his other wife to a gourd, which, like the egg of Leda, is instinct with life. From the seeds of this ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman
... affirmative; if it does not move, this is a negative reply. This seems to be a very simple trick, for the diviner can impart movement to the lime-case by means of the hand. A similar way of consulting the oracle is by the bow, which is held in the hand by the middle of the string. A simple method of divining is by means of cowries or grains of rice. The diviner plunges his hand into a bag or basket after asking the god a question. ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... rationalise, about the gods.[93] Every one also has rather marvelled at the somewhat lame and impotent conclusion of the play when Athene—herself in reality one of the most infamous of the Olympian deities—is brought on the stage to save the prestige of the oracle at Delphi and to explain away the altogether disreputable behaviour of the no less infamous Apollo. But no one before Verrall had thought of coupling together the free-thinking and the episode in the play. This is what Verrall did. Ion sees that the oracle can lie, and, therefore, ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... disturbed by the marvel of a great snake, which had been seen of a sudden to glide from the altar in his house, sent messengers to Delphi to inquire of the god what this thing might mean. And because he cared not that any strangers should hear the answer of the oracle, he sent his own sons, Titus and Aruns, and with them, to bear them company, or rather as one of whom they might make sport, this same Lucius Brutus. And when the young men offered gifts to the god, Brutus offered gold hidden away in a stick that had been hollowed ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... Lucan is driven to its lower and less poetic spheres. Ghosts, witches, dreams, visions, and portents, fill with their grisly catalogue a disproportionate space of the poem. The sibyl is introduced as in Virgil, but instead of giving her oracle with solemn dignity, she first refuses to speak at all, then under threats of cruel punishment she submits to the influence of the god, but in the midst of the prophetic impulse, Apollo, for some unexplained reason, compels her to stop short and conceal the gist of her message. ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... a temple of Apollo of Tegyra and an oracle, which is now forsaken; it has not been long so, but flourished up to the Persian War, when Echekrates was priest. There the myths say that the god was born; and the neighbouring mountain is called Delos, and there the overflowings of the ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... want of equilibrium in French political affairs, and on the pre-eminence of German music, he would know what to think. Felicia was evidently embarrassed by his reverent wonder, and, in dread lest she should seem to be playing the oracle, became somewhat confused, stumbling on her answers rather than choosing them. But this made no difference to Hinze's rapt attention and subdued eagerness of inquiry. He continued to put large questions, bending his head slightly ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... care to be accused of a superstitious faith in dream-books, but I do want to say that I have found all sorts of inspiration in a philosophical acceptance of that oracle attaching to my unfortunate birthday. If Saturday's child must work for her living, why not make the best of it? Why not make the most advantageous terms possible with Fate? why not work with, and not against, that inexorable Forelady, in cooperation with her plans and along the ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... Stephen was the great oracle, of course, as to the deer respectfully peeped at in the park, or the squirrels, the hares and rabbits, in the forest, and the inhabitants of the stream above or below. It was he who secured and tamed the memorials of their visit—two starlings for Dennet and Aldonza. The birds were to be taught ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and shown; Bright pictures, but obscure their meaning: A ray of truth through error gleaming, Thus you the best elixir brew, To charm mankind, and edify them too. Then youth's fair blossoms crowd to view your play, And wait as on an oracle; while they, The tender souls, who love the melting mood, Suck from your work their melancholy food; Now this one, and now that, you deeply stir, Each sees the working of his heart laid bare. Their tears, their laughter, you command with ease, The lofty still they honour, the illusive love. ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the account which Herodotus gives us of the actions of the Greeks at Plataea, when their army confronted the remnant of the army of Xerxes, in the year 479 B.C. Here we see each side hesitating to attack the other, merely because the oracle had declared that whichever side struck the first blow would lose the conflict. Even after the Persian soldiers, who seemingly were a jot less superstitious or a shade more impatient than their opponents, had ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... Virgilia, with the obscure brevity of an oracle. She drew down her brows and looked at the wondering Dill,—or ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... does the Court that should be the example And Oracle of the Kingdome, read to us No other doctrine! Egre. None that thrives so well As that, within my knowledge. Cow. Flatterie rubbes out, But since great men learne to admire themselves, Tis something crest-falne. ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Henry demanded the reason of the Parliament's delay to register an edict they had received from him against the "Lutherans"—doubtless the last—establishing the inquisitorial commission of three cardinals. "Cest edict estoit sorti de l'oracle dudict cardinal de Lorreine." Baum, Theodore Beza, ii. 31, note, etc., has already called attention to the gross inaccuracies of Browning, in his description of the incidents of the Mercuriale, as well as of the king's visit ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... dear Mrs. Talbot, that man is never so flattered as when some woman thinks him an oracle. Besides, although yours is the best mind in any pretty woman's head I know of—in any woman's head for that matter—you still have much to learn, and I should feel very jealous ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... holy faith. With all the rage of an infuriated lion it pounced upon every literary production or practical movement that had a tendency to restore the old landmarks. Its influence was felt throughout Germany and the Continent. Every university and gymnasium listened to it as an oracle, while its power was felt even in the pot-houses and humblest cottages. Berlin was completely under its sway, and Berliner was a synonym of Rationalist. Oetinger wrote a curious passage in a volume of sermons, published in 1777, in which he descants On those ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... and Romans were still striving for the mastery, and a husbandman among the Sabines had a wonderfully beautiful cow. An oracle declared that the man who sacrificed this cow to Diana upon the Aventine Hill would secure the chief power to his nation. The Sabine drove the cow to Rome, and was going to kill her, when a crafty Roman priest told him that he must first wash his hands in the Tiber, and while he was gone ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... to take us back to a former generation. Often at this and subsequent visits I ventured to suggest, (not professionally,) after some of these reminiscences, "I hope you have taken time to make a note of these";—but the oracle nodded a sort of humorous No.—A drive to Sleepy Hollow—Mr. Irving again managing the ponies himself—crowned our visit; and with such a coachman and guide, in such regions, we were not altogether unable ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... of Leonella, Antonia drew off her glove, and presented her white hand to the Gypsy, who having gazed upon it for some time with a mingled expression of pity and astonishment, pronounced her Oracle ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... again: what purpose did it answer; what good was in it? My father indeed understood the meaning of it though I did not understand; but it was little agreeable to be thus made a helpless instrument, without any will of mine, in an operation of which I knew nothing; and to enact the part of the oracle unwillingly, with suffering and such a strain as it took me days to get over. I resisted, not as before, but yet desperately, trying with better knowledge to keep down the growing passion. I hurried to my room and ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... egotism; priggism^, priggishness; coxcombry, gaudery^, vainglory, elation; pride &c 878; ostentation &c 882; assurance &c 885. vox et praeterea nihil [Lat.]; cheval de bataille [Fr.]. coxcomb &c 854; Sir Oracle &c 887. V. be vain &c adj., be vain of; pique oneself &c (pride) 878; lay the flattering unction to one's soul. have too high an opinion of oneself, have an overweening opinion of oneself, have too ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... meaning, in its first power, of the word Bible. Not book, merely; but 'Bibliotheca,' Treasury of Books: and it is, I repeat, a singular question, how far, if Jerome, at the very moment when Rome, his tutress, ceased from her material power, had not made her language the oracle of Hebrew prophecy, a literature of their own, and a religion unshadowed by the terrors of the Mosaic law, might have developed itself in the hearts of the Goth, the Frank, and the Saxon, under ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... with sobs like a girl: a thing that no one could have charged upon the man' (pointing to himself); 'but ever without a groan I followed out to the end my calamities.' Now, on the contrary, on the words of the oracle, that beckoned away with impatient sounds Oedipus from his dear sublime Antigone, Oedipus is ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Captain Atkinson and his rangers came up at speed to the rescue, they found that the heads of the slain had been cut off and carried away. Lloyd's, it appears, was carried about the island by Hau-Hau preachers, who professed to find in it a kind of diabolical oracle, and used it with much effect in disseminating their teaching. One of these prophets, or preachers, however, had a short career. Three weeks after Lloyd's death, this man, having persuaded himself and his dupes that they were invulnerable, led them against a strong and well-garrisoned ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... with what reverent kindness, and a sort of fatherly protection, our Hofrath, being the elder, richer, and as he fondly imagined far more practically influential of the two, looked and tended on his little Sage, whom he seemed to consider as a living oracle. Let but Teufelsdrockh open his mouth, Heuschrecke's also unpuckered itself into a free doorway, besides his being all eye and all ear, so that nothing might be lost: and then, at every pause in the harangue, he gurgled out his pursy chuckle of a cough-laugh (for the machinery ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... to local oracles in the Odyssey, that of Dodona (XIV. 327; XIX. 296) and that of Pytho (VIII. 80). This is the old name of Delphi. Pytho occurs in Iliad, IX. 404, as a very rich temple of Apollo—the oracle is not named, but the oracle brought in the treasures. Achilles (XVI. 233) prays to Pelasgian Zeus of Dodona, whose priests were thickly tabued, but says nothing of the oracle of Dodona. Neither when in leaguer ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... read Doctor Hirtz's letter annexed to Herr Meiser's will, thought that he owed some acknowledgments to that excellent gentleman. He made a call upon him, and embraced him, addressing him as the oracle of Epidaurus. The doctor at once took possession of him, had his baggage brought from the hotel and gave him the best chamber in his house. Up to the 29th day of the month, the Colonel was cared for as a friend, and exhibited as a phenomenon. Seven photographers ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... sufferer was an evil-doer, justly hateful to the gods."[9] Jehu and his house were blamed for the blood spilt at Israel, although Jehu was commissioned by Elisha to destroy the house of Ahab.[10] This is like the case of OEdipus, who obeyed an oracle, but suffered for his act as for a crime. Jehovah caused the ruin of those who had displeased him, by putting false oracles in the mouths of prophets.[11] Hezekiah expostulated with God because, although he had walked before God with a perfect heart and had ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... in a house of mourning may account for it. Fitful and versatile I know thee to be; changeable with scene and circumstance. Thy views are just what any eloquent companion pleases to make them. She thou lovest is thy deity; her lips thy oracle. And hence my cheerful omens of the future; the confidence I have in the wholesome efficacy of my government. I, that have the will to make thee happy, have the power too. I know I have; and hence my promptitude to give away all for thy sake; to give myself a wife's title to thy company, a conjugal ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... veins, as your beautiful partner, compliant to the lightest pressure of your finger-tips, her breath responsive, matched her every motion with yours? Best of all—for you have served in the temple—you are of the priesthood of manhood. You cannot misunderstand, you will not deliver false oracle. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... right, therefore, that you should be the first to learn also of Ayesha, Hesea and Spirit of the Mountain, the priestess of that Oracle which since the time of Alexander the Great has reigned between the flaming pillars in the Sanctuary, the last holder of the sceptre of Hes or Isis upon the earth. It is right also that to you first among men I ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... much as you may think. For that wrong full atonement has been offered, and with it the hand of friendship on which you spit. Know then that the mighty lord Athalbrand does not fear war, since for every man you can gather he numbers two, all pledged to him until the death. Also he has consulted the oracle, and its answer is that if you fight with him, but one of your House ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... Joel, in company with five thousand other sovereigns, consulted, as definitive oracle, "The Daily Gazette" of Towbridge. The schoolmaster need not have grumbled for the old time: feudality in the days of Warwick and of "The Daily Gazette" was not so widely different as he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... Lions' Gate, Mycenae. Silver Fragment from Mycenae (National Museum, Athens). A Cretan Girl (Museum of Candia, Crete). Aegean Snake Goddess (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). A Cretan Cupbearer (Museum of Candia, Crete). The Francois Vase (Archaeological Museum, Florence). Consulting the Oracle at Delphi. The Discus Thrower (Lancelotti Palace, Rome). Athlete using the Strigil (Vatican Gallery, Rome). "Temple of Neptune," Paestum. Croesus on the Pyre. Persian Archers (Louvre, Paris). Gravestone of Aristion (National Museum, Athens). Greek Soldiers in Arms. The Mound at ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... toward the crest of Apo. "Limocons," the Bogobos call them—"leem-o-sahns": the word falls limpid from their lips, unaccented. They say the limocon never was heard to sing in the lowlands, and tell a strange legend that it is an oracle of the Hill People, its song a harbinger of good or ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... Captain Jim's extravagant faith in his general superiority, and even that had always been a source of amused skepticism to the camp. We were already impatiently familiar with the opinions of this unseen oracle; he was always impending in Captain Jim's speech as a fragrant memory or an unquestioned authority. When Captain Jim began, "Ez Lacy was one day tellin' me," or, "Ez Lacy Bassett allows," or more formally, when strangers were ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... all who lead or follow To the Oracle of Apollo— Here he speaks out of his pottle, Or the tripos, his tower bottle: All his answers are divine, Truth itself doth Bow in wine. Hang up all the poor hop-drinkers, Cries old Sam, the king of skinkers; He the half of life abuses, ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... acknowledged goodness in | perfection, science or providence | comprehending all things, and absolute | sovereignty or kingdom. In aspiring to the | throne of power the angels transgressed | and fell{4}, in presuming to come within | 4. Antje Peters checked the Old the oracle of knowledge man transgressed | Testament and the New Testament on the and | fall of the angels: | | Jesaja 14, 14 | Das Judentum ist geprgt von der | antithetisch parallelen Vorstellung | von Dmonen und ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... is not much in natural history that needs interpreting. We explain a fact, we interpret an oracle; we explain the action and relation of physical laws and forces, we interpret, as well as we can, the geologic record. Darwin sought to explain the origin of species, and to interpret many palaeontological phenomena. We account for animal behavior on rational grounds of animal psychology, ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... behind them in Carolina; it had been large enough to stretch across the sea. As to what it was in Carolina there was no need of being explicit. This adoptive Parisian was by nature presupposing, but he was admirably urbane—that was why they let him talk so before the fire; he was the oracle persuasive, the conciliatory voice—and after the death of his wife and of Mme. de Marignac, who had been her friend too, the young man's mother's, he was gentler, if more detached, than before. ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... corrected and new formed by medicines, it was necessary to begin a new regimen. With these sentiments he went to Delphi, and when he had offered and consulted the god, he returned with that celebrated oracle, in which the priestess called him "Beloved of the gods, and rather a god than a man." As to his request that he might enact good laws, she told him, Apollo had heard his request, and promised that the constitution he should establish would be the most excellent in the world. Thus encouraged, ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... deprive the Duchess of her power and favour with the King. Christian smiled internally to see him approach the state of mind in which he was most easily worked upon, and judiciously kept silence, until the Duke called out to him, in a pet, "Well, Sir Oracle, you that have laid so many schemes to supplant this she-wolf of Gaul, where are all your contrivances now?—Where is the exquisite beauty who was to catch the Sovereign's eye at the first glance?—Chiffinch, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... is the advice of what Milton denominates "the sty of Epicurus." The discouraging religious condition of the present age is due to the great lack, not merely in the lower but the higher classes, of calm, clear self-intelligence. Men do not know themselves. The Delphic oracle was never less obeyed than now, in this vortex of mechanical arts and luxury. For this reason, it is desirable that the religious teacher dwell consecutively upon topics that are connected with that which is within man,—his settled motives of action, and all those spontaneous ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... or was this some trick of liquor in his often distorted fancy? He, Whiskey Dick! the butt of his friends, the chartered oracle of the barrooms, even in whose wretched vanity there was always the haunting suspicion that he was despised and scorned; he, who had dared so much in speech, and achieved so little in fact! he, whose ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... of a round form, they were supposed to be animated by means of magical incantations, with a portion of the Deity; they were consulted on occasions of great and pressing emergency as a kind of divine oracle, and were suspended either round the neck or some other ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... really offered such a toast? The fact is, he pretended to be a fierce radical, and was certainly the soul and the oracle of the small socialistic clubs in the neighborhood. People looked aghast when he began to talk of the reforms which he thought necessary; and they trembled when he proclaimed his convictions, that "the sword and the torch ought to search ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... does not however particularize. Lloyd in his "Worthies" adds nothing to Camden's information but the epithet "comely" applied to his person, the vague statement that "his embassies in France and Germany were so well managed, that in king Edward's days he was by the council pitched upon as the oracle whereby our agents were to be guided abroad," and a hint that he soon retired from the court of Elizabeth to devote himself to ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... nostrils, and desired them to hasten their march as he would deliver the city into their hands, on which occasion he enjoined them to put all the Christians to the sword. The epumanon then disappeared, and they pursued their way joyfully, being animated by this oracle. On a sudden the heavens cleared up, and a most beautiful woman was seen, seated on a bright cloud, and having a charming yet severe and majestic countenance, which much abated the pride and haughtiness ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... ambitious monarch who was told by an oracle that if he could see Long Compton he would be king of England; the circle is his army, and the five "Whispering Knights" are five of his chieftains, who were hatching a plot against him when the magic spell was uttered. Local legends have sometimes helped to preserve ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... Here was an oracle anxious to be interrogated, so I questioned him further. I knew by report that the girl was fair, but I could not think of her in any fashion as a maid for Messer Simone, and I conveyed my doubts to Guido. "Is the girl to ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... them: "Listen yet! Long did our King Amfortas kneel before The sanctuary, praying in his pain And seeking for a word of hope from God. At length a radiance glowed around the Grail, And from its glory shone a Sacred Face That spake this oracle of mystic words: "By pity 'lightened, My guileless One,— Wait for him, Till ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... the most cherished emotions which glowed in her own mind. She found what she had ever been seeking, but had never found before, a truly sympathetic soul. She thought not of love. She looked up to M. Roland as to a superior being—to an oracle, by whose decisions she could judge whether her own opinions were right or wrong. It is true that M. Roland, cool and unimpassioned in all his mental operations, never entered those airy realms of beauty and those visionary regions of romance where Jane loved, at times, to revel. And perhaps ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... Thus his oracle, but Jean Jacques' voice suddenly died down, for, as he sat there, the face of a woman made a vivid call of recognition. He slowly awakened from his self-hypnotism, to hear a woman speaking to him; to see two dark eyes looking ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... throne for twenty-two years. The great-grandson of Agum the Great was Agum II, and not until his reign were the statues of Merodach and his consort Zerpanitu^m brought back to the city of Babylon. This monarch recorded that, in response to the oracle of Shamash, the sun god, he sent to the distant land of Khani (Mitanni) for the great deity and his consort. Babylon would therefore appear to have been deprived of Merodach for about two centuries. The Hittite-Mitanni raid is dated about 1800 B.C., ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... thing I could do concerning the Book you wanted was to send your Enquiry to the Oracle ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... the sign of the cross—adding that at the touch a new fountain would burst forth, with the water whereof, if he bathed his eyes, he would forthwith receive his sight. And the blind man, instructed by the divine oracle, went to the little boy, made with his right hand on the ground the sign of salvation, and immediately did a new fountain burst forth. And his darkened eyes, being bathed with this healing stream, perceived ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... maintained. The curriculum rested for its main support upon a basis of the classics and mathematics, which imparted a classic and mathematical rigidity to the whole structure. The professor was an oracle, backed by oracular textbooks; the student's activity was restricted by a traditional association of learning with self-restraint and outward severity of life. The revolutionary change came with the marvelous development of the natural sciences, ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... possessions, than the priests which required restitution of their owne. But (saith he) bicause the image of Christ hanging on the crosse was thought to speake these words, such credit was giuen thereto, as it had beene an oracle, that the priests had their sute dashed, and all the trouble was ceassed. So the moonks held those possessions, howsoeuer they came to them, by the helpe of God, or rather (as saith the same Polydor) by the helpe of man. For there were euen then diuers that thought this to be rather an oracle ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... let him take, and held it for a moment seeming to collect himself; then with his other hand he took that of the woman sitting in the arm-chair and placed the hand of the doctor in it, making a sign to the old sceptic to seat himself beside this oracle without a tripod. Minoret observed a slight tremor on the absolutely calm features of the woman when their hands were thus united by the Swedenborgian, but the action, though marvelous in its ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... We have an excellent newspaper press, daily and weekly, and should either or both ever, by any chance, fail to know anything—past, present, or to come—we have a Monday Lectureship, beside which the Oracle of Delphi was a ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... the text described as a response of the Taghairm, or Oracle of the Hide, it was of itself an augury frequently attended to. The fate of the battle was often anticipated, in the imagination of the combatants, by observing which party first shed blood. It is said that the Highlanders under Montrose were so deeply imbued with this notion, that ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... thrust his finger into a needless fire. He stands like a centre unmoved, while the circumference of his estate is drawn above, beneath, about him. Finally, his wit hath cost him much, and he can both keep, and value, and employ it. He is his own lawyer, the treasury of knowledge, the oracle of counsel; blind in no man's cause, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... admonition in his tone and manner.... He had the same droll sardonic way about everything. A wild Irishman, named F., one evening beginning to say something at a large supper, Matthews roared 'Silence!' and then pointing to F., cried out, in the words of the oracle, 'Orson is endowed with reason.' When Sir Henry Smith was expelled from Cambridge for a row with a tradesman named 'Hiron,' Matthews solaced himself with shouting under Hiron's windows ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... and tail alternate, winked huge goggles Derisively and gurgled. "Me get out, The Science-vouched, and Literature-upheld, And Reason-rehabilitated butt Of many years of misdirected mockery? You ask omniscient HUXLEY, cocksure oracle On all from protoplasm to Home Rule, From Scripture to Sea Serpents; go consult Belligerent, brave, beloved BILLY RUSSELL! Verisimilitude incarnate, I Scorn your vain sceptic mirth! Besides, behold The portent riding me, as Thetis rode The lolloping, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various
... of Ethiopia, being encouraged by an oracle, entered Egypt with a numerous army, and possessed himself of the country. He reigned with great clemency and justice. It is believed, that this Sabachus was the same with Solomon, whose aid was implored by Hosea king of Israel, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... notwithstanding such malicious assertions, waxed stronger as it grew. There was one noticeable feature of affairs at this juncture, that the uninitiated were at a loss to account for, and that was the studied neutrality maintained by the oracle of the village, who had been wont to utter his momentous decisions, upon the current topics of the day, through the medium of that "valuable" and popular paper ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... pictures.[8] Him the past instructs. Him the future invites. Is not indeed every man a student, and do not all things exist for the student's behoof? And, finally, is not the true scholar the only true master? But as the old oracle said, "All things have two handles: Beware of the wrong one."[9] In life, too often, the scholar errs with mankind and forfeits his privilege. Let us see him in his school, and consider him in reference to the ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... gentleman in the business of trade, and among-other things he observed well to me, how it is not the greatest wits, but the steady man, that is a good merchant: he instanced in Ford and Cocke, the last of whom he values above all men as his oracle, as Mr. Coventry do Mr. Jolliffe. He says that it is concluded among merchants, that where a trade hath once been and do decay, it never recovers again, and therefore that the manufacture of cloath of England will never come to esteem ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the last words with slow enunciation, like an oracle. Mr. Rhys looked up from his writing and smiled at her a little, though ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... than that evening he began to perceive why the oracle had spoken. Claude having excused himself from dressing for dinner on the ground of another mysterious engagement with Billy Cheever, and Mrs. Masterman having retired up-stairs, Thor was alone in the ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... counterfeiting folly it was also his object to escape notice, and so find better convenience to overthrow the kings, and to free his country whenever an occasion offered. That this was in his mind is seen first of all from the interpretation he gave to the oracle of Apollo, when, to render the gods favourable to his designs, he pretended to stumble, and secretly kissed his mother earth; and, again, from this, that on the death of Lucretia, though her father, her husband, and others ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... its sins of omission as well as of commission were leaping to light on the platform and in the Press. Wellington found his reputation for political sagacity agreeably recognised, and he fell into the attitude of an oracle whose jeremiads had come true. When Lord Grey proposed the renewal of the Coercion Act without alteration, Lord Althorp expressed a strong objection to such a proceeding. He had assured Littleton that the Act would not be put in force again in its entirety, and the latter, with more candour ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... they attempted to prove, and they succeeded, that in theory it ought to be so, from the particular nature of a House of Commons, as an immediate representative of the people, whether the old records had delivered this oracle or not. They took infinite pains to inculcate, as a fundamental principle, that in all monarchies the people must in effect themselves, mediately or immediately, possess the power of granting their own money, or no shadow of liberty could subsist. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... after another, shall marry, to which he answers according to his own whim, or agreeable to the intimacies he has taken notice of during the time of merriment, and whatever he says is absolutely depended upon as an oracle; and if he couple two people who have an aversion to each other, tears and vexation succeed the mirth; this they call "cutting off the fiddler's head," for after this he is dead ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... children.—Such teaching palliates educational situations without affording a solution. It is so steeped in tradition that it resorts to statistics as it would consult an oracle. We look to see it establishing precedents only to find it following precedents. When we would find in it a leader we find merely a follower. To such teaching statistical numbers mean far more than living children. Indeed, children are but objects ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... entertained him affably with news of the day, or rather of ten days previous; for Pen, in his quality of Journalist, remembered to have seen some of the Captain's opinions in the Sporting and Theatrical Newspaper, which was Costigan's oracle. He stated that Sir Charles and Lady Mirabel were gone to Baden-Baden, and were most pressing in their invitations that he should join them there. Pen replied with great gravity, that he had heard that Baden was very pleasant, and the Grand Duke exceedingly hospitable to English. Costigan answered, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... three great and mighty separate mountains. This town of Tor is small but well situated, all its inhabitants being Christians who speak Arabic. It has a monastery of friars of the order of Monserrat, in which is the oracle or image of Santa Catalina of Mount Sinai or St Catharine. These friars are all Greeks. The harbour of Toro is not large, but very secure, having opposite to the shore a long stony bank, between which and the shore is the harbour. At this place both the coasts ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... As guardian of the oracle and priest of the desert sanctuary, Moses, like the later prophet of Islam, but with far greater spiritual power and deeper insight, taught his people not only the art of worship, but certain of ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... educated with great care. So the Hebrews depended on him, and were of good hopes great things would be done by him; but the Egyptians were suspicious of what would follow such his education. Yet because, if Moses had been slain, there was no one, either akin or adopted, that had any oracle on his side for pretending to the crown of Egypt, and likely to be of greater advantage to them, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... the meekness of Moses; the heroism of Elijah; the gratitude of David; the sweetness of Hosea; the fervour of Isaiah; the tenderness of Jeremiah; the constancy of Daniel; the faithfulness of Ezekiel—and you unhesitatingly endorse the inspired oracle, that they were "holy men." And although some of the prophets are remarkable for particular features of character, they are not wanting in all the others which are requisite to ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... The Roman people were specially yearning to avenge the slaughter of Marcus Crassus and his army by the Parthians, and Caesar was at this time preparing an expedition against them. But a Sibylline oracle was alleged, that Parthia could only be conquered by a king; and it was proposed to invest Caesar with the royal title and authority over the foreign subjects of the state. It is agreed on all hands that, if his enemies did not originate this proposal, they at least craftily urged it on, ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... a corner, he gave himself up to the torment of his thoughts. Two pictures alternately crowded his mind; one, that of the woman of his dream, entreating him to come back—which his memory clung to as an oracle; the other, of this woman, cold and lifeless, fathoms deep in the sea. He pondered on her chances. She was close to, or on the bridge steps; and boat No. 24, which he was almost sure was being cleared away as he looked, would swing close to ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... in the right, my venerable cropshin, they will indeed; the tongue of the oracle never twang'd truer. Your courtier cannot kiss his mistress's slippers in quiet for them; nor your white innocent gallant pawn his revelling suit to make his punk a supper. An honest decayed commander cannot skelder, cheat, nor be seen ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... hillside, that lies far, far behind us. It is enough. Thou shalt wander no more on this hopeless search. But when thou hast laid thy mother in the earth, then go, my son, to Delphi, and inquire of the oracle what ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... prejudicing opinion abroad was as little believed as the other stories, for—outside of a small clique—there grew up at this time all over the South such a perfect confidence in its strength and its perfect ability to work its own oracle, that very little care was felt for the action of Europe. In fact, the people were just now quite willing to wait for recognition of their independence by European powers, until it was already achieved. So, gradually the public mind ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... appeared in the guise of Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Independents and Quakers, according as any of these were most in credit; so, since the fashion hath been taken up of exploding religion, the popish missionaries have not been wanting to mix with the freethinkers; among whom, Toland the great oracle of the Antichristians is an Irish priest, the son of an Irish priest; and the most learned and ingenious author of a book called "The Rights of the Christian Church,"[20] was in a proper juncture reconciled to the Romish faith, whose true son, as appears by a hundred passages in his ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... in the midst of a secure nation, and pleaded like a priest of the temple of justice, with his hand on the altar of the constitution, and all England waiting to treasure every deluding oracle that came from his lips. Curran pleaded—not in a time when the public system was only so far disturbed as to give additional interest to his eloquence—but in a time when the system was threatened ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... Perhaps if my poor uncle believed it really to be the cause of God Himself, he would not be in such extreme fear for it, or fancy it required such a hotbed and greenhouse culture. . . . Really, if his sisters were little girls of ten years old, who looked up to him as an oracle, there would be some reason in it. . . . But those tall, ball-going, flirting, self-satisfied cousins of mine—who would have been glad enough, either of them, two months ago, to snap up me, infidelity, bad character, and all, as ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... and courage that characterize the born leader. He possessed an iron will and unflinching determination, before which obstacles had to yield, and persecution found itself powerless. His talent to grasp and appreciate the true and the beautiful rendered him the oracle of the thousands who, to this day, are proud to call themselves his disciples. To him Haskalah was not merely acquaintance with general culture, or even its acquisition. It was the realization of one's ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... I have found you," said the Marquis; "and at this moment. This is the best group in the rooms. You must speak to the wizard. About an hour ago I lighted upon them, in another salon, and consulted the oracle by putting questions. I never was more amazed. Although his answers were a little disguised it was soon perfectly plain that he knew every detail about the business, which no one on earth had heard of but myself, and two or three ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... keeping this Educational Institution, kept in the same room—a little general shop. She had no idea what stock she had, or what the price of anything in it was; but there was a little greasy memorandum-book kept in a drawer, which served as a Catalogue of Prices, and by this oracle Biddy arranged all the shop transaction. Biddy was Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's granddaughter; I confess myself quiet unequal to the working out of the problem, what relation she was to Mr. Wopsle. She was an orphan like myself; like me, too, had been brought up by hand. She ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... world stepped boldly and somewhat noisily into the arena, there was not wanting a considerable group of young and uninitiated members in the party who flocked to his standard and found in him a new oracle. ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... should I reply? Do you take me for an ancient oracle? It is you who are tiresome ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... they wished, while a man was put at both ends of that stretch of road to prevent their straying. Then the others would lie in the shade or sun themselves on the bank opposite the homestead, sleeping, smoking, reading or playing cards. Scarcely ever did the oracle fail to work. The door of the house would open and a fair maid appear, anon, a mother and a sister. The first would come tripping down the path ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... sublime significance to the Marseillais,—"When the last of the Gracchi expired, he flung dust towards heaven, and from this dust sprang Marius!"—that voice which had conquered the aversion of Mademoiselle de Marignan with its seductive melody—that voice which had been at once the oracle of the king and the law of the rabble. Mirabeau lay before the Rosicrucian, with his natural ugliness rendered yet more repulsive by the tokens of a terrible malady. The touch of death imparted additional horror to the massive deformity of his skull, to the coarseness of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... passage, where, in his appeal to the troops to fight bravely, he urged them to seek always the post of danger, since heaven would be the immediate reward of all who should be killed in battle; for, said he, as if moved by an oracle: 'What hab been, dat will be. He who is de fust man to get into de boat, and de fust to jump on shore, him, if he fall, will be de fust to get to heaben.' Then, as if standing already in the midst of the fight, and with all the feelings ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... could possibly be an impostor. He might have satisfied himself at once, by opening the note and reading the signature; but from some occult reason that even he could not have given, he held it in his hands for a few moments longer, as if it contained some oracle he dreaded to discover. At length he broke the seal and looked at the signature. It was a faint maze of scratches, so difficult to decipher that he gave it up in despair, and turning to ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... the next day. In spite of examination and cross-examination, Mother Jael could give no evidence as to Jentham's real name, or about his past, or why he was lingering at Beorminster. 'He cum'd an' he go'd,' said Mother Jael, with the air of an oracle, and that was the extent of her information, delivered in ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... being a Jewish prayer, for the Jews never prayed but when they were in trouble, and never for anything but victory, vengeance, or riches.—Author. (Prov. xxx. 1, and xxxi. 1) the word "prophecy" in these verses is translated "oracle" or "burden" (marg.) in the revised version.—The prayer of Agur was quoted by Paine in his plea for the officers ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... was without offspring—in almost all eastern countries the most grievous calamity incident to man, more especially to those of noble or royal race. By the most surpassing penances he obtains an oracle from the wise Brighu, predicting that one of his wives will bring forth a single son, the other sixty thousand! Accordingly the fair Cesina gives birth to Asamanja; his other wife to a gourd, which, ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman
... himself, send his vassals to preside? Is he not master of Thermopylae and the passes into Greece, and holds he not those places by garrisons and mercenaries? Has he not thrust aside Thessalians, ourselves, Dorians, the whole Amphictyonic body, and got preaudience of the oracle, [Footnote: This privilege, which had belonged to the Phocians, was transferred to Philip. It was considered an advantage as well as an honor in ancient times; for there were only certain days appointed in every month, when the oracle could be consulted, and the order of consultation was determined ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... decision, and made very much in that spirit which leads men to toss up a penny for an oracle. And sometimes it seems as if a Fate, wise or otherwise, answers the call so recklessly made. If he lived for a century Allan knew that he would never forget that first walk to Promoters—the big fisherman at his side, the ocean roaring in his ears, the lights from the cottage windows dully ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... Socrates speaks of the vision of Timarchus, who, in the case of Trophonius, saw spirits which were partly attached to human bodies, and partly over and above them, shining luminously over their heads. He was informed by the oracle that the part of the spirit which was immersed in the body was called the "soul," but that the outer and unimmersed portion was called the "daemon." The oracle also informed him that every man had his daemon, whom he is bound to obey; those who implicitly follow that guidance are the prophetic ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... And now the Major spoke like an oracle, leaning forward on the table, uttering his words in a low voice, but very plainly, so that not a syllable might be lost. "When you remember how he ran at the Craven with 9 st. 12 lb. on him, that it took Archbishop all he knew to beat him with only 9 st. 2 lb., and what the lot at Chester ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... of the story, as it was told to me. No inquiry brought me any addition to these morsels of narrative. Who this Talbot was,—what was his crime,—how long he lived in this cave, and at what era,—were questions upon which the oracle ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... together in recovering a city which had formerly belonged to the Jewish nation, from their enemy, the King of Syria. He replied, that they were of one blood, and had but one interest, and that he should most gladly aid him; but cautiously added, that it was his particular wish that God's oracle should be consulted, as he did not like to undertake any thing without His direction. To gratify this superstitious whim, as he considered it, the Israelitish monarch collected together about four hundred false prophets, who were ready to say any thing that would give him pleasure, and asked ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... the Great (B.C. 366-323), king of Macedon. While consulting the oracle of Jupiter Ammon in the Libyan desert he was saluted by the priests as "Ammons Sonne." He died either of poison (Plutarch) ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... air. At last I saw one of them thrust strongly into his bosom, as if the gesture was excited by some powerful recollection. "Do I speak without proof of the public hazards?" he exclaimed. "I can give you demonstration—I need invoke neither powers above nor powers below to enlighten you. I have the oracle within my hand." The House fixed all its eyes upon him. He dropped his voice, and spoke with a faint, but clear tone which formed a remarkable contrast to his usually bold, and even harsh enunciation: "Sir," said he, in this half-whispered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... urchin. I remember his lively old face, his powdered bald head and pigtail, his slight erect figure, and how merrily he used to play the fiddle for his juvenile posterity to dance to. But I was not of an age to comprehend the value of this thin, living volume of old lore, or to question the oracle. Well, it can't be helped now, and the papers I've got are silent upon the point. But there were jollifications to no end both in Palmerstown and Chapelizod that night, and declamatory conversations rising up in the street at very ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... might be saved. For a pound of 'clean white rags' the ladies could get ten shillings! If you had lived then, and had your mother's rags to-day, what heaps of money you could have made! It was hard, too, for us newspaper men to get news. I was looking yesterday at a copy of the 'Portsmouth Oracle,' published in 1805. That was in this wonderful century. What did it say on the 26th of January? 'News by telegraph?' and did it tell us what the Hottentots were doing yesterday? No; it said, 'By the mails,' ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... the twice-elected successor of Washington; of Randolph, through whose initiative the stain produced by the word "slavery" was effaced from the provisional draft of the American Constitution; of Marshall, the most eminent jurist in the Republic, the oracle of the Constitution and the constructor of the Federal law; of Madison, the emulator of Hamilton in the editing of The Federalist; of Monroe, the asserter of the international doctrine of the independence of this continent; of John Quincy Adams, the pioneer of abolitionism in his radical condemnation ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... year since the great drought. Choflo, headman, sorcerer and oracle of the Cantanas, scanned the brassy sky and smote his breast ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... the tree—calling on Herod's conscience, long gagged and silent, to take part in the impeachment—he said, in effect: "I summon you before the bar of God, and in the pure light which streams from his holy Oracle, your consciences being witnesses against you, you know perfectly well that it is not right for you to be living as you are living. 'Thou shalt not ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... a Syrian named Eunus—a man of great craft and courage; who having passed through many scenes of life, had become acquainted with a variety of arts. He pretended to have immediate communication with the gods; was the oracle and leader of his fellow-slaves; and, as is usual on such occasions confirmed his divine mission by miracles. When heated by enthusiasm and desirous of inspiring his followers with courage, he breathed flames or sparks among them from his mouth while he was addressing them. We are told ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... number he has engaged to furnish you, out of your liberality, would remunerate him, that he may not repent of having come to your assistance, nor we, who have prevailed with him to do so." This discourse of Neri to the senate was listened to with that profound attention which an oracle might be imagined to command; and his audience were so moved by it, that they could not restrain themselves, till the prince had replied, as strict decorum on such occasions required, but rising from their seats, with uplifted hands, and most ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... the ancient oracle declares, temperance and fortitude, prudence and every virtue, are certain purgatives of the soul; and hence the sacred mysteries prophesy obscurely, yet with truth, that the soul not purified lies in Tartarus, immersed in filth. Since the impure ...
— An Essay on the Beautiful - From the Greek of Plotinus • Plotinus
... piece of tender air, thy virtuous daughter, Which we call mollis aer; and mollis aer We term it mulier; which mulier, I divine, Is this most constant wife: who even now, Answering the letter of the oracle, Unknown to you unsought, were clipp'd about With this ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton
... of vast experience in all the facts relating to those last fateful hours, which are the only certain event in every human existence, caused her to be regarded as a sort of Delphic oracle in such matters, and therefore Mrs. Kittridge, not without a share of the latent superstition to which each human heart must confess at some hours, drew confidentially near to Miss Roxy, and asked if she had anything particular ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... which had been seen of a sudden to glide from the altar in his house, sent messengers to Delphi to inquire of the god what this thing might mean. And because he cared not that any strangers should hear the answer of the oracle, he sent his own sons, Titus and Aruns, and with them, to bear them company, or rather as one of whom they might make sport, this same Lucius Brutus. And when the young men offered gifts to the god, Brutus offered gold hidden away in ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... that you should ask the question. The form also presents the right of answering. This, no doubt, may be dispensed with, and so might the whole ceremony of the trial, since sentence was already pronounced at the Castle before the jury were empanelled. Your lordships are but the priests of the oracle, and I insist on ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... friendship; and the Ostrogoths of Pannonia were supported by his powerful aid against the oppression of the neighboring Huns. The North (such are the lofty strains of the poet) was agitated or appeased by the nod of Euric; the great king of Persia consulted the oracle of the West; and the aged god of the Tyber was protected by the swelling genius of the Garonne. [6] The fortune of nations has often depended on accidents; and France may ascribe her greatness to the premature death ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... characteristic of the natural is that it is intrinsic, of the positive, that it is extrinsic. In all ages men have sought the authority of the positive in that which is immediately beyond and above man—in some "voice of the Divinity" toning down the stream of ages, or speaking through a prophet or oracle, or written in some inspired and sacred book. They have sought for the authority of the natural in that which is immediately within man—the voice of the Divinity speaking in the conscience and heart of man. A careful study of the history of religion will show a reciprocal relation ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... characteristic swing of his arm gives tone to his whole bearing: the silversmith acquires a peering, cunning look, as if he were always examining delicate machinery: the physician becomes solemn, stately, pompous, and mysterious, and speaks like "Sir Oracle," as if he were eternally administering a bread-pill, or enjoining a regimen of drugs and starvation: the lawyer assumes a keen, alert, suspicious manner, as if he were constantly in pursuit of a latent perjury, or feared that his adversary might discover a flaw in his "case:" ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... And tell me yourself, Alexandra Pavlovna, what is his position in Darya Mihailovna's house? To be the idol, the oracle of the household, to meddle in the arrangements, all the gossip and petty trifles of the house—is that a dignified position for a man to ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... Every one also has rather marvelled at the somewhat lame and impotent conclusion of the play when Athene—herself in reality one of the most infamous of the Olympian deities—is brought on the stage to save the prestige of the oracle at Delphi and to explain away the altogether disreputable behaviour of the no less infamous Apollo. But no one before Verrall had thought of coupling together the free-thinking and the episode in the play. This is what Verrall did. Ion sees that the oracle can lie, and, therefore, ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... Queen, for to-night we have sinned, both of us, who dared to summon Amen from his throne, and sin also fails not of its reward. Blood is the price of that oracle." ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... mathematics which are welcome to men, and so, though they deserve our thanks for other discoveries, they are particularly worthy of admiration for their ideas in that field. For example, each in a different way solved the problem enjoined upon Delos by Apollo in an oracle, the doubling of the number of cubic feet in his altars; this done, he said, the inhabitants of the island would be delivered from an ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... my oracle during the first six years of childhood, resolving my difficulties and answering my questions. I was happy—very happy! and still look back to those days with indescribable pleasure and satisfaction. I had no tasks. I was not pestered with A.B. C., nor ab. eb. ib. From things my parents chiefly ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... imprisonment in London to which Monk had sent them in 1651: Vol. IV. 296), Mr. James Wood of St. Andrews, old Mr. David Dickson, now Professor of Divinity in Edinburgh, and our perpetual friend Baillie. The minority, or Protesters, were led by such ministers as Mr. James Guthrie of Stirling, their first oracle, Mr. Patrick Giliespie of Glasgow University, Mr. John Livingston of Ancram, Mr, Samuel Rutherford of St. Andrews, and Mr. Andrew Cant of Aberdeen; with whom, as their best lay head, was Johnstone of Warriston. ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... another proof of the fact that, while talent cannot safely ignore what is called technique, genius almost can. Coleridge, in spite of his formlessness, remains the wisest man who ever spoke in English about literature. His place is that of an oracle among controversialists. ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... executing slaughter, you do I supplicate, I supplicate: suffer the offspring of Agamemnon to forget his furious madness; alas! for his sufferings. What were they that eagerly grasping at, thou unhappy perishest, having received from the tripod the oracle which Phoebus spake, on that pavement, where are said to be the recesses in the midst of the globe! O Jupiter, what pity is there? what is this contention of slaughter that comes persecuting thee wretched, to whom some evil ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... after an air of great dignity and beauty, bids the people follow her to the temple, there to renew their supplications. The next scene shows the temple of Apollo. The high priest and the people make passionate appeal to the god for the life of their king, and the oracle replies that Admetus must perish, if no other will die in his place. The people, seized with terror, fly from the place, and Alcestis, left alone, determines to give up her own life for that of her husband. The high priest accepts ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... advantage of this passion, to increase their emoluments and offerings, and the more effectually to inspire the rest of their species with veneration and a willing submission to their authority. The oracle was delivered in a temple, or some sacred place; and in this particular we plainly discover that mixture of nature and art, of genuine enthusiasm and contriving craft, which is so frequently exemplified in the ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... to me, the probability is that I shall see it as they do. If any man think them scant of justice towards him, let him come to me. Should I find myself in doubt, I have here at my side my beloved and honoured master to whom to apply for counsel, knowing that what oracle he may utter I shall receive straight from the innermost parts of a temple of the Holy Ghost. Friends, if we be honest with ourselves, we shall be ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... brought under his constant observation the last stages of "a long journey in December gone." Half a century or so of smithy work, even with some unlicensed doctoring and illicit distilling thrown in, was not by any means the future that he would have liked his oracle to predict for him. And though he forecast it accurately enough without the intervention of any soothsaying, this no more helped him to avoid it than if he had been an old-world tragical hero, whose friends were seeking by vain devices to circumvent the promulgated decrees of his ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... that the man who filled the office of high priest, being the head of the theocratic community, was naturally the medium of a divine oracle. When he says, 'being the high priest that year, Caiaphas prophesied,' he does not imply that the high priestly office was annual, but simply desires to mark the fateful importance of that year for the history of the world and the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... are people who will have influence at any price, and who will have other people busy themselves over them; when they cannot be oracles, they turn wags. M. Gillenormand was not of this nature; his domination in the Royalist salons which he frequented cost his self-respect nothing. He was an oracle everywhere. It had happened to him to hold his own against M. de Bonald, and even against ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... shrines, and oaths are sworn by them. The custom of swearing by the dead is widespread. In their character of powerful spirits they are agents in processes of magic and divination. Parts of dead bodies are used as charms. The skull especially is revered as an oracle.[686] ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... that she lacked good sense. This good creature flattered herself that she had an inexhaustible stock of this commodity; she placed the highest estimate on her own judgment; she believed herself to be well-nigh infallible. She discoursed in the tone of an oracle on future contingencies; she prided herself on being able to divine all things, to foresee all things, to predict all things—in a word, to be in the secret of the gods. As her Christian name was Joan, M. Moriaz, who set little store by his calendar, sometimes called her Pope Joan, ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... appeared in the Tages Zeitung of August 14th last, is interesting because Reventlow is without doubt the oracle and mouthpiece of the Prussian Conservatives. He continues to attack me in this article but much of the attack is in reality praise, and, as we say in expressive slang, "every knock is a boost." The ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... going to happen I am all ears. I feel that I am sucked into the great whirlpool of Vast Events. I don't care a bit about being disillusioned afterwards. The experience has done me good, made a man of me and sent me back to Wellingsford as an oracle. And if you bring me a man who declares that he does not like being an oracle, I will say to his face that he is an ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... observed that I was a favorite among the boys of the Institute, a kind of leader and oracle among them, though I was not fully conscious of the fact at the time. While I now think I owe the greater portion of the esteem and regard in which I was held by my companions to my desire to be good ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... left Miss Matty at Cranford everything had been comfortably arranged for her. Even Mrs Jamieson's approval of her selling tea had been gained. That oracle had taken a few days to consider whether by so doing Miss Matty would forfeit her right to the privileges of society in Cranford. I think she had some little idea of mortifying Lady Glenmire by the decision she gave at last; which ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... their real power! it is here, that their office is indeed a divine and unearthly mission; and that in breathing balm and comfort, in healing the broken heart, in raising the crushed and degraded spirit—they are the voice, and oracle of the FATHER, who made us in benevolence, and will judge of us in mercy! I rose, and after a short pause, Dawson, who expressed himself impatient of the ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... France again with new broils; he told her, that all the world made their court to Hermione, that if any body had any petitions, or addresses to make to the Prince, it was by her sole interest; she sat in their closest councils, and heard their gravest debates; and she was the oracle of the board: the Prince paying her perfect adoration, while she, whose charms of youth were ended, being turned of thirty, fortified her decays with all the art her wit and sex were capable of, and kept ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... century came Augustine, bishop of Hippo. Des Esseintes knew him only too well, for he was the Church's most reputed writer, founder of Christian orthodoxy, considered an oracle and sovereign master by Catholics. He no longer opened the pages of this holy man's works, although he had sung his disgust of the earth in the Confessions, and although his lamenting piety had essayed, in the City of God, to mitigate the frightful distress of the times by ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... people, being himself naturally of a devout and serious turn of mind, that he resolved to remain among them; and, in addition to the instruction of the children, has taken upon himself the duty of clergyman, and is the oracle of the community.' ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... when they die go to Paris," said Philip, "so says the oracle. Naughty Americans try it prematurely, and go while they are alive. Then Paris casts them out, and when they come back, their French disrepute ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... not see through a stone wall. The whole hypothesis is too extravagant to admit of any downright prosaic interpretation. But something might surely be done for the imagination, if not for the reason. Some mystic formula might be pronounced which might pass sufficiently well for an oracle so long as we are in the charmed world of fiction. Let Sidonia only repeat some magniloquent gnome from Greek, or Hebrew, or German philosophers, give us a scrap of Hegel, or of the Talmud, and we will willingly take it to be the real thing ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... years ago the Hirpani, or Wolves, an ancient Sabine tribe of Italy, were wont to collect on Mount Soracte, and there go through certain rites, in memory of an oracle which predicted their extinction when they ceased to gain their living as wolves do, by violence and plunder. Therefore they ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... banks of the Lippe, near its confluence with the Rhine, dwelt the Virgin Velleda, a Bructerian weird woman, who exercised vast influence over the warriors of her nation. Dwelling alone in a lofty tower, shrouded in a wild forest, she was revered as an oracle. Her answers to the demands of her worshippers concerning future events were delivered only to a chosen few. To Civilis, who had formed a close friendship with her, she promised success, and the downfall of the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the painting-shops of the various manufactories where she had painted green leaves on yellow wash-basins (for in all her life she had done little else) she possessed a reputation as a prophet, seer, oracle, fortune-teller—what you will. Polite persons would perhaps never have heard of her reputation, the toiling millions of the Five Towns being of a rather secretive nature in such matters, had not the subject ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... killing? Who's he'll shed the blood That's dear to me? is't you, or you, or you, sir? What, not one speak! how you stand gaping all On your grave oracle, your wooden god there! Yet not a word! Then, sir, I'll tell you a secret; Suspicion's but at best a coward's ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... going to hear her talk now," whispered Favraud; "that is a sign—equal to General Finistere's—the snuffbox tapping, I mean. The oracle is beginning to arouse! Come I let me stir her further!" and he inclined ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... and swains of Alexander Pope dull and artificial. There are flies in this delicious ointment, one must admit, touches of corruption which a degenerate paganism condoned and palliated, but we must remember, as an extenuation of the Greek attitude, that the oracle of Delphi protested against them. The cyprus plains of Theocritus yet echo with the call of the cicada, and the anemones still bloom. The pipes of Pan are not all silent. The world would lose some of its beauty if Theocritus and the Sicilian poets did not entice ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... The sentiments of a man while he is full of ardour and hope are to be received, it is supposed, with some qualification. But when the same person has ignominiously failed and begins to eat up his words, he should be listened to like an oracle. Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity. And since mediocre people constitute ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... &c.. [The Way of Light]: That is, A Reasonable Disquisition how the Intellectual Light of Souls, namely Wisdom, may now at length, in this Evening of the World, be happily diffused through all Minds and Peoples. This for the better understanding of these words of the oracle in Zachariah XIV. 7, It shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light. The Parliament meanwhile having reassembled, and our presence being known, I had orders to wait until they ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... a priest of Bacchus at Calydon, whose love was scorned by the nymph Callirrhoe, called forth a pestilence on the land. The Calydonians, ordered by the oracle to sacrifice the nymph, led her to the altar. Coresus, forgetting his resentment, sacrificed himself instead of her, who, conscious of ingratitude, ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... temple treasures and the offerings made by 4 various kings, and other curiosities which the Greek passion for archaeology attributes to a dim antiquity. He then consulted the oracle first about his voyage. Learning that the sea was calm, and that no obstacles stood in his way, he sacrificed a large number of victims, and put covert questions about his own fortunes. The priest, whose name was Sostratus, seeing that the entrails were ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... well born, Alizon," she said, "and so it will be found in the end. And Richard thinks so, too, for he said so to me; and Richard is my oracle, Alizon." ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
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