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More "Oracle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Unfearing prophecy and oracle launched from the windows of the hotel, the young people rowed, lost to all but each other, amazed at the loveliness of the river. They floated amid the bulrushes. Cries and regret when Frank's oar crushed the desired ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... be 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
... canto begins with some ceremonies by a wild hermit of the clan, to ascertain the issue of the impending war; and this oracle is obtained—that the party shall prevail which first sheds the blood of its adversary. The scene then shifts to the retreat of the Douglas, where the minstrel is trying to soothe Ellen in her alarm at the disappearance of her father by singing a fairy ballad to ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... pair before God; and, laying his axe at the root of 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
... thickens the 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 one side of his face, pockets his razor and refuses to shave the ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... of them, but a few years ago, remarkable for extraordinary memory and erudition. When M. de Longuerue was a child, he was such a prodigy of memory and knowledge, that Lewis the fourteenth, passing through the abbe's province, stopped to see and hear him. When he grew up, Paris consulted him as the oracle of learning. His erudition, says d'Alembert,[41] was not only prodigious, but actually terrible. Greek and Hebrew were more familiar to him than his native tongue. His memory was so well furnished with historic facts, ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... plainly discern that the prudent conduct which I had adopted towards the public was gradually growing into effect. Disputative neighbours made me their referee, and I became, as it were, an oracle that was better than the law, in so much that I settled their controversies without the expense that attends the same. But what convinced me more than any other thing that the line I pursued was verging towards a satisfactory result, ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... supernatural wisdom, closed his restless life at Grenoble, 1535. His principal work, from which the above is quoted (cap. xx.), is entitled De Occulta Philosophia. That Socrates had an attendant spirit or demon from his youth up, whose suggestions he followed as an oracle, is known to us from the Theages of Plato. But of the nature of this genius, spirit, or voice, we have no certain indications from the ancients, though the subject has been much investigated in numerous writings, beginning with the monographs of Apulejus and Plutarch. The ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... 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. ...
— An Essay on the Beautiful - From the Greek of Plotinus • Plotinus
... hocus-pocus based on the papers and letters and blunders of Heckewelder. There was a great predisposition to admire and overrate everything relative to Indian history and language, as detailed by this good and sincere missionary in his retirement at Bethlehem. He was appealed to as an oracle. This I found by an acquaintance which I formed, in 1810, with the late amiable Dr. Wistar, while rusticating at Bristol, on the banks of the Delaware. The confused letters which the missionary wrote many years ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... Queen, which would have done him no harm, I do not determine; but true it is, he had gotten the Queen's ear in a trice, and she began to be taken with his election, and loved to hear his reasons to her demands: and the truth is, she took him for a kind of oracle, which nettled them all; yea, those that he relied on began to take this his sudden favour for an alarm and to be sensible of their own supplantation, and to project his, which made him shortly ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... office we have known for twenty-five years what the men thought of Mortimer, but not until Miss Larrabee joined the force did we know that among the women Mrs. Conklin was considered an oracle. Miss Larrabee said that her mother has a legend that when Priscilla Winthrop brought home from Boston the first sealskin sacque ever worn in town she gave a party for it, and it lay in its box on the big walnut bureau in the spare room of the ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... abilities, wasted by these infirmities, were seconded by very wide learning. Macaulay describes the impression which he made at Holland House.[566] He passed among his friends as the profound philosopher; the man of universal knowledge of history; of ripe and most impartial judgment in politics; the oracle to whom all men might appeal with confidence, though a little too apt to find out that all sides were in the right. When he went to India he took with him some of the scholastic writers and the works of Kant and Fichte, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... LONG the oracle of the country gentlemen of the high Tory party. The ancient News-Letter was written in manuscript and copied by clerks, who addressed the copies to the subscribers. The politician by whom they were ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... people of Sierra Leone there is a pontiff who bears the title of Bodia and has been compared, on somewhat slender grounds, to the high priest of the Jews. He is appointed in accordance with the behest of an oracle. At an elaborate ceremony of installation he is anointed, a ring is put on his ankle as a badge of office, and the door-posts of his house are sprinkled with the blood of a sacrificed goat. He has charge of the public talismans and idols, which he feeds with rice and oil every new moon; ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... sky Of the world of sympathy— Seldom failing when predicted, Coming most when most restricted, Dragging a nebulous tail with thee Of hypothetic vagrancy— Of vagrants large, and vagrants small, Vagrants scarce visible at all! Matchless oracle of woe! Anarchy in embryo! Strange antipodes of bliss! Parody on happiness! Baghouse of the great creation! Subject meet for strangulation, By practice tutored to condense The cautious inquiry for pence, And skilful, with averted eye, To hide thy latent roguery— Lo, on thy hopes I clap ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... the king to Halcyone, "on a long journey across the seas. As you know, in the Temple of Apollo there is a wise oracle. To this oracle must I go in ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets
... killed by the falling of a log it will be remembered that Ekpenyong was blamed for the event and retired to the bush. Not long afterwards a young chief there fell sick, and the witch- doctor on consulting his oracle declared that he saw Akom and her son dancing the whole night long, and gaily piercing the sick man with knives and spears. Akom was charged with sorcery, and asked to take the poison ordeal. Her friends ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... in the sacred grove, the fight of the three Romans and the three Albans, the purchase of the Sibylline books, the crime of Tullia, the simulated madness of Brutus, the ambiguous reply of the Delphian oracle to the Tarquins, the wrongs of Lucretia, the heroic actions of Horatius Cocles, of Scaevola, and of Cloelia, the battle of Regillus won by the aid of Castor and Pollux, the defense of Cremera, the touching story of Coriolanus, the still more touching story of Virginia, the wild legend ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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
... south of Italy at that time. The oracles were inscribed upon palm leaves; to which circumstance Virgil alludes in his description of the sayings of the Cumaean Sibyl being written upon the leaves of the forest. They were in the form of acrostic verses; the letters of the first verse of each oracle containing in regular sequence the initial letters of all the subsequent verses. They were full of enigmas and mysterious analogies, founded upon the numerical value of the initial letters of certain names. It is supposed that they contained ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... lower the great Father of Neoplatonism in our eyes, as a moral being. All accounts of him seem to prove him to have been what Apollo, in a lengthy oracle, declared him to have been, "good and gentle, and benignant exceedingly, and pleasant in all his conversation." He gave good advice about earthly matters, was a faithful steward of moneys deposited ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... survived, but all, Welt'ring in blood together, there expired. He ended, and his words beat on my heart As they would break it. On the sands I sat 650 Weeping, nor life nor light desiring more. But when I had in dust roll'd me, and wept To full satiety, mine ear again The oracle of Ocean thus address'd. Sit not, O son of Atreus! weeping here Longer, for remedy can none be found; But quick arising, trial make, how best Thou shalt, and soonest, reach thy home again. For either him still living thou shalt ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... determined to ask: 'Was it not possible to avert this annexation which loomed before every mind, brooding like a shadow upon the country?' He went to Sir Theophilus; he asked his question; and at length the oracle spoke. Without moving a muscle of his wonderfully impassive countenance, without even raising his eyes to look at the interlocutor, Sir Theophilus calmly murmured: 'It is too late!—too late!' And so, without the authorization of the home Government, without the consent ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... "The oracle speaks in poetry," laughed Eric. "That was Florence Percival, who led the class in mathematics, as I'm a living man. By many she is considered the beauty of her class. I can't say that such is my opinion. I don't greatly care for that blonde, babyish style of ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of the uproar. Jack Bartley wore a high hat—Bob never had owned one in his life—and about his neck was a tie of crimson; yellow was his waistcoat, even such a waistcoat as you may see in Pall Mall, and his walking-stick had a nigger's head for handle. He was the oracle of the maidens around him; every moment the appeal was to 'Jeck! Jeck!' Suke Jollop, who would in reality have preferred to accompany Bob and his allies, whispered it about that Jack had two-pound-ten in his pocket, and was going to spend every ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... words with which a prophetic message is wont to be announced, thus at the outset stamping on the psalm its true character. The "oracle" or "word of Jehovah unto my Lord," which he heard, is a new revelation made to him from the heavens. He is taken up and listens to the Divine voice calling to His right hand, to the most intimate communion with Himself, and to wielding the energies ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... of all the Roman emperors, who loved the gentle Bithynian youth so extravagantly that he made him his inseparable companion and even contemplated him as his successor; that during the fateful Egyptian journey an oracle announced that the Emperor must shortly die unless a voluntary victim could be found to take upon himself the doom with which he was threatened; and that Antinous unhesitatingly laid down his life for his patron. "Greater love hath no man than this," and Hadrian's ostentatious ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... to include the whole distance between the two seas, both by the Nile and by the canal. Herodotus relates that it cost the lives of 120,000 men to cut the canal. He says that the undertaking was abandoned because of a warning from an oracle that the barbarians alone, meaning the Persians, would benefit by the ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... gates. But Sylvia lingered where she was, enjoying a scene which filled her 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 just then she was ready to receive it. Her best lessons did ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... going blind; she was deemed unlucky and avoided. For more than once of late years she had in important crises predicted disaster, and this prophecy, by fortuitous circumstances, had been fulfilled; thus those to whom a deceitful hope is preferable to a warning of trouble sought by fleeing the oracle to elude the misfortune. Being esteemed a witch, and associated with dark dealings and prone to catastrophe, she lived in peculiar solitude, and the two spent the long months of the winter within the ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... usually given over to creature comforts and the idle gossip of camp and the ranches he visited, was proving the sincerity of his manifest uneasiness by a watchfulness wholly at variance with his natural laziness. On the other hand, Peppajee loved to play the oracle, and a waving wisp of smoke, or the changing shapes in a wind-riven cloud meant to him spirit-sent prophecies ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... 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 ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... confuse or disturb him. The great spirits who have nourished the best life of the race have not turned to their fellows for their aims and habits of work; they have taken counsel of that ancient oracle which speaks in every man's soul, and to that counsel they have remained steadfastly true. There is no clearer disclosure of divine guidance in the confusion of human aims and counsels than the presence of a distinct faculty or gift in a man; and when such a gift reveals ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Death. But, as for him, he carried with him into that port no desire and no regret for life. That he had tried every one of its pretended joys, that he had left nothing undone which could give him the least shadow of pleasure or content, but that at the end he had found everywhere the oracle ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... of Commons. They went much farther; 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, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... have been built by a celebrated "king and oracle" of the people known as the Tuatha De, Dea, or De Danann, and to have been the residence of himself and others of his race. This chief (Eochaid Ollathair) is usually referred to as "the Dagda," or "the Daghda Mor"; and of his nation ...
— Fians, Fairies and Picts • David MacRitchie
... despair. The Duke of Grafton proposed to go down to Marlborough in order to consult the oracle. But he was informed that Lord Chatham must decline all conversation on business. In the meantime, all the parties which were out of office, Bedfords, Grenvilles, and Rockinghams, joined to oppose the distracted ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... always present, and we only need to lift the iron lids of the mind's eye to read its oracles,' said Emerson. When the 'iron lids' are lifted we shall see as one, we shall belong to the Church of the universe and the oracle shall reveal to us its deepest secrets and most ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... cold by superintending the laying down of three pipes of port, might ever afterwards be heard, upon such interesting occasions, walking about the damp cellars after nightfall in pattens. Hopkins, the oracle of the college "tap," maintained that the frogs were something "off the common;" and strengthened his opinion by reference to a specimen which he had selected—a lank, black, skinny individual, which really looked ugly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... soul, out of the valley and know that on the top of yonder shining mountain lies folded safe the secret of your life, the oracle which would, if you could read it, solve all your mysteries and tell you just exactly how you ought to live. Look up out of the valley and know that it is there; and then turn back again into the valley, for in the valley is the home where you must live, and you can never ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... what she said? No need for helpers now; the Queen is dead! [The Women, intent upon the voices from the Castle, have not noticed the approach of THESEUS. He enters from the left; his dress and the garland on his head show that he has returned from some oracle or special abode of a God. He stands for ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... Fates have not only decreed that Lionel Beauchamp shall either be hung or married within the twelvemonth, but reserved the latter lot for him; and they indicate further who his future wife shall be. When there is no lady next him, it's a hanging matter, saith the oracle; where there is, that lady will be his wife before the year is out. Now, it can hardly point to Mrs. Evesham, who is on the right, and therefore I conclude it must indicate Miss Blanche, who is on ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... do you?" asked John Derringham, now complacently roused to look at her. "What are your rules of life then, let us hear, oh, Oracle!—we ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... to Hecla—and so it proved, though she sustained her volcanic topography for some time with all the amiable pertinacity of 'the feminie.' She soon after turned to me, and asked me various questions about Sir Humphry's philosophy, and I explained as well as an oracle his skill in gasen safety lamps, and ungluing the Pompeian MSS. 'But what do you call him?' said she. 'A great chemist,' quoth I. 'What can he do?' repeated the lady 'Almost any thing,' said I. 'Oh, then, mio caro, do pray beg him to give me something to dye my eyebrows ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various
... 'L'Oracle de la Pucelle d'Orleans propose au roy, le dimanche treziesme de juillet, ou sont deduites les royales aventures de Sa Majeste.' ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... pleases," the old man grunted. "If my pay and profits are not cut, you may make my Ancestors' Oracle my master. Rome has been! Rome has been!" Then he turned ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... it is with Shakspeare and his anachronisms. The learned scorn of Johnson and some of his brotherhood of commentators, and the eloquent defence of Schlegel, seem in this case superfluous. If he chose to make the Delphic oracle and Julio Romano contemporary—what does it signify? he committed no anachronisms of character. He has not metamorphosed Cleopatra into a turtle-dove, nor Katherine of Arragon into a sentimental heroine. He is true to the ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... interview at an end. The persuasive Mr. Morrissey tried to get a wedge in somewhere to reopen it, but he tried in vain. Enos Walker was adamant. So, disappointed and discomfited, the emissaries of Colonel Richard Butler bade "good-day," to the oracle of Cobb's Corners, and drove ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... social manager for Baxter during his stay I conducted badly. I was so excited and flattered by the visit of one whom I considered one of the first geniuses of the world, that I hardly knew what I was doing. I listened to all he said as if an oracle spoke. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... of the 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, ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman
... in the long dining-room, dressed in her first ball costume of white organdy and lace, the little plump shoulders peeping through its meshes, she was the picture of happiness. A half-dozen boys hung on every word as the utterance of an oracle. She waved gently an old ivory fan with white down on its edges in a way the charm of which is the secret birthright of every ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... when. I'm no oracle, my dear. But some day the grave and reverend seigneurs on my Board may give me ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... his abode. But wherein differs your worship from ours? You have a temple; so have we. You have priests clothed in sacred robes; so have we. You have altars and sacrifices; so have we. You have an oracle and prophets; so have we. You go up to the dwelling-place of your God to worship and offer sacrifices; so do we. Wherein, then, do ...
— Gems Gathered in Haste - A New Year's Gift for Sunday Schools • Anonymous
... consigned over to the Manichaeans, but had found out how much that sect was to be abhorred, and had, therefore, avoided it. But he assured her that the child of such tears as hers could not perish. Which answer she took as an oracle from heaven. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... captain is 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 he was stupefied ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... practical difficulties lie in the way of applying the hybridization test, but even when this oracle can be questioned, its replies are sometimes as doubtful as those of Delphi. For example, cases are cited by Mr. Darwin, of plants which are more fertile with the pollen of another species than with their own; ...
— The Origin of Species - From 'The Westminster Review', April 1860 • Thomas H. Huxley
... of Odysseus, who had touched at that coast on his voyage to Ithaca, and stayed as a guest in that same house. This I heard from the king's own lips, and he showed me all the treasure which Odysseus had left in his charge, while he himself went on a journey to Dodona, to inquire of the oracle concerning the manner of his return. Thou wouldst wonder to behold all the wealth which thy lord had gathered, an ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... find a message, "godly and wholesome, and necessary for these times," in the opening paragraphs in the Epistle to the Hebrews. We come now to interrogate our oracle again, and we open the third ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule
... 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 ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... such man as he were to sit upon our woolsack now; what would the world think, if when the mighty oracle commanded the next cause to come on, the reply should be, "Please your good lordship, there is no other!" Well ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... Hour of the Horse avoid raising a roof-tree, for by the trampling of his hoofs it may be beaten down; And at the Hour of the cunning Rat go not near a soothsayer, for by his cunning he may mislead the oracle, and the hopes of ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
... driven from Argos by Amphiaraus, Adrastus fled to Sicyon, where he became king on the death of Polybus. After a time he became reconciled to Amphiaraus, gave him his sister Eriphyle in marriage, and returned to Argos and occupied the throne. In consequence of an oracle which had commanded him to marry his daughters to a lion and a boar, he wedded them to Polyneices and Tydeus, two fugitives, clad in the skins of these animals or carrying shields with their figures on them, who claimed his hospitality. He was the instigator ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... altar unless some one offers to 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
... heard the harp of Pindar, and the impassioned song of the dark-eyed Sappho. I thought I heard the lofty epic of the blind Homer, rushing on in the red tide of battle, and the divine Plato discoursing like an oracle in his academic shades. ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... one never puts one's own desires in opposition to those of others. That's what society is for, is what it means, isn't it? Good breeding means unselfishness;" said Helena, then added, with a little flush of modesty: "Not that I am an oracle, but that's what I've read ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... the 18th day of June, 1859, the "State Banner and Delphian Oracle," published weekly at Oxbow Village, one of the principal centres in a thriving river-town of New England, contained an advertisement which involved the story of a young life, and stained the emotions of a small community. Such faces ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... respect for Miss ——, I have often wondered why I did not love her more. Well, we have a new reason for fleeing to Christ in this perplexity and disappointment. I had let her be in many things my oracle, and perhaps no human being ought to be that. Shall we ever learn to put no confidence in the flesh? My husband thinks Miss ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... a house of prayer, A palace, oracle, or spouse most fair; Or what you will: God's love is here displayed, And here his treasure safely up is laid; For his own darling none can find a place, Where he, as here, is ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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 of Hyacinthe King. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... and her doings there are no secret; she is as bad as any Scythian herself,—butchering strangers and eating them! Apollo, too, who pretends to be so clever, with his bow and his lyre and his medicine and his prophecies; those oracle-shops that he has opened at Delphi, and Clarus, and Dindyma, are a cheat; he takes good care to be on the safe side by giving ambiguous answers that no one can understand, and makes money out of it, for there are plenty of fools who like being imposed ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... as an oracle. He scribbles off his treatises, explaining that the snow is white because it falls from heaven, and he maintains, in contradiction to Galileo, that the ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac
... center of his experience) I had 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 securities, Gods dear ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... Swinburne Creep Afore Ye Gang James Ballantine Castles in the Air James Ballantine Under My Window Thomas Westwood Little Bell Thomas Westwood The Barefoot Boy John Greenleaf Whittier The Heritage James Russell Lowell Letty's Globe Charles Tennyson Turner Dove's Nest Joseph Russell Taylor The Oracle Arthur Davison Ficke To a Little Girl Helen Parry Eden To a Little Girl Gustav Kobbe A Parental Ode to My Son Thomas Hood A New Poet William Canton To Laura W-, Two Years Old Nathaniel Parker Willis To Rose Sara Teasdale ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... The self-esteem of old Matthew Page, who felt himself to be something of an oracle in S—, was touched, because the young man had not consulted him; and now he might go to the dogs, for ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... lips, of the bluish color of raw corned-beef. But I looked upon these feelings as unreasonable prejudices, and strove to conquer them, seeing the admiration which he received from others. He was an oracle on the subject of 'Nature.' Having eaten nothing for two years, except Graham bread, vegetables without salt, and fruits, fresh or dried, he considered himself to have attained an antediluvian purity of health,—or that he would attain it, so soon as two pimples on his left temple should ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... built a ship, in which he and his wife took refuge during the deluge, which lasted for nine days. When the waters abated the ship rested on Mount Othrys in Thessaly, or according to some on Mount Parnassus. Deucalion and his wife now consulted the oracle of Themis as to how the human race might be restored. The answer was, that they were to cover their heads, and throw the bones of their mother behind them. For some time they were perplexed as to the meaning of the oracular command, ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... 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
... nations, 't is the furthest Hour of Assyria's years. And yet how calm! An earthquake should announce so great a fall— A summer's sun discloses it. Yon disk To the star-read Chaldean, bears upon Its everlasting page the end of what Seem'd everlasting; but oh! thou TRUE sun! The burning oracle of all that live, As fountain of all life, and symbol of Him who bestows it, wherefore dost thou limit Thy lore unto calamity?[6] Why not Unfold the rise of days more worthy thine All-glorious burst from ocean? why not dart A beam of hope athwart the future years, As of ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... of radicalism is a piece of juggling, for it supposes premises of which it knows the falsity; it manufactures the oracle whose revelations it pretends to adore; it proclaims that the multitude creates a brain for itself, while all the time it is the clever man who is the brain of the multitude, and suggests to it what it is supposed to ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... The family oracle replied slowly that he had thought a good deal about it, and that he had inquired at the mission when the ...
— The Little Girl Lost - A Tale for Little Girls • Eleanor Raper
... 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 in the ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... Aethiopia and of Cassiope. Her Mother having offended the Nereids, by contending with them for Superiority in Beauty, Neptune, at their Petition, sent a Sea-Monster, which greatly annoyed the Aethiopians. Upon this they consulted the Oracle of Jupiter Ammon, who ordered them to expose one of the Progeny of Cepheus and Cassiope to be devoured by the Monster. Andromeda was accordingly ty'd to a Rock, where she was espied by Perseus, who killed the ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... triumph was Mrs. Heber Kimball herself. She was a woman of remarkable presence, in youth must have been very handsome, would have been the oracle of tea-fights, the ruling spirit of donation-visits, in any Eastern village where she might have lived, and, had her home been New York, would have fallen by her own gravity into the Chief Directress's chair of half a dozen Woman's Aid Societies and Associations for Moral Reform. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... prophets foretell many things concerning [the rewards of] virtue, and [punishments of] vice, which when these zealots violated, they occasioned the fulfilling of those very prophecies belonging to their own country; for there was a certain ancient oracle of those men, that the city should then be taken and the sanctuary burnt, by right of war, when a sedition should invade the Jews, and their own hand should pollute the temple of God. Now while these zealots did not [quite] disbelieve these predictions, ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... previously. (For the place was not liable to diseases at other times, but especially free from them, except that which affected the teeth: on account of which they used to go up to the metropolis, in word to consult the Delphic oracle but in deed to go to Olympia, so that not a few were banished from the city both for other reasons and not least this.) As to the causes of it, then, let any one speak who is aware of them: but I will show what things ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... to settle it by augury,—or by watching and forming conclusions from the flight of birds. This long continued the favorite Roman mode of settling difficult questions. It was easier than the Greek plan of going to Delphi to consult the oracle. ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... morrow," the priests of Lao-Kung devoted themselves to a state of celibacy, as being more free from cares than the incumbrances which necessarily attend a family connexion; and the better to accomplish this end, they associated in convents. Here they deal out to their votaries the decrees of the oracle agreeably to the rules prescribed by Confucius; and they practice also a number of incantations, magic, invocations of spirits, and other mystical rites that are probably as little understood by themselves ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... sacred;[685] they sometimes become 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
... not make up his mind as to who was right. "This is a very important question," he said. "We must send to Delphi [Footnote: Delphi (pro. del'fi).] and ask the oracle whether the tripod shall be given to the fishermen or to the merchant. Leave the tripod in my care until ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... 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 individuality as a Jew and a man. Gordon's ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... says of Aesop's true, The oracle of Greece he was, And more than Areopagus[30] he knew, With all its wisdom in the laws. The following tale gives but a sample Of what has made his fame so ample. Three daughters shared a father's ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... a question to the people in such a way that he can win his end by having the public respond in the negative, he is sure of success. It is as if society depended for its guidance upon the word of an oracle, a great stone image, out of which the priests had only succeeded in producing one response, a sound very much like, "No." The trick would consist of so framing your question that the word "no" would give you ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... aged philosopher replied, "My child must be guided by her own heart. The gods have there placed an oracle, which never misleads or perplexes ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... 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 ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... year, a great prodigy occurred, in the shape of the sudden rising of the waters of the Alban Lake to an extraordinary height, without any apparent cause. The Romans, in their bewilderment, sent a messenger to the oracle of Delphi to inquire about it. Before this messenger returned, they also captured a Verentine priest, who informed them that there were certain oracular books in Veii, which declared that Veii could never perish unless the waters of the Alban Lake should ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... luck. All these things together so impressed the people that as often as not they would cry, "Miraculous!" In short, although the woman's ignorance was quite twenty-three carat she passed for a veritable oracle. ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... true to your own character, arch go-between! (15) It is always either your familiar oracle won't suffer you, that's your pretext, and so you can't converse with me; or you are bent upon ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... the minor Roman gods. Diderot begins by a few lines describing the rise of the deity into repute. He then quotes Cicero's pleasantry on the friendly divinity, that when nobody in the world had ever heard of him, he delivered a salutary oracle, but after people had built him a fine temple, then the god of speech fell dumb. This suggests to Diderot to wonder with edifying innocence how so religious a people as the Romans endured these irreverent jests in their philosophers. By an easy step we pass to the conditions on which ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... inherited conceptions of scholarship and mental discipline were piously 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 ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... little woman that when we were within twenty miles of our destination it became clearly necessary to put the baby to bed; but she got over that with the same good humor, tied a little handkerchief over her little head, and came out into the gallery with the rest. Then, such an oracle as she became in reference to the localities! and such facetiousness as was displayed by the married ladies! and such sympathy as was shown by the single ones! and such peals of laughter as the little woman herself (who would just as soon have cried) greeted every jest with! At last, there were ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... thing called modern "spiritualism." The amount and quality of "faith" are, indeed, pleasingly diversified when come to examine individual professors thereof; but it always based upon the principle that man is a light to himself; that his oracle is within; so clear either to supersede the necessity—some say even possibility—of all external revelation in any sense of that term; or, when such revelation is in some sense allowed, to constitute man the absolute arbiter how much or how ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... will tell me; he will communicate faithfully the oracle of the Holy Virgin." I say nothing and follow him into the church; he speaks to the priest, and gives him some money. The papa says the mass, enters the sanctum sanctorum, comes out again in a quarter of an hour, ascends the steps of the altar, turns towards ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... in civilizing many barbarous nations and in rendering them Christian and Catholic, we may equally, with the help of God, bring others to the knowledge of the true religion, and since pretended philosophers have abandoned the faith, it must, according to the divine oracle, go to other men. If this faith is extinguished for many, who have deserved the misfortune in closing their eyes to its light, it goes to others who will render themselves worthy by allowing this divine truth to enlighten them. Thus ...
— Memoir • Fr. Vincent de Paul
... 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 ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... 'ot water an' cold," said Joe Dumsby in the tones of an oracle. "Just fill your mouth with bilin' 'ot water, an' dip your face in a basin o' cold, and it's sartain ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... sound of his voice the puppies ceased their play, sat up panting a moment, and then in a tumultuous bunch rushed upon La Mothe. Charlemagne vouched for him, Charlemagne who was their oracle as grown-up brothers so often are, and they could let loose the exuberance of their puppydom without a fear that a sudden cuff would teach their youth that wild delights find an end in sorrow. Over each other ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... of the most exemplary women of rank of the age, had she less of show in her exertions, and more of forbearance in publishing them. My dear oracle, however, once said, vainglory must not be despised or discouraged, when it operated but as a human engine for great ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... after these events Hadrian was again in Alexandria. He kept aloof from all the festivals instituted in honor of the new god Antinous, and smiled incredulously when he was told that a new star had appeared in the sky, and that an oracle had declared it to be the soul of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of Magna Charta. You will see that Sir Edward Coke, that great oracle of our law, and indeed all the great men who follow him, to Blackstone, are industrious to prove the pedigree of our liberties. They endeavour to prove, that the ancient charter, the Magna Charta of King John, was connected with another positive charter from Henry I., ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... 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 than did the venerated bishop ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... gods was invoked, through his priest, by a chief who wished to consult the oracle, or, in old Israelitic phraseology, to "inquire of," the god, a hog was killed and cooked over night, and, together with plantains, yams, and the materials for making the peculiar drink kava (of which ...
— The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study - Essay #8 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... oracle, and was listened to with somewhat of the same silent reverence. But after that pause Mr. Lenox remarked that he never understood that comparison. What was it about an ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... 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 ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... 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 ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... of Hercules, reigned over Mysia when the Greeks came to besiege Troy, and he sought to prevent their landing. But, by the art of Dionysus, he was made to stumble over a vine, and Achilles wounded him with his spear. The oracle informed Telephus that the hurt could be healed only by him, or by the weapon, that inflicted it; and the king, seeking the Grecian camp, was healed by Achilles with the rust of ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... 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 ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... 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 of her kinsmen were present, he was the first to draw the dagger from ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... aunt's house-parties; while Mrs. Carstyle, talking over his head to an invisible but evidently sympathetic and intelligent listener, debated the propriety of Irene's accepting an invitation to spend the month of August at Narragansett. When Vibart, rashly trespassing on the rights of this unseen oracle, remarked that a few weeks at the seashore would make a delightful change for Miss Carstyle, the ladies looked at ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... coffee, and prepared the two cups, which she carefully wiped, observing that nothing impure must enter into this operation. I affected to be very anxious for a glass of wine, in order to give our oracle a pretext for assuaging her thirst, which she did, without, much entreaty. When she had drunk two or three small glasses (for I had taken care not to have large ones), she poured the coffee into one of the two large cups. "This is yours," said she; "and this is your friend's; let ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... cheerful, popular, and sympathetic boy, with a dancing-school manner, instead of an awkward and shy youth (although an exceedingly handsome one), we can not tell. That is the great secret behind the veil. The answer is not yet made, the oracle has not spoken, and we must not ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... Her thoughts, as she gave them utterance, clothed themselves in unpremeditated poetry; the Athenian could neither understand all her words, nor her allusions to the past, but the majesty of gesture the music of sound, made him listen as he might have done to the inspired priestess of some oracle's shrine. ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... in his fiftieth year only; and his funeral was graced and honoured by the presence of his royal master. Guicciardini calls him "the oracle and right arm of Louis." Of eight brothers, whom he left behind, four attained to the episcopal rank. His nephew succeeded him as Archbishop. See also Historia Genealogica Magnatum Franciae; vol. vii. p. 129; quoted in the Gallia ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... 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 disposition and stature ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... more steadily under Johnson than under any else. In his own words he was 'of Johnson's school.' (Ante, p. 230). Gibbon calls Johnson Reynolds's oracle. Gibbon's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... future is big with cashmere shawls, glittering jewels, supper parties, and the like.' You would not believe me, incredulous one. Well, my predictions are, however, realized, and I am worth as much, I hope, as your 'Ladies' Oracle,' a little octavo sorcerer you bought for five sous at a bookstall on the Pont Neuf, and which you wearied with external questions. Again, I ask, was I not right in my prophecies; and would you believe me now, if I tell you that you will not stop at this? If I told you that ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... terrors from the night, they were All in all to each other: though their speech Was broken words, they thought a language there,— And all the burning tongues the passions teach Found in one sigh the best interpreter Of nature's oracle—first love,—that all Which Eve has left her daughters since ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... be in 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, ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... sort of men whose visages Do cream and mantle like a standing pool, And do a wilful stillness entertain; With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion, As who should say, "I am Sir Oracle, "And when I ope my lips let no dog ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... Oxford) being the only really sportsmanlike article about them; flattering themselves they looked exceedingly knowing, and, in nine cases out of ten, being deceived therein most lamentably; clustered together in groups of four or five, discussing the merits of the horses, or listening, as to an oracle, to the opinion of some Oxford horse-dealer, delivered with insolent familiarity—here were the men who drunk out of a fox's head, and recounted imaginary runs with the Heythrop. Happy was he amongst them, and a positive hero for the day, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... what questions I might, the resources of his vocabulary remained invariably the same. Still this youthful Oracle answered ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... Their ordination, in obedience to this divine communication, was a decisive recognition of their spiritual authority. The Holy Ghost had attested their commission, and the ministers of Antioch, by the laying on of hands, set their seal to the truth of the oracle. Their title to act as founders of the Church was thus authenticated by evidence which could not be legitimately disputed. Paul himself obviously attached considerable importance to this transaction, and he afterwards refers to it in language of marked emphasis, when, in ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... 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 of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... Next year you may have to preach on the same gospel or feast; of what use will your notes be then? The ideas, arguments, and illustrations that now spring to your mind with a glance at this cipher or note will then have vanished. The cipher remains, but its inspiring power has passed. The oracle is dumb. You may summon spirits from the vasty deep—but will they come? You have again to face your old task; year after year the same drudgery awaits you with less hope of success. The brain, at first stimulated by novelty, poured forth the hot tide ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... Mantinea, about eight miles through a level, tolerably well-cultivated country. At the narrow passage between the mountains, there stood in ancient times a grove of cork-trees, called 'Pelagus,' the sea. Epaminondas, warned by an oracle to beware of the 'Pelagus,' had carefully avoided the sea. But it was just in this spot that he drew up his troops for the great battle which cost him his life. When mortally wounded, he was carried to a high place called 'Skope'—identified with the sharp spur of Mount Maenalus, which ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... King Athamas, because he had killed his child; and he roamed about in his misery, till he came to the Oracle in Delphi. And the Oracle told him that he must wander for his sin, till the wild beasts should feast him as their guest. So he went on in hunger and sorrow for many a weary day, till he saw a pack of wolves. The wolves were tearing a sheep; but when they saw Athamas they fled, and left the sheep ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... proof is a terrible one, but I require this proof. I must descend into the tomb to obtain it: well, then, I will descend into the tomb. I must consult the sombre oracle of death concerning the mysteries of life: well, then, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... 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 been an ordinary man the play would have ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... war; 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 Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of several minutes, during which I fondled the seeds and Halicarnassus enveloped himself in clouds of smoke. Presently there was a cessation of puffs, a rift in the cloud showed that the oracle was opening his mouth, and directly thereafter he delivered himself of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... Hesiod may be told in outline. After the contest at Chalcis, Hesiod went to Delphi and there was warned that the 'issue of death should overtake him in the fair grove of Nemean Zeus.' Avoiding therefore Nemea on the Isthmus of Corinth, to which he supposed the oracle to refer, Hesiod retired to Oenoe in Locris where he was entertained by Amphiphanes and Ganyetor, sons of a certain Phegeus. This place, however, was also sacred to Nemean Zeus, and the poet, suspected by his hosts of having seduced their sister [1105], was ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... devotion [p]. The reverence for the clergy had been carried to such a height, that, wherever a person appeared in a sacerdotal habit, though on the high way, the people flocked around him, and, showing him all marks of profound respect, received every word he uttered as the most sacred oracle [q]. Even the military virtues, so inherent in all the Saxon tribes, began to be neglected; and the nobility, preferring the security and sloth of the cloister to the tumults and glory of war, valued themselves chiefly on endowing monasteries, of which they assumed the ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... observed this oracle, "that she is fifty-six years old; and we think she is old enough to know better than to write such a ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... found fierce denunciation of predecessors, ingenious refutations of principles which they had evolved from rigid analysis of the facts of consciousness, and an intolerant dogmatism which astonished and confused her. One extolled Locke as an oracle of wisdom; another ridiculed the shallowness of his investigations and the absurdity of his doctrines; while a third showed conclusively that Locke's assailant knew nothing at all of what he wrote, and maintained that he alone could set matters right. She studied Locke for herself. ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... random, seeking for a divine guidance, and his eye lighted on the words, "There are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, even that we would be partakers of the divine nature." Before he left the house he again consulted the oracle, and the first words he read were, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." In the afternoon he attended service in St. Paul's Cathedral, and the anthem, to his highly wrought imagination, seemed a repetition of the same hope. The sequel may be told in his own words: "In the evening I went ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... expect immediate returns. It is only the lowest caste that is now reached, and the Christianizing of India must come, eventually, from the highest,"—words which we shall be very ready to take as opinion, but very slow to receive as oracle, since, from the time when the Founder of Christianity was upon the earth, and the common people heard him gladly, while the higher classes thrust him out of their synagogues, till the present day, the history of Christianity has been the history of an influence rising ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... "Minnie always was an oracle. To think of gentlemen whom you were likely to fall in love with, and marry, perhaps—but I don't think there are many of ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... contests in Greece—Olympian, at Olympia, Pythian, near Delphi, seat of Apollo's oracle, Isthmian, on the Corinthian Isthmus, Nemean, at Nemea ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... Demeter and such other Places as were always kept closed. The occupation of the plot of ground lying below the citadel called the Pelasgian had been forbidden by a curse; and there was also an ominous fragment of a Pythian oracle which said: ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... purposes. Both her children felt that. Her Natalka had obtained a diploma of a Superior School for Women and her son was a student at the St. Petersburg University. He had a brilliant intellect, a most noble unselfish nature, and he was the oracle of his comrades. Early next year, she hoped he would join them and they would then go to Italy together. In any other country but their own she would have been certain of a great future for a man with the ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... went much further, when he tested the clairvoyance of the oracles of Greece, by sending an embassy to ask what he was doing at a given hour on a given day, and by then doing something very bizarre. We do not know how the Delphic oracle found out the right answer, but various easy methods of fraud at once occur to the mind. However, the procedure of Croesus, if he took certain precautions, was relatively scientific. Relatively scientific also was the inquiry of Porphyry, with whose position our own is not unlikely ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... 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 ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... said, "I advised against the Sicilian expedition, so did Nicias, so did the astronomer Meton, but it was to be. Alcibiades had managed to procure a favourable response from the oracle in ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... of his sureties for the payment of the fine which he proposed has the appearance of truth. More suspicious is the statement that Socrates received the first impulse to his favourite calling of cross-examining the world from the Oracle of Delphi; for he must already have been famous before Chaerephon went to consult the Oracle (Riddell), and the story is of a kind which is very likely to have been invented. On the whole we arrive at the conclusion that the Apology is true to the character of Socrates, but we cannot show ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... contrived with the intention to keep up the national spirit, and diffuse hopes of the new enterprise of Vasco de Gama, who had just sailed on a voyage of discovery to the Indies. Three stones were discovered near Cintra, bearing in ancient characters a Latin inscription; a sibylline oracle addressed prophetically "To the Inhabitants of the West!" stating that when these three stones shall be found, the Ganges, the Indus, and the Tagus should exchange their commodities! This was the pious fraud of a ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Greeks in general skilfully availed themselves even of extra-scenic matters, and made them subservient to the stage effect. Thus, I doubt not, but that in the Eumenides the spectators were twice addressed as an assembled people; first, as the Greeks invited by the Pythoness to consult the oracle; and a second time as the Athenian multitude, when Pallas, by the herald, commands silence during the trial about to commence. So too the frequent appeals to heaven were undoubtedly addressed to the real heaven; and when Electra on her first appearance exclaims: "O ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... under the wings of a raven and bat. Came the omen from the entrails of a falcon which, when spread before the oracle, did lift themselves one against the other. Then did they tremble without touch of hand and did wrap themselves in a knot and struggle together until they did burst asunder. And from that which was hidden therein came forth the ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... gazing, and the oracle uttered some further statement, which my grandfather received with ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... thenceforth observed to express himself, on all occasions, in favor of the French alliance. The more to engage him in his interests, Francis entered into such confidence with him, that he asked his advice even in his most secret affairs; and had recourse to him in all difficult emergencies, as to an oracle of wisdom and profound policy. The cardinal made no secret to the king of this private correspondence; and Henry was so prepossessed in favor of the great capacity of his minister, that he said he verily believed he would govern Francis ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... at most of a few years, the tenant is dislodged to give place to another, and he in turn to a third. "Who," says Sir Thomas Browne, "knows the fate of his bones, or how often he is to be buried? Who hath the oracle of his ashes, or whither they are to ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... 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 ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... over again, to make sure that all the principal expressions were indistinct, and that the composition generally, except the postscript, resembled a Delphic oracle, when there was a hasty footstep, and a tap at her door, ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... the oracle of the household, as the village waren is of the entire neighbourhood, often usurping the functions of judge and jury, causing sometimes the innocent to suffer for the guilty, but also, by his prophecies, being the means of recovering stolen property. There are ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... there the impious Titans warred with the sky; there Jupiter was born and nursed; there was the celebrated shrine of Ammon, dedicated to Theban Jove, which the Greeks reverenced more highly than the Delphic Oracle; there was the birth-place and oracle of Minerva; and there, Atlas supported both the heavens and the ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... a prophecy Mr. Tidditt was accustomed to make each year to the crowd at the post office, when the receipt for the draft for taxes caused him to wax reminiscent. The younger generation here in Bayport regard their town clerk as something of an oracle, and this regard has made Asaph a trifle ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Leonard," his wife said almost fiercely, "it is most amusing, you made a mistake. Your brother's dying prophecy was like a Delphic oracle—it could be taken two ways, and, of course, you adopted the wrong interpretation. You left Grave Mountain a day too soon. It was by Jane Beach's help that you were to recover Outram, not by mine," and she ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... snort of profanity, but if he listens he will hear a bright and poetic blending of words rippling after it. A great preacher, whose sermons are read by the world, sat one day in the club, uttering the slow and heavy sentences of an oracle. He touched his finger tips together. He was discoursing on some phase of life; and an old night police reporter listened for a moment and said, "Rats!" The great man was startled. Accustomed to deliver his theories to a silent congregation, he was ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... general hand-shaking, and a wish to every one that the supper might set well. The Germans are long-lived, and almost every domestic hearthstone supports the easy-chairs of grandparents. Grandfather was often fresh and cheerful, the oracle and comforter of the children, treated with deference by those grown up, and presented to the guest as the central figure of the home. As the younger ones dropped off to bed and things grew quieter, grandfather's chair was apt to be the centre toward which all tended, ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... "Conrad," he said, in a low voice, "we will now consult an oracle as to my life and death. If the parrot pauses first, I shall die soon; if the nightingale pauses, God will permit me ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... lyric muse! Old Homer sung unto the lyre, Tyrtaeus, too, in ancient days— Still, warmed by their immortal fire, How doth our patriot spirit blaze! The oracle, when questioned, sings— So we our way in life are taught; In verse we soothe the pride of kings, In verse the drama ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... but yet without synne. But now this remaynith as yet to be discussed / which theis men do take as for an oracle / and most ...
— A Treatise of the Cohabitation Of the Faithful with the Unfaithful • Peter Martyr
... who was the great novelist's maid, appeared on the threshold of the oracle's lair. She was a sober-looking, black-silk personage, who always wore a pork-pie cap in the house, and a Mother Hubbard bonnet out of it. Having been in service with Mrs. Greyne ever since the ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... fields, he was like one lately couched, by whom the order of things was gradually becoming recognised, but who was oppressed by the unwonted light, and inwardly ashamed of the hesitation and uncertainty of his tread. While sons, nephew, and a throng of his officers, were listening to him as to an oracle, and following the tracings of his sword, as he showed how this advance and that retreat had been made above two thousand years ago, he was full of consciousness that the spirit of the history of freedom was ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... 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 at him from under heavy black ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... money-mastery as an elderly nerve-ridden woman might worship youthful physical energy, the comfortable, plump-bodied cafe-oracle had jested and gibed at the ambitions of the Balkan kinglets and their peoples, had unloosed against them that battery of strange lip-sounds that a Viennese employs almost as an auxiliary language to express the thoughts when his thoughts are not complimentary. ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... 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 American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... weel learnt man," and fair in an argument, and willing to look at all the sides of a subject. This was Weaver Sim's opinion of the minister, and he was an oracle in a ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... on the top of a frightful rock, in a frozen climate. At length, at dawn of day, he perceived the rock, which was very high and very steep, and upon the summit of it was the bird, speaking like an oracle, telling wonderful things. He thought that with a little dexterity it would be easy to catch it, for it seemed very tame. He got off his horse, and climbed up very quietly. He was so close to the green bird that he thought he could lay ...
— The Frog Prince and Other Stories - The Frog Prince, Princess Belle-Etoile, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp • Anonymous
... thread, and diluting the sense, and sparing the ornaments, of his passionless poetry,—if poetry, which, by the definition of its highest authority, is "simple, sensuous, passionate," can ever be unimpassioned,—that he was the oracle of feminine taste while he lived, and at his death bequeathed a fame yet dear to the school of Southey and Wordsworth. Daniel was no otherwise Laureate than his position in the queen's household may authorize that title. If ever so entitled by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... said you are." That hard-faced gentleman a wit! Why, Nature wrote on his fanatic forehead fifty years ago, "Wit never comes, that comes to all." I should be as scandalized at a bon-mot issuing from his oracle-looking mouth as to see Cato go down a country-dance. God love you all! You are very good to submit to be pleased with reading my nothings. 'T is the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense and to have ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... doubted of the thing That she had dreamed it, till a fair gold ring, Unseen before, upon her hand she found, And touching her bright head she felt it crowned With a bright circlet; then withal she sighed. And wondered how the oracle had lied, And wished her father knew it, and straightway Rose up and clad herself. Slow went the day, Though helped with many a solace, till came night; And therewithal the new, unseen delight, She ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... is. 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 ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... came out of Wiltshire, not out of Yorkshire; and so forth. Esmond did not think fit to correct his old master in these trifling blunders, but they served to give him a knowledge of the other's character, and he smiled to think that this was his oracle of early days; only now no longer ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... 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 ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... had a ready tongue for repartee, took advantage of the first opportunity to remark: "Do you know, brother, matrimony is a subject that I always enjoy hearing discussed by such an oracle as yourself. But did it never occur to you what an unjust thing it was of Providence to reveal so much to your wisdom and conceal the same ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... news of the day, the affairs of the tribe, the events and exploits of their last hunting or fighting expedition; or listening to the stories of old times told by some veteran chronicler; resembling a group of our village quidnuncs and politicians, listening to the prosings of some superannuated oracle, or discussing the contents of an ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... Uncle Gutton faced the bride and bridegroom. The disillusioned Joseph was hidden from me by flowers, so that his voice, raised from time to time, fell upon my ears, embellished with the mysterious significance of the unseen oracle. ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... what does it signify what he says? Is it an oracle that has spoken? To hear you, anyone would think that Mr. Purgon holds in his hands the thread of your life, and that he has supreme authority to prolong it or to cut it short at his will. Remember that the springs of your life are in yourself, ...
— The Imaginary Invalid - Le Malade Imaginaire • Moliere
... Southern oratory and journalism for the last eighteen months. No devilish hate expressed in Milton's magnificent epic surpasses in intensity, however it may in dignity and genuine force, that which is breathed through every oracle of Southern popular sentiment. And this is insisted on by Southern letter-writers and journalists as demonstrating the impossibility of 'reconstruction.' 'How can those who hate each other so implacably ever again be one people? What use ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the midnight voice he had heard. But recovering from the first shock of such a doom, and remembering that it still left the choice to himself, between dishonored life or glorious death, he resolved to show his respect to the oracle by manifesting a persevering obedience to the eternal voice which gave those agents utterance: and while he bowed to the warning, he vowed to be the last who should fall from the side of his devoted country. "If devoted," cried he, ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... believe him. 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
... those milk paps That through the window-bars bore at men's eyes, Are not within the leaf of pity writ, But set them down horrible traitors. Spare not the babe, Whose dimpled smiles from fools exhaust their mercy; Think it a bastard, whom the oracle Hath doubtfully pronounc'd thy throat shall cut, And mince it sans remorse. Swear against objects; Put armour on thine ears and on thine eyes, Whose proof nor yells of mothers, maids, nor babes, Nor sight of priests in holy vestments bleeding, Shall pierce a jot. There's gold to pay thy soldiers: ...
— The Life of Timon of Athens • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... currants, pepper, and mustard all jumbled into one mess. What think you of a rice- pudding seasoned plentifully with pepper, mustard, and, may be, a little rappee or prince's mixture added by way of sauce. I think the recipe would cut quite a figure in the Cook's Oracle or Mrs. Dalgairn's Practice of Cookery, under the original title ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... chained. She had once picked up, in a house where she was staying, a translation of the EUMENIDES, and her imagination had been seized by the high terror of the scene where Orestes, in the cave of the oracle, finds his implacable huntresses asleep, and snatches an hour's repose. Yes, the Furies might sometimes sleep, but they were there, always there in the dark corners, and now they were awake and the iron clang of their wings was ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... some kind," replied the oracle. "I've heerd say as how when them lanterns is showed aboard of a craft, that it's a sure sign as she's a doomed ship. I remembers one time when I was in the Chinee seas in the old—Lord ha' mercy on us! ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... that this young gentleman would "get it hot," notwithstanding that this was his first offense. Odds were taken that he would have fourteen years. "At all events," said one of the small officials, in answer to eager inquiries, "more than he could do on his head." With this enigmatical reply of the oracle its astonished questioners were compelled to ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... King, who became 'suddenly fallen into a great dump, and as it were a man amazed.' Shakespeare's lines give the explanation of his discomfiture. 'It seems,' comments Fuller, 'Sathan either spoke this oracle low or lisping.' ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... up the receiver, and seized a railway time-table from the rack before him. After a rapid consultation of this oracle, he flung it down with a forcible word as Mr. Silver hurried into the room, followed by a hard-featured man with spectacles, and a youth ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... and Dixon, with their wives, were the only Republican members of the upper house present, but there was no lack of those from sunnier climes, with their ladies, among whom Mrs. Slidell, who was something of an oracle in political circles, was conspicuous. Mrs. Senator Thompson, of New Jersey, dressed in white, with silver ornaments, was much admired. The ladies of the Diplomatic Corps were elegantly attired, especially Madame de Sartiges, the wife of the French Minister. President Buchanan and ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... "We must consult the Oracle of the Divine Bottle," exclaimed Pantagruel, "before you enter on so dangerous an undertaking. Come, let us prepare for ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... has consulted her oracle and it has barked out the truth. Let us hope she will not ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... desirous as a piece of courtesy to address him in Greek, "O Paidion," by a slip in pronunciation ended with the s instead of the n, and said, "O Paidios," which mistake Alexander was well enough pleased with, and it went for current that the oracle ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... mutter, and hum? Into what Pandemonium is Pentecost come? Oh, what is the name of the god at whose fane Every nation is mix'd in so motley a train? What weird Kabala lies on those tables outspread? To what oracle turns with attention each head? What holds these pale worshippers each so devout, And what are ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... effect was serious. The women, having once started, needed no more urging. One after another they confronted and questioned the oracle ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... translated "Why hast thou cast me thus into the town of the ever-blind, to proclaim thine oracle by the opened sense? What profits it to lift the veil where the near darkness threatens? Only ignorance is life; this knowledge is death. Take back this sad clear-sightedness; take from mine eyes this cruel light! It is horrible to be the mortal channel of ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... women and one had a stool stuck to her back, and one had a bundle of thatching grass stuck on her head, and the third had her foot stuck fast to a rice-pounder, and they asked him where he was going, and he told them, "to visit the shrine of the Bohmae bird": then they asked him to consult the oracle and find out how they could be freed from the things which were stuck fast to them, and he ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... She was an idle Baggage, and bid her go on. Ah Master, says the Gypsie, that roguish Leer of yours makes a pretty Woman's Heart ake; you ha'n't that Simper about the Mouth for Nothing—The uncouth Gibberish with which all this was uttered like the Darkness of an Oracle, made us the more attentive to it. To be short, the Knight left the Money with her that he had crossed her Hand with, and got up ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... and trivial circumstance afforded infinite material for extending his investigations. There is a town called Abydum in the most remote corner of the Egyptian Thebais, where an oracle of the god, known in that region by the name of Besa, had formerly enjoyed some celebrity for its prophecies, and had sacred rites performed at it with all the ceremonies anciently in use ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... 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
... whom the Oracle indicated as the wisest man alive. All men knew nothing, but Socrates was found wiser than they, for he alone knew ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... weight was now given by the speaker to his promise of counsel than to a restriction which seemed interposed for the sake of form and consistency. The King resumed his own seat, and compelled De Comines to sit by him, listening at the same time to that statesman as if the words of an oracle sounded in his ears. De Comines spoke in that low and impressive tone which implies at once great sincerity and some caution, and at the same time so slowly as if he was desirous that the King should weigh and consider each individual word as ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... the best thing I could do concerning the Book you wanted was to send your Enquiry to the Oracle itself:—whose ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... thick that the beams of the sun could not pierce it. The atmosphere of the place was of a delicious temperature; the scene was every where interspersed with fountains; and all the fruits of the earth were found in the highest perfection. In the midst was the temple and oracle of the God, who was worshipped in the likeness of a ram. The Egyptian priests chose this site as furnishing a test of the zeal of their votaries; the journey being like the pilgrimage to Jerusalem or Mecca, if not from so great a distance, yet attended in ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... was this to be brought about? Therein lay 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 charity-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 ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... be 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 ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... I guess, I realized the awful helplessness that comes over the Psiless when a TK invokes his telekinetic power. I wanted no part of the future this corn-fed oracle had conjured up. But it might be the only ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the fame of this divinity as an oracle, as connected with the calendar. But it is true that the name could with equal correctness be translated "The God, the Mighty Serpent," for can is a homonym with these and other meanings, and we are without positive proof ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... the purport of the Pope's discourse but the manner high bred, languid, kindly, and free from all tone of dictation. He seemed to be gently probing the matter in concert with his hearers, not playing Sir Oracle. At the bottom of all which was doubtless a slight touch of humbug, but the humbug that embellishes life; and all sense of it was lost in the subtle Italian ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... bad humours, whose temperament is to be 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 ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... his seniority and his gravity, soon became the oracle of the party. We usually found him seated on the stairs of the first floor, lost in the perusal of some ragged book of the marvellous school—scraps of which he used to read aloud to us, with more unction than propriety, indulging rather too much in the note of admiration ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... of remote antiquity to have been much regarded by either sex. At 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 sacred ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... great benefactor to Rouen died the following year, deeply lamented by the inhabitants, and generally so by France; but, above all, regretted by Louis XIIth, his sovereign, whom, to use the words of Guicciardini, he served as oracle and authority. The author of the History of the Chevalier Bayard, is still louder in his praise.—The western facade of the cathedral was not finished till 1530, twenty years after ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... from fire unto fire, From passionate pain to deadlier delight,— I am too young to live without desire, Too young art thou to waste this summer night Asking those idle questions which of old Man sought of seer and oracle, ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... dreaming, 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 habitual weakness had even led him into the wildest indiscretion here; he—now ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... What they are Prohibited. When any are religiously disposed, these Priests sent for in great Ceremony. None ever used violence towards them before this present King. The Second Order of Priests. The third Order. How they dedicate a Red Cock to the Devil. Their Oracle. ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... 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 individuality as a Jew and a man. Gordon's advice, to be a ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... considered the interview at an end. The persuasive Mr. Morrissey tried to get a wedge in somewhere to reopen it, but he tried in vain. Enos Walker was adamant. So, disappointed and discomfited, the emissaries of Colonel Richard Butler bade "good-day," to the oracle of Cobb's Corners, and ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... library, were peopled in his days with all those who could enhance his pleasures, or add to their own, by their presence. When Poverty stole in there, it was irradiated by Genius. When painters hovered beneath the fretted ceiling of that library, it was to thank the oracle of the day, not always for large orders, but for powerful recommendations. When actresses trod the Star Chamber, it was as modest friends, not as audacious critics on Horace, his ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... 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
... "scandal 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 result was seen in the by-election campaign ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... 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 and ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... —Smintheus an epithet taken from sminthos, the Phrygian name for a mouse, was applied to Apollo for having put an end to a plague of mice which had harassed that territory. Strabo, however, says, that when the Teucri were migrating from Crete, they were told by an oracle to settle in that place, where they should not be attacked by the original inhabitants of the land, and that, having halted for the night, a number of field-mice came and gnawed away the leathern straps of their baggage, and thongs of their armour. In fulfilment ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... man with many gifts. Plutarch's Lives was the great staple of education in the Renaissance—and as good a one, perhaps, as we have yet discovered, even in this age when there are so many theories of education with foreign names. Plutarch, then, writing about Delphi, the shrine and oracle of the god Apollo, said that men had been "in anguish and fear lest Delphi should lose its glory of three thousand years"—and Delphi has not lost it. For ninety generations the god has been giving oracles to ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... through The Tribune more influence, perhaps, than was possessed by any other Republican with the single exception of Lincoln. His newspaper constituency was enormous, and the relation between the leader and the led was unusually close. He was both oracle and barometer. As a symptom of the Republican panic, as a cause increasing that panic, he was of ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... everything about Wylder. She was constantly hinting something of the kind; and begging of him to make a disclosure—disclosure of what? It was enough to drive one mad, and would make a capital farce. Rachel has a ridiculous way of talking like an oracle, and treating as settled fact every absurdity she fancies. She is very charming and clever, of course, so long as she speaks of the kind of thing she understands. But when she tries to talk of serious business—poor Radie! she certainly ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Jehovah formed an essential part of the constitution, since it was God who ruled the nation. The oracle, in the form of a pillar of cloud, directed the wanderings of the people in the wilderness. This appeared amid the thunders of Sinai. This oracle decided all final questions and difficult points of justice. It could not be interrogated ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... and to Grandfather Smallweed's house. The door is opened by the perennial Judy, who, having surveyed them from top to toe with no particular favour, but indeed with a malignant sneer, leaves them standing there while she consults the oracle as to their admission. The oracle may be inferred to give consent from the circumstance of her returning with the words on her honey lips that they can come in if they want to it. Thus privileged, they come in and find Mr. Smallweed with his feet in the drawer of his chair as if it were a ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... now so elaborate and cumbersome, had supplanted the prophetic oracle. The ritualist is never a prophet; and out of such a formal cult no words of inspiration are apt to flow. With all the greater carefulness, therefore, would the people treasure the messages that had come to them from the past. Accordingly these prophetic writings, which had ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... 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 ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... stood still and are satisfied to repeat those ancient doctrines which the Germans have abandoned long ago. English Socialists try to impose upon an uncritical public by parading the worn-out stage properties of the forties. Marx is to the vast majority of British Socialists still an oracle and the fountain head of all wisdom. "Marx is the Darwin of modern sociology."[267] "All over the world his brain is put on pretty much the same level as Aristotle's."[268] "Modern Socialism is based, nationally and internationally, ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... Rommany, what Mr Borrow has said, that no English Gipsy knows the word for a leaf, or patrin. He admitted that it was true; but after considering the subject deeply, and dividing the deliberations between his pipe and a little wooden bear on the table—his regular oracle and friend—he suddenly burst forth in the following beautiful illustration ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... 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
... answered Sue, who had long ago come to consider Pickles the greatest oracle she had ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... if Herodotus' story is well founded, they were ignorant of their quality. Croesus took his time, sending envoys to consult oracles near and far. Herodotus tells us that he applied to Delphi not less than thrice and even to the oracle of Ammon in the Eastern Sahara. At least a year must have been spent in these inquiries alone, not to speak of an embassy to Sparta and perhaps others to Egypt and Babylon. These preliminaries at length completed, the Lydian gathered the levies of western Asia Minor ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... 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 in the following words. ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... 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
... the letter and wholly devoted to spirit, are doing their best in the cause of materialism. They surrender the very points at issue between religion and worldliness. They are so blinded by a vague humanitarian impulse as to make the New Testament an oracle of popular Radicalism.' ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... landed on a deserted island, where they found the ruins of a city. Here there was an ancient temple of Diana, and an image of the goddess, which image was endued with the power of uttering oracular responses to those who consulted it with proper ceremonies and forms. Brutus consulted this oracle on the question in what land he should find a place of final settlement. His address to it was in ancient verse, which some chronicler has turned into English ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... conceptions of scholarship and mental discipline were piously 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 ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... 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 moral tone of mankind around them; a spirit of reform, a zeal for ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... soft purring tone, an echo of a voice, as it were, beneath the rustling leaves; but, none the less, Richard Gessner caught every word as though it had been the voice of an oracle. A very shrewd man, he had feared this knowledge, and fear had brought him to this covert interview. The Pole could betray him and betrayal must mean death—and what a death, reluctant, procrastinating, the hour of it unknown, the manner of it beyond any words terrible. Such had been the end of many ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... always to the realm of popular magazine literature appealing to a very wide audience—for the editor of some magazine to project his personality through the printed page and to convince the public that he was not an oracle removed from the people, but a real human being who could talk and not merely write ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... He soon became the oracle which was consulted in all naval deliberations; and the king raised him to the dignity of a peerage. In July, sir John Balchen, an admiral of approved valour and great experience, sailed from Spithead with a strong squadron, in quest of an opportunity to attack ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... was much wilder than before. The plains were gashed with ravines and broken into hollows and steep declivities, which flanked our course, as, in long-scattered array, the Indians advanced up the side of the stream. Mene-Seela consulted an extraordinary oracle to instruct him where the buffalo were to be found. When he with the other chiefs sat down on the grass to smoke and converse, as they often did during the march, the old man picked up one of those enormous black-and-green crickets, which the Dakota call by ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... excitement took the form of a shuffling of feet. The Judge deliberately lighted his pipe, a token of mental relaxation. Then from out the haze of blue smoke, like the voice of an oracle from the seclusion of a shrine, issued the familiar recitative tone for which everybody had ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... the Oracle, my Curtius, how? Methought, while on the shadow'd terraces I walked and looked towards Rome, an echo came, Of legion wails, blent into one deep cry. "O, Jove!" I thought, "the Oracles have said; And saying, touched some ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... reverently leaning In secret cellars o'er the Sibyl's strain, Beyond the fact that several pars Had something vague to do with Mars, Failed, as a rule, to find the smallest meaning, But told the plebs the oracle ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... go.'"—Smith's New Gram., p. 65. According to Murray, whom these men profess to follow, let, in all these examples, is an auxiliary, and the verb that follows it, is not in the infinitive mood, but in the imperative. So they severally contradict their oracle, and all are wrong, both he and they! The disciples pretend to correct their master, by supposing "Let me to go," and "Let me to ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Woodward family somewhat in the light of a Delphic oracle. To apply to her was always the very last resource. Matters must have reached a crisis, Winona thought, if they were obliged to appeal to Aunt Harriet's judgment. She followed Percy into the garden with a sober look ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... old leaf fell out, the copy of a Bohemian folk-song, which Franziska, and she too, had sung long ago. She took it up, not without emotion, for in her present mood the most natural occurrence might easily seem an oracle. And the simple verses, as she read them through again, brought the hot tears ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... A man of understanding trusteth in the law; and the law is faithful unto him, as an oracle. ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... 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 ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... great mortification of Miss Jenny's attentive hearers, the hour of entertaining themselves being at an end, they were obliged to leave the poor little Mignon in the greatest distress and fright lest the giant should awake before he could fulfil the commands of the oracle, and to wait for the remainder of ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... a Hieland oracle [*It may not he unnecessary to tell southern readers, that the mountainous country in the south-western borders of Scotland, is called Hieland, though totally different from the much more mountainous and more extensive districts of ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... been thus, thou might'st have scorn'd the sword Of fierce Antonius; here is not one word Doth pinch; I like such stuff, 'tis safer far Than thy Philippics, or Pharsalia's war. What sadder end than his, whom Athens saw At once her patriot, oracle, and law? Unhappy then is he, and curs'd in stars Whom his poor father, blind with soot and scars, Sends from the anvil's harmless chine, to wear The factious gown, and tire his client's ear And purse with endless noise. Trophies ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... suddenly acquired a mysterious and wise significance and became oracular. She alone had the power of inspiring him to be profound. He had noticed that before, years ago, and first at their first meeting. Or was it that she saw in him an oracle, and caused him to ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... is sublimed into an exquisite thing called modern "spiritualism." The amount and quality of "faith" are, indeed, pleasingly diversified when come to examine individual professors thereof; but it always based upon the principle that man is a light to himself; that his oracle is within; so clear either to supersede the necessity—some say even possibility—of all external revelation in any sense of that term; or, when such revelation is in some sense allowed, to constitute man the absolute arbiter how much or how little of it is worthy ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... occupied there an infinitely lower place than Man. It is difficult to believe this, when we see such range and dignity of thought on the subject in the mythologies, and find the poets producing such ideals as Cassandra, Iphigenia, Antigone, Macaria; where Sibylline priestesses told the oracle of the highest god, and he could not be content to reign with a, court of fewer than nine muses. Even Victory wore a ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... 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, they abstained from ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... unknown animal, or the god that he worships; but we are more inclined to the latter opinion, because he assured us (if we understood him right, for he expressed himself very imperfectly), that he seldom did anything without consulting it. He called it his oracle, and said it pointed out the time for every action of his life. From the left fob he took out a net almost large enough for a fisherman, but contrived to open and shut like a purse, and served him for the same use; we found therein several massy pieces of ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... their supreme divinity, he probably in some degree represented the national aspirations of Upper Egypt as opposed to Middle and Lower Egypt: he also remained the national god of Ethiopia, where his name was pronounced Amane. The priests of Amane at Meroe and Napata, in fact, regulated through his oracle the whole government of the country, choosing the king, directing his military expeditions (and even compelling him to commit suicide, according to Diodorus) until in the 3rd century B.C. Arkamane (Ergamenes) broke ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Head he very much recommends a Form of Prayer the Lacedemonians made use of, in which they petition the Gods, to give them all good Things so long as they were virtuous. Under this Head likewise he gives a very remarkable Account of an Oracle to the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the last word satirically against her. She sat convulsed with fury and violation, speechless, like a stricken pythoness of the Greek oracle. ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... assert themselves in the influential and responsible post which the cura occupies. Very frequently the cura is the only white man in the place, and no other European lives for miles around. Therefore, not only is he the curator of souls, but also the representative of the government. He is the oracle of the Indians, and his special decision in anything that concerns Europe and civilization is without appeal. His advice is asked in all important affairs, and he has no one from whom he himself can seek advice. Under such circumstances all their intellectual ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... 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 learned ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... 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 ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... 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 qualities more than the President, unless it was General Scott himself, who with great self-esteem ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... Custis' mother could bear the strain of all these people. He wondered how she could manage the army of black servants who hung on her word as the deliverance of an oracle. He could hear the hum of the life of the place already awake with the rising sun. Down in the ravine behind the house he caught the ring of a hammer on an anvil and closer in the sweep of a carpenter's ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... many things, 'than which a truer was never discovered by any man' (compare Republic): or again the description of the Laws as parents (Laws; Republic): the assumption that religion has been already settled by the oracle of Delphi (Laws; Republic), to which an appeal is also made in special cases (Laws): the notion of the battle with self, a paradox for which Plato in a manner apologizes both in the Laws and the Republic: the remark (Laws) ...
— Laws • Plato
... lonely existence, and ceases to meet his compeers except on Sunday; nobody consults him; his experience has been monotonous, and his age is apt to grow unsocial. The old mechanic finds his tools and his methods superseded by those of younger men. But the superannuated fisherman graduates into an oracle; the longer he lives, the greater the dignity of his experience; he remembers the great storm, the great tide, the great catch, the great shipwreck; and on all emergencies his counsel has weight. He still busies himself about the boats too, and still sails on sunny days to show ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... moment Cousin Jim was silent, turning the thing over with his cigar. Maria Angelina sat still as a mouse, fearful to breathe lest the bewildering revelations cease. Cousin Jane, over her second cup of coffee, had the air of a humorous and superior oracle. ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... eighteenth century. It started into life with the genius of Lord Mansfield, and, gathering in its course whatever was valuable in the earlier institutes of foreign countries, had reflected back upon them its own superior lights, so as to become the guide and oracle of ...
— Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study • Compiled by Grenville Kleiser
... in the responsible and influential positions which the priests occupy. The padre is frequently the only white man in his village, probably the only European for miles around. He becomes the representative not only of religion, but of the government; he is the oracle of the natives, and his decisions in everything that concerns Europe and civilization are without appeal. His advice is asked in all important emergencies, and he has no one whom he in his turn can consult. ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... heu! ergo diutius vivit vinum, quam homuncio. Quare Tangomenas faciamus, vita vinum est. This puts me in mind of what Athenaeus[6] reports of an Egyptian, called Mycernius. This man having been told by the oracle that he had but a very short time to live, resolved to make the most of that short space, and to that end did nothing ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... crammed night after night; his footsteps were dogged in the streets by admiring enthusiasts; the wits and poets occupied themselves with composing sonnets in his praise; brilliant courtiers and fine ladies showered valuable gifts on the new musical oracle; he was hailed as the exponent of Rousseauism in music. We read that it was considered to be a priceless privilege to be admitted to the rehearsal of a new opera, to see Gluck conduct in ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come, which receives new truth as an angel from heaven, which, whilst consulting others, inquires still more of the oracle within; itself, and uses instructions from abroad, not to supersede, but to quicken and exalt its own energies. I call that mind free which is not passively framed by outward circumstances, which is not swept away by the torrent of events, ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... irresistibly with astonishment, and whose discourse—not of human wisdom only—will be inspired by the midnight secrets of the tomb. By my side, on this parchment, lies the formulary of questions to be addressed by Reburrus, when the curtain is withdrawn, to the Oracle of the ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... to meet entirely the demands of the case. It had not the wit, pungency, and facility of its rival, and failed of securing so general a popularity. Its learning and gravity made it better suited to be the oracle of scholars than the organ of a party. Compared with its adversary across the Tweed, it was like a ponderous knight, cased in complete steel, attacking an agile, light-armed Moorish cavalier; or, to use Ben Jonson's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... meeting; for he was led to think of a prophetic word for the most part ignored by the Messianic thought of his day, "He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter" (Isa. liii. 7). As he looked on Jesus the mysterious oracle was illuminated for him, and he cried, "Behold the lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." Once again on the next day the same thought rushed to his lips when, with two disciples, he saw Jesus passing by (John i. 35, 36). Then ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... 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 to parliament. (Hist. of the ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... as though a new oracle of construction had appeared, higher and wiser than all who had gone before—an oracle who knew more of the Constitution than its makers. This new oracle did not divine the fates. The announcement of the principle that the Constitution ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... 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 settled down to the true reasons that mainly prevented the immediate ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... essence of humanism is that belief of which he seems never to have doubted, that nothing which has ever interested living men and women can wholly lose its vitality—no language they have spoken, nor oracle beside which they have hushed their voices, no dream which has once been entertained by actual human minds, nothing about which they have ever been passionate, or expended ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... this the truth with the Old or Elderly or with those Wed. Such must expect to be told of Experiences that lie behind them, rather than before them, of Good or Evil; for Fate oft allows sparingly of Incident to those of middle years, or later; and therewith she is often pleased to make her Oracle speak coldly to a Querist, ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... to such a height that wherever a person appeared in a sacerdotal habit, though on the highway, the people flocked around him, and, showing him all marks of profound respect, received every word he uttered as the most sacred oracle. Even the military virtues, so inherent in all the Saxon tribes, began to be neglected; and the nobility, preferring the security and sloth of the cloister to the tumults and glory of war, valued themselves ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... quite sure," said I,—"quite sure? 'Woe to him,' says the oracle, 'who goes to the pork-barrel before the ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... a great deal of cant abroad on this subject," said Mr Morgan, interrupting the young oracle. "I like good architecture, but I don't relish attributing moral qualities to bricks and mortar. The hallowing influence ought to be within. Mr Folgate, we were going to call at your office. Have you thought of the little suggestions I ventured to make? Oh, the drawings ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... these we require the intervention of a God, or some other equally irresistible, infinite force. Wagner, therefore, in "Tristram and Iseult," makes use of the philtre, as Shakespeare of the witches in "Macbeth," Racine of the oracle of Calchas in "Iphigenia" and of Venus' hatred in "Phedre." We have travelled in a circle, and find ourselves back once more at the very heart of the craving of former days. This expedient may be more or less legitimate in archaic or legendary drama, where ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... now the oracle. His prophecies with regard to the great war had been signally fulfilled. Germany was at grips with England, and her triumph was looked ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the land itself—these would surely fetch enough to meet the cost of coffin and funeral service, as well as a cup of coffee for anyone who would put himself out so far as to accept their hospitality on that occasion. But now, contrary to custom, his father had not proved an oracle—he was dead and everything else had gone with him—except the land on the Point. And how was that to be turned into cash when there was no cabin on it? He would probably have to starve to death himself. Wouldn't it be simplest to run down to the shore ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... the chaplain was like a living oracle to him, as to many others. The ascetic face became beautiful with a beauty not of this earth—"his pallor," said they, "became of a fair shining red" when he spoke of Christ or holy things, while anon his ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... 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
... me about it with the most dreadful naivete, as though my eyes could penetrate any depth. What kind of notions have you, anyhow, of a young wife, and more especially of your daughter? Do you think that the whole situation is so plain? Or that I am an oracle—I can't just recall the name of the person—or that I hold the truth cut and dried in my hands, when Effi has poured out her heart to me?—at least what is so designated. For what does pouring out one's heart mean? After ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... deduction, and by flights of inspiration, but nobody was able to unravel it. At last a child, seeing the perplexity in which her father and mother were, took one of the copies of the scroll which were hung in all the public buildings of the city, and secretly set off to consult a distant oracle of Phoebus Apollo of which she had heard. She had to traverse thirsty deserts, and not till she was nearly dead did she reach the shrine. She told her story and handed in her scroll to a priestess, who disappeared in an ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... 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 stated that, thirty years before, ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... reference here and elsewhere is always to the realm of popular magazine literature appealing to a very wide audience—for the editor of some magazine to project his personality through the printed page and to convince the public that he was not an oracle removed from the people, but a real human being who could talk and not merely ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... expressed an opinion that he would learn to ride in time, and was glad they had only gone out with the jelly dogs instead of the foxhounds, or his friend and guest would not have seen anything of the run. All which was trying, coming from a fellow who had looked upon him as an oracle, and to whom he had condescended. At dinner, too, he was chaffed a little; but the hardest rider in the county, who had condescended to go out with the harriers to try a new horse, the foxhounds not meeting that day, and who was dining with Mr Gould ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... or dreaming, 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 habitual weakness had even led him into the wildest indiscretion here; he—now offered a ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... accounted for our visit to Jersey, and the temporary postponement of my last trip to England before our marriage. My mother, Johanna, and I, kept our own counsel, and answered the many questions asked us as vaguely as the Delphic oracle. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... 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 judgments ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... fly at once and discover the secret, then," said Raymond, slipping Amita's arm through his. "We will consult the oracle in the stables. Come." ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... said Taffril, "old Adam speaks like an oracle. Our friends here were very angry yesterday, and of course very foolish;today they should be cool, or at least we must be so in their behalf. I think the word should be forget and forgive on both sides,that we should ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Manvers considered this oracle with what light he had. "Don Luis supposes that I killed his son, then," he said. "Is ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... this to be brought about? Therein lay 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 charity-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 ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... and thus end the fruitless search for memorizing what is not at all memorable. What may strike uncultivated readers as beautiful, may be set down as trash, by a mind that has been fed upon the masterpieces of poetry. Not that the librarian is to assume the air of an oracle or a censor, (something to be in all circumstances avoided) or to pronounce positive judgment upon what is submitted: he should inform any admiring reader of a passage not referred to in any of the anthologies, and not possessing ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... with the dialogues of Plato or the political fantasies of More and Swift. By the striking nature of their utterances the writers hoped to catch the ear of the Gentile world for the saving doctrine which they taught. The form is Greek, but the spirit is Hebraic; in the third Sibylline oracle, particularly, the call to monotheism and the denunciation of idolatry, with the pictures of the Divine reward for the righteous, and of the Divine judgment for the ungodly, remind us of the prophecies of Isaiah ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... convinces it that it cannot save itself from being burned. This animal slays itself because it fears fire more than death. Reason tells me imperiously that I have the right to slay myself, with the divine oracle of Cen: 'Qui non potest vivere bene non vivat male.' These eight words have such power that it is impossible that a man to whom life is a burden could do other than slay himself on ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... shocked by a snort of profanity, but if he listens he will hear a bright and poetic blending of words rippling after it. A great preacher, whose sermons are read by the world, sat one day in the club, uttering the slow and heavy sentences of an oracle. He touched his finger tips together. He was discoursing on some phase of life; and an old night police reporter listened for a moment and said, "Rats!" The great man was startled. Accustomed to deliver his theories to a silent ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... never forget the following. A person was invited to name a rule without exception, if he could: he answered "A man must be present when he is shaved." A lady—what right have ladies to decide questions about shaving?—said this was not properly a rule; and the oracle was consulted. The editor agreed with the lady; he said that "a man must be present when he is shaved" is not a rule, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... mysteriously from the eyes of those who sacrificed her; She is transported to another country, where the custom is to offer up all strangers to the goddess. To this ministry she is appointed. Some time later her own brother chances to arrive. The fact that the oracle for some reason ordered him to go there, is outside the general plan of the play. The purpose, again, of his coming is outside the action proper. However, he comes, he is seized, and, when on the point of being sacrificed, reveals who he is. The ...
— Poetics • Aristotle
... 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 by the sunset; and his daughter, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... concern the individual alone. To the age, also, he has a message of kindred truth. The pulpit is erected as a witness against the generations as they come and go. It is by the preacher that Jesus Christ speaks to successive centuries. He is the true oracle of God. Against the carelessness, the covetousness, the debauchery and corruption of the nations, God would speak through him. Against the oppression of the poor, the robbery of the widow, the exploitation of the savage; against the crimes of the empires, the Almighty, through his ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... beneficent work sections and races should be forgotten and partisanship should be unknown. Let our people find a new meaning in the divine oracle which declares that "a little child shall lead them," for our own little children will soon control the ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... hower and all in Latin: in the tyme gathered about us neir the half of the parish, gazing on me as a fool and mad man that durst undertake to controlle their cure, every word of whose mouth, tho they understood it no more nor the stone in the wall did, they took for ane oracle, which minds me of the miserablenese and ignorantnese of the peasants of France above all other commonalty of the world; our beggars leading a better life then the most part ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... barbarous institutions; the worship of the botuto would no doubt become of some political importance. That mysterious society of the initiated, those guardians of the sacred trumpet, would be transformed into a ruling caste of priests, and the oracle of Tomo would gradually form a link between ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... you to inquire after persons' characters?" asked Nicholas, somewhat surprised at happening upon such an oracle. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... being more liberal, or more upright, or more temperate than myself." And when once more on hearing these words the judges gave vent, as was only natural, to a fiercer murmur of dissent, Socrates once again spoke: "Yet, sirs, they were still greater words which the god spake in oracle concerning Lycurgus, [26] the great lawgiver of Lacedaemon, than those concerning me. It is said that as he entered the temple the god addressed him with the words: 'I am considering whether to call thee god or man.' Me he likened ...
— The Apology • Xenophon
... the bar, from the pulpit,—putting in its word every where, always at hand, always sufficient, constituting itself, in virtue of its own irresistible claims and in the face of what we are told of it, the oracle, the great practical, mysterious, but universally acknowledged, oracle of our modern life; the fact that these two great branches of the modern philosophy make their appearance in history at the same moment, that they make their appearance in the same ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... not so spread in mockery of man's limited powers. As science advances, strange things, it is true, are brought to light, but the more rational the queries we propound, in every case the more satisfactory are the answers. It is only when man consults the oracle in irrational terms that the response is ambiguous. Alchemy, with its unnatural transmutations, has long since vanished before the increasing light. Why should not attraction also? Experience and experiment, ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... 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 on ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... with cannon-balls without examining wherefore."[51114] There is no need of knowing the wherefore; the animal instinct of self-preservation suffices to impel the Jacobins onward, and, for a long time, their clear-sighted men, among them Sieyes, their thinker and oracle, have told them that "if they make peace they are lost."[51115]—To exercise their violence within they require peril without; lacking the pretext of public safety they cannot prolong their usurpation, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... nodded his head like an oracle that had spoken, and dozed, leaning against the wall, until the sun had sunk to rest into a bed of orange and saffron, and the air was cooled by evening dews. Not till then did Adamo rise up ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... Cleopatra follow; but when the expedition against Darius is reached, the mention of "Lube" in the French text seems to have induced the English poet to carry his man by Tripoli, instead of Cilicia, and bring him to the oracle of Ammon—indeed in all the later versions of the story the crossing of the purely fantastic Callisthenic romance with more or less historical matter is noticeable. The "Bishop" of Ammon, by the way, assures ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... nor applause nor demands can confuse or disturb him. The great spirits who have nourished the best life of the race have not turned to their fellows for their aims and habits of work; they have taken counsel of that ancient oracle which speaks in every man's soul, and to that counsel they have remained steadfastly true. There is no clearer disclosure of divine guidance in the confusion of human aims and counsels than the presence of a distinct faculty or gift in a man; and when such a gift reveals ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... to hear what has befallen some of the queer notabilities of the Settlement. By courtesy, I begin with Mrs. McNab. You will remember her, as the general oracle and adviser of a certain portion of the female population in the neighborhood, and as greatly opposed to some of the "doctreenes", as she called my instructions to the people. Well, she remains in her entireness and individuality, her costume ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... 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 other men, about the most cautious Persons in France. I shall ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... don't flatter me; tell me the truth." While he was exulting in her firmness, who demanded the truth, bitter or not, she continued: "Only don't tell me that I am forgotten!" And she looked so piteously in the oracle's face that he forgot everything in the desire to say something she would like him the better for saying; he muttered, "Perhaps he has sailed for home." He expected her to say, "And if he has he would have written to me before sailing." But instead of this Susan gave a little ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... can you? Isn't there generally some clause against it?" Had this woman been trying to borrow from him on that settlement? But at this moment he reached the house, and got out of his cab still undecided as to how he was going to work the oracle. Impudence, constitutional and professional, sustained him in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... scene To claim your tears, dear Brander. Doubtless days Of infinite scope lie yet before me, since No oracle has foretold that I shall die. But if I die, then go I singing down, Not praying or repentant, to my grave. I would smite again the altar! I would smite The hearts bowed before it; all the world And the Beyond-world would I ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... effect were delivered by Dr. Shrapnel throughout the day, for his private spiritual solace it may be supposed, unto Lydiard, Turbot, Beauchamp, or whomsoever the man chancing to be near him, and never did Sir Oracle wear so extraordinary a garb. The favourite missiles of the day were flour-bags. Dr. Shrapnel's uncommon height, and his outrageous long brown coat, would have been sufficient to attract them, without the reputation he ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sailing-master of a ship-of-the-line; pensioned comfortably now for many a year in his native town, he had been always the same gentle, valiant, righteous man; sober in life, strict in duty, and simple in word; a soul as transparent as crystal, and as pure. He was the oracle of Aberalva now; and even Lieutenant Brown would ask his opinion,—non-commissioned officer though he was,—in a tone which was all the more patronising, because he stood a little in ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... evening that Lyman passed the post-office with two sheep-covered books under his arm, and when he had gone beyond hearing, old Buckley Lightfoot, the oracle, turned to Jimmie Bledsoe, who was weighing out shingle nails, ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... Virgilianae—the Wesleyan's drawing of inferences from Bible texts. Ah, could he not find an answer to the question that was the one thought of his mind? He would find some answer—a lying oracle, perhaps. It might be a voice from heaven,—some temporary assuagement of this storm of doubt that raged in his breast. "I doubt if Mr. Sheldon owns either a Bible or an, 'AEneid,'" he said to himself, as he stopped in his rapid pacing of the room; "I will open the first book I ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... 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
... 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. Peace-makers, such as Mr. Robert Blair of St. ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... when we see such range and dignity of thought on the subject in the mythologies, and find the poets producing such ideals as Cassandra, Iphigenia, Antigone, Macaria; where Sibylline priestesses told the oracle of the highest god, and he could not be content to reign with a, court of fewer than nine muses. Even Victory ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... then lately baptized, and make on the ground 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 day poured in, and the virtue of Siloe ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... 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 ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... Milly such a dreadful upward tug. All this within her was confusedly present—a cloud of questions out of which Maud Manningham's large seated self loomed, however, as a mass more and more definite, taking in fact for the consultative relation something of the form of an oracle. From the oracle the sound did come—or at any rate the sense did, a sense all accordant with the insufflation she had just seen working. "Yes," the sense was, "I'll help you for Milly, because if that comes off I shall be helped, by ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... at all tangible, steadfast, or obligatory. In infallibility there are no degrees. The power of the High and Holy One is one and the same, whether the sphere which it fills be larger or smaller;—the area traversed by a comet, or the oracle of the house, the holy place beneath the wings of the cherubim;—the Pentateuch of the Legislator, who drew near to the thick darkness where God was, and who spake in the cloud whence the thunderings and lightnings came, and whom God answered ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... odd news of the village, and the still odder versions of London news that transpired through the lips of our established politicians. I liked an occasional visit to our little club, where the exciseman, of fifty years standing was our oracle in politics; the attorney, of about the same duration, gave us opinions on the drama, philosophy, and poetry, all equally unindebted to Aristotle; and my mild and excellent father-in-law, the curate, shook his silver locks in gentle laughter at the discussion. I loved a supper in my snug ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... the solemnity of a Sir Oracle in the smoking-room of one of the political clubs, "has dreams of an empire beyond her frontiers, and with a view to converting the dream into a reality, is turning out battleships nineteen to ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... require no other sanction for what they do than "that pleases me," or "this gratifies me!" It is wonderful what a mighty agent self is, estimated by its own standards. It is the hero of every exploit, the centre of every event, and the oracle of all opinions. It interprets the purpose of the universe; it finds out exactly what the world was made for. At least, a good many, apparently, have ascertained that the world was made for them, and ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... field, without burial. They 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, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... leading up to an inner court, where stands the grim god of war, with numerous other idols on either side of him. In front rises a lofty obelisk of wicker-work, and inside this the priest who acts the part of the oracle takes his stand. Just outside this inner court is the altar on which the human sacrifices are made. Near it stands the house occupied by the king when he resides in the temple, and numerous other idols fill the rest of ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... cowardly and prudential proverbs. 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 the bulk of humanity, this is no doubt very properly so. But it does ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... omen. The Fates have not only decreed that Lionel Beauchamp shall either be hung or married within the twelvemonth, but reserved the latter lot for him; and they indicate further who his future wife shall be. When there is no lady next him, it's a hanging matter, saith the oracle; where there is, that lady will be his wife before the year is out. Now, it can hardly point to Mrs. Evesham, who is on the right, and therefore I conclude it must indicate Miss Blanche, ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... long, O Ishtar, 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, And, oh! I would exalt thee in my need, From thy ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... whole question of the trade with the Eastern seas was reopened. The bill was brought in, but was, with great difficulty and by a very small majority, thrown out on the second reading. [17] On other financial questions Montague, so lately the oracle of the Committee of Supply, was now heard with malevolent distrust. If his enemies were unable to detect any flaw in his reasonings and calculations, they could at least whisper that Mr. Montague was very cunning, that it was not easy to track ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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 to comfort and souls to cheer than one; that Almighty Saviour had at the moment troops of other ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... of the great Theban hero, Oidipous, well illustrates the multiplicity of conceptions which clustered about the daily career of the solar orb. His father, Laios, had been warned by the Delphic oracle that he was in danger of death from his own son. The newly born Oidipous was therefore exposed on the hillside, but, like Romulus and Remus, and all infants similarly situated in legend, was duly rescued. He was taken to Corinth, where he grew up to manhood. Journeying once to Thebes, he got ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... followed almost as eagerly as the adjutant-general himself. Never, perhaps, in his varied life had the graduate of Jena rolled in sweeter clover than during the months of the late winter and early spring of '94. An oracle at the table in a luxurious home, with no one to dispute his sway and no one actually to disapprove, unless it were his much disgusted but helpless pupil, with access to public offices and public libraries, with occasional touch with ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... though beautiful, egotistical, and self-satisfied, was not quite weak enough for him. She had some genuine self-respect amidst much false pride, and if she did not talk like an oracle, neither would she babble like one crazy; she would not permit herself to be treated quite as a doll, a child, a plaything; she expected to be bent to ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... grew wroth, and went apart in deep dismay. The dining-hall resounded with our hollow mirth; like the scriptural fool, we were laughing at our own folly. The ladies solemnly re-entered; our hostess, the spokeswoman, said, with the voice of an oracle, "You will regret this before morning." Still feigning to be merry, we went speedily to bed, but there was no night-cap sent to soothe us; and the lights ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... much upon the inexpressible value of the Bible, the privilege and blessing of it to nations, families, and persons; but he never entertained the least notion of the worth of it till now, when being to talk to heathens, savages, and barbarians, he wanted the help of the written oracle ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... you might, perhaps, be about that." Her voice was as impersonal as an oracle's. "You would be better off without her in your house; she might easily ruin it. No common infidelity could be half as dangerous. How blind women are—your wife would keep that about and yet divorce you for kissing a servant. What did ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... 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
... or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and soul of our senses Sweetens the stress of surprising suspicion that sobs in the semblance and sound of a sigh; Only this oracle opens Olympian, in mystical moods and triangular tenses,— 'Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... if Mathieu had renounced the actual exercise of authority, he none the less remained the creator, the oracle who was consulted, listened to, and obeyed. He dwelt with Marianne in the old shooting-box which had been transformed and enlarged into a very comfortable house. Here they lived like the founders of a dynasty ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... Wayland. But the assertion of no man can be accepted as sound argument. We want to know the very meaning of the words of the great Teacher, and to be guided by that, rather than by the fallible authority of an earthly oracle. What, then, is the meaning, the real meaning, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... "babies," as the 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 every street ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... wealth of darkness to the full frank blue eyes, a mystery of meaning—more than brain was ever meant to fathom: richer, henceforth, than all mortal wisdom to Prince Ferdinand. For when nature turns artist, and produces contrasts of colour on a fair face, where is the Sage, or what the Oracle, shall match the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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 ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg
... burden of Southern oratory and journalism for the last eighteen months. No devilish hate expressed in Milton's magnificent epic surpasses in intensity, however it may in dignity and genuine force, that which is breathed through every oracle of Southern popular sentiment. And this is insisted on by Southern letter-writers and journalists as demonstrating the impossibility of 'reconstruction.' 'How can those who hate each other so implacably ever again be one people? What use ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... pen; an atlas, and maps upon rollers; a crimson screen, an improved "Secretaire;" a barometer and a thermometer. Upon the shelves may be found almost for certain Boswell's Johnson; Encyclopaedia Britannica; Peptic Precepts and Cook's Oracle; the Miseries of Human Life; Prideaux' Connexion of the Old and New Testament; Dr. Pearson's Culina Famulatrix Medecinae; Soame Jenyn's Essays; the Farrier's Guide; Selden's Table-talk; Archbishop Tillotson's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various
... replied Varney; "that velvet doublet hath made an oracle of thee. We will have thee to Oxford to take the degrees in the arts. And, in the meantime, hast thou arranged all the matters which were sent from London, and put the western chambers into such fashion as may ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... the latter endeavored to procure it, by daubing themselves all over in a very frightful manner, dressing themselves in a very odd habit, and tricking up their hair after a very whimsical manner. Every thing they said was considered as an oracle, and made a strong impression on the minds of the people; they often withdrew from society, and lived in woods or in huts, far removed from any habitation. They were difficult of access, and did not give themselves ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... Oracle? 'Care for no name at all! Say but just this: We praise one helpful whom we call The Holder of the Ploughshare. The great deed ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... no harm, I do not determine; but true it is, he had gotten the Queen's ear in a trice, and she began to be taken with his election, and loved to hear his reasons to her demands: and the truth is, she took him for a kind of oracle, which nettled them all; yea, those that he relied on began to take this his sudden favour for an alarm and to be sensible of their own supplantation, and to project his, which made him ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... 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 ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... 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 cast ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... or, in 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 the play. This is what Verrall did. Ion sees that ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... divine communication, was a decisive recognition of their spiritual authority. The Holy Ghost had attested their commission, and the ministers of Antioch, by the laying on of hands, set their seal to the truth of the oracle. Their title to act as founders of the Church was thus authenticated by evidence which could not be legitimately disputed. Paul himself obviously attached considerable importance to this transaction, and he afterwards refers to it in language of marked emphasis, when, in ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... nostril of the satirist stirred, and he put on a longer drawl as he said, "No, no; not a Ganymede—an oracle, my Judah. A few lessons from my teacher of rhetoric hard by the Forum—I will give you a letter to him when you become wise enough to accept a suggestion which I am reminded to make you—a little practise of the art of mystery, and Delphi will receive you as Apollo himself. At the sound of your ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... was considered a kind of oracle when personal memories of Washington were concerned, answered after a moment's pause, "I have seen him smile often, I never saw him laugh but once. He rode over, one afternoon, to see a relative with whom I was staying; ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... alike obtained from them this prompt administration of justice, undefiled, as if from an oracle, at the same time their attention was devoted to the framing of laws; and, the ten tables being proposed amid the intense expectation of all, they summoned the people to an assembly: and ordered them to go and read the laws that were exhibited, [43] ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... space, so aptly to pronounce, and to vtter 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 disposition and stature of their bodies, of their countrey ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... do these great practical difficulties lie in the way of applying the hybridization test, but even when this oracle can be questioned, its replies are sometimes as doubtful as those of Delphi. For example, cases are cited by Mr. Darwin, of plants which are more fertile with the pollen of another species than with ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... allow me to express an opinion, in which I may be quite wrong, but to which I am entirely wedded? If the Custom House officers had been coming, they would have been here now. In other words, somebody is working the oracle, and (for a good guess) his name ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... like the sun, dost, with an equal ray, Into the palace and the cottage shine; And show'st the soul both to the clerk and lay, learned and By the clear lamp of th' oracle divine. [unlearned ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... passages in its history. It wouldn't hear of rescue. Like Mr. Joseph Miller's Frenchman, it would be drowned and nobody should save it. Transported beyond grammar by its kindled ire, it spoke in unknown tongues, and vented unintelligible bellowings, more like an ancient oracle than the modern oracle it is admitted on all hands to be. Rare exigencies produce rare things; and even our Vestry, new hatched to the woful time, came forth a ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... the expense and pains bestowed upon her, must, of course, be the musical oracle of the family; the father must forego his favourite old songs, written by "honest Harry Carey," (as Ritson insists on his being called); the mother is laughed to scorn if she mentions "Auld Robin Gray," "Mary's Dream," "Oh, Nanny, wilt thou gang wi' me?"—or such obsolete ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 393, October 10, 1829 • Various
... day of June, 1859, the "State Banner and Delphian Oracle," published weekly at Oxbow Village, one of the principal centres in a thriving river-town of New England, contained an advertisement which involved the story of a young life, and stained the emotions ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... and nuns, men rescued from the scorching furnace of life in the world, and women brought up from infancy in the shade of the cloister. M. Arnauld was a great theologian, an indefatigable controversialist, the oracle and guide of his friends in their struggle against the Jesuits; M. de Sacy and M. Singlin were wise and able directors, as austere as M. de St. Cyran in their requirements, less domineering and less rough than he; but M. de St. Cyran alone was and could ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Father's Home in Heaven, I had to go through many partings on this earth. The year in which I was made a Child of Mary, Our Lady took from me my sister Marie, the only support of my soul,[14] my oracle and inseparable companion since the departure of Pauline. As soon as I knew of her decision, I made up my mind to take no further pleasure in anything here below. I could not tell you how many tears I ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... 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 haunt, ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... materialistic school, he could not even now admit that such monstrous things could be. With a necromantic operation taking place before his eyes; with the unholy perfume of the secret incense all but suffocating him; with the dreadful Oracle dully gleaming in the shadows of that temple of evil—his reason would not accept the evidences. Any man of the ancient world—of the middle ages—would have known that he looked upon a professed wizard, ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... hour of entertaining themselves being at an end, they were obliged to leave the poor little Mignon in the greatest distress and fright lest the giant should awake before he could fulfil the commands of the oracle, and to wait for the remainder of the story till ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... Paradoxes the most daring wore the air of deliberate wisdom as he pronounced them. He foretold the future happiness of mankind, not with the inspiration of the poet, but with the grave and passionless voice of the oracle. There was nothing better calculated at once to feed and to make steady the enthusiasm of youthful patriots than the high speculations in which he taught them to engage, on the nature of social evils and the ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... faith of St. Cyril; and the road to paradise, a bridge as sharp as a razor, was suspended over the abyss by the master-hand of the theological artist. During ten centuries of blindness and servitude, Europe received her religious opinions from the oracle of the Vatican; and the same doctrine, already varnished with the rust of antiquity, was admitted without dispute into the creed of the reformers, who disclaimed the supremacy of the Roman pontiff. The synod of Chalcedon still triumphs in the Protestant churches; but the ferment of controversy ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... concerning the cunning, lynx selfishness of women, by this feminine phenomenon! Why, I would have bet half my estate on Gordon's chances; for his handsome face, aided by such incomparable coadjutors as my mother here and the infallible sage and oracle of the parsonage constituted a 'triple alliance' more formidable, more invincible, than those that threatened Louis XIV. or Alberoni! I imagined the girl was clay in the experienced hands of matrimonial ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... work?" asked Bobby, scanning his finely chiseled profile as eagerly as if she were consulting the Delphic oracle. ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... that'll be exact," replied our oracle: "If the rain comes down pretty, we shan't have no hurricane; if it holds up dry, why, ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... Bear! You talk like an oracle. I guess we'll run up my red parasol on the end of an oar for a danger sign. Bert could see that from the terrace." She glanced shorewards as she spoke, and he saw her face change momentarily. "Why," she said quickly, "I thought we ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... him in fairyland, away from his realm, until his faithful friends at last found him and induced him to return, for his country was going to rack and ruin, and even its capital had fallen into the enemy's hands. The loving fairy herself sends the prince back to his country; for the oracle has decreed that she shall lay upon her lover the severest of tasks. Only by performing this task triumphantly can he make it possible for her to leave the immortal world of fairies in order to share the fate of her earthly lover, as his wife. In a moment of deepest despair about the state of ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... 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 ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... 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 ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... with gifts, in the hope, that, in their multiplicity, the desideratum might be supplied. Kettles, skins, awls, pipes, wampum, fish-hooks, weapons, objects of every conceivable variety, were piled before him by a host of charitable contributors and if, as often happened, a dream, the Indian oracle, had revealed to the sick man the secret of his cure, his demands were never refused, however extravagant, idle, nauseous, or abominable. [ 1 ] Hence it is no matter of wonder that sudden illness and sudden cures were frequent among the Hurons. The patient reaped ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... strange hints Of things past, present, and to come, there lie Sealed in the magic pages of that music Which, laying strong hold on universal laws, Ranges beyond these mud-walls of the flesh, Though dull wits fail to follow. It was this That made men find an oracle in the books Of Vergil, and an everlasting fount ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... God has commanded a tabernacle to be built to have His oracle heard from the ark in it? No, no! God is too great, too sublime for these unbearable Pagan follies. I worship God in everything. People can pray everywhere, and He is ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff
... Made up to th' deed,—doth push on this proceeding. Yet, for a greater confirmation,— For, in an act of this importance, 'twere Most piteous to be wild,—I have despatch'd in post To sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple, Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know Of stuff'd sufficiency: now, from the oracle They will bring all, whose spiritual counsel had, Shall stop or spur me. Have I ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... 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 ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... usually stood in a more imposing attitude and spoke in a more commanding tone than are indicated in the foregoing sentences. The prevailing stand point from which he spoke was that of an oracle giving responses from the inner shrine of the Divinity. The words and sentiments he uttered were not his, but the Father's; and he uttered them in the clear tones of knowledge and authority, not in the whispering accents of speculation ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... the city of Bubastes. It terminated in the Red Sea, not far from Patumos, an Arabian town. In the prosecution of this work, under Nekos, no less than 120,000 Egyptians perished. He at length desisted from his undertaking, being admonished by an oracle, that all his labour would turn to the advantage of a barbarian." As soon as Nekos discontinued his labours with respect to the canal, he turned all his thoughts to military enterprise. He built vessels of war, both on the Mediterranean ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... water an' cold," said Joe Dumsby in the tones of an oracle. "Just fill your mouth with bilin' 'ot Water, an' dip your face in a basin o' cold, and ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... from cares than the incumbrances which necessarily attend a family connexion; and the better to accomplish this end, they associated in convents. Here they deal out to their votaries the decrees of the oracle agreeably to the rules prescribed by Confucius; and they practice also a number of incantations, magic, invocations of spirits, and other mystical rites that are probably as little understood by themselves as by the gazing multitude. ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... as to what relates to the service of the gods, he strictly conformed to the advice of the oracle, who never gives any other answer to those who inquire of him in what manner they ought to sacrifice to the gods, or what honours they ought to render to the dead, than that everyone should observe the customs of his own country. ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... "He was an oracle for all the small boys in town, and could advise us on any subject on earth—whether he knew anything about it or nothing about it made no difference. I told him once I wanted to be a California stage-robber, and he replied without ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... with a fellow being who may know little more about the subject in hand than we do, and who is attempting to convey to us not only his life-philosophy, but also his aches and pains, his likes and dislikes, and the limitations of his own experience. When doleful sounds come from the oracle, we take it for granted that something is the matter with the universe, when all that has happened is that one estimable gentleman, on a particular morning, was out of sorts when he took ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... Manley, in her "Memoirs of Europe towards the Close of the Eighth Century," has something very characteristic to say on this subject. Speaking of Somers under the name Cicero, she says: "Cicero, Madam, is by birth a plebeian" ... "Cicero himself, an oracle of wisdom, was whirled about by his lusts, at the pleasure of a fantastic worn-out mistress. He prostituted his inimitable sense, reason, and good nature, either to revenge, or reward, as her caprice ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... proud Asia, Europe, too, How many things by great, loud-sounding mouth, All true and of my own, I prophesy. No oracle of false Apollo this, Whom vain men call a god, tho' he deceived; But of the mighty God, whom human hands Shaped not like ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... Bischop of Brechin,[73] having his placeboes and jackmen in the toun, buffatted the Freir, and called him Heretick. The Freir, impatient of the injury receaved, past to Sanctandrose, and did communicat the headis of his sermone with Maister Johnne Mair,[74] whose wourd then was holden as ane oracle, in materis of religioun; and being assured of him, that such doctrin mycht weall be defendid, and that he wald defend it, for it conteaned no heresye; thair was ane day appointed to the said Frear, to maik repetitioun of ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... 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 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... letter 71 B. The sign has the meaning "oracle," "prophet." No doubt Ribadda had his diviners, like the kings ...
— Egyptian Literature
... which every mountain and valley in Germany abounds. The faith of his guests exceeded even his own: they listened to every tale of wonder with open eyes and mouth, and never failed to be astonished, even though repeated for the hundredth time. Thus lived the Baron Von Landshort, the oracle of his table, the absolute monarch of his little territory, and happy, above all things, in the persuasion that he was the ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... men, 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 themselves ready to follow him anywhere. ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
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