"Oracle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that Psyche's heart had somehow escaped love, she sent a spell upon the maiden. From that time, lovely as she was, not a suitor came to woo; and her parents, who desired to see her a queen at least, made a journey to the Oracle, and ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... locate their new colony opposite the "city of the blind." They discovered that these words meant that an earlier band of emigrants had passed by the wonderful harbor of the present city of Constantinople and had settled instead on the other shore of the Bosphorus. Taught by the oracle they chose the better place and began to build the city of Byzantium, which later ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... 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 wrath to its days? ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... Grecian states. The Peneus, into which poured the mountain streams, passed to the sea through a narrow gorge, the famous Vale of Tempe. In the mountainous region of Epirus were numerous streams flowing through the valleys. Within it was the ancient Dodona, the seat of the oracle. Magnesia, east of Thessaly, on the coast, comprised within it the two ranges of Ossa and Pelion. Central Greece contained eleven states. Malis had on its eastern edge the pass of Thermopylae. In Phocis, on the southern slope of Mount Parnassus, was Delphi. Boeotia ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... is 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, of ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... dear: Great Portland near was banter'd when he strove, For us his master's kindest thoughts to move: We ne'er lampoon'd his conduct, when employ'd King James's secret councils to divide: Then we caress'd him as the only man, Who could the doubtful oracle explain; The only Hushai, able to repel The dark designs of our Achitophel: Compared his master's courage to his sense, The ablest statesman, and the bravest prince; On his wise conduct we depended much, And liked him ne'er the worse for being Dutch: Nor was he valued more than he deserved, ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... in his foresight, so skilful in medicine, was now taken into confidence, and his advice asked. Count Cagliostro summoned the spirits that waited upon him, before the cardinal, one solitary night. He asked these invisible presences what their counsel was, and the oracle answered, that the affair was one worthy of the station of the cardinal; that it would have a fortunate issue; that it put the seal upon the favors of the queen, and would usher in the fortunate ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... Mrs. Talbot, that man is never so flattered as when some woman thinks him an oracle. Besides, although yours is the best mind in any pretty woman's head I know of—in any woman's head for that matter—you still have much to learn, and I should feel very jealous ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... noise and empty rumours without difficulty and without distraction. Meet 'any six of these men in buckram,' and they will accost you with the same question and the same answer: they have seen it somewhere in print, or had it from some city oracle, that morning; and the sooner they vent their opinions the better, for they will not keep. Like tickets of admission to the theatre for a particular evening, they must be used immediately, or they will be worth nothing: ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... followers, his mighty arch yet bridges the gulf between Elizabeth and the Revolution, and is of nearer or less distant kin to Shakspeare than to Pope. His prose is the swan song of the old eloquence, as inspired and as confused as an oracle. To read it when it is at its best is to soar on wings through the empyrean and despise Swift and Addison walking in neat politeness on the pavement. There as everywhere, in his verse, in his character, in his ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... "Alceste" which exercised an influence upon subsequent composers, among the more notable being the speech of the oracle, which Mozart must have had in mind in writing the commandatore's reply to Don Giovanni; and the sacrificial march, which probably influenced the priests' march in the "Magic Flute." Gluck was forty-eight when he wrote "Orpheus," and ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... The oracle of Hawarden was as dumb to this as to my effusion to a similar purport already mentioned. Not even the proverbial postcard was sent to Tralee, so the verbosity of Mr. Gladstone was strangely checked when he found himself pinned down to facts ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... about this date, I suppose, that I read Bishop Butler's Analogy; the study of which has been to so many, as it was to me, an era in their religious opinions. Its inculcation of a visible Church, the oracle of truth and a pattern of sanctity, of the duties of external religion, and of the historical character of Revelation, are characteristics of this great work which strike the reader at once; for myself, if ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... the "Lay Sermons" puts it ("Nature" 3 22), he began to be made a kind of popular oracle, yet refused ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... Tischendorf accordingly is forced, for once, to reject the reading of his oracle {HEBREW LETTER ALEF},—witnessed to though it be by Origen and Eusebius. His discussion of the text in this place is instructive and even diverting. How is it that such an instance as the present does not open the eyes of Prejudice itself to the danger of pinning its faith to the consentient testimony ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... times as far as they will in London. Here, a man who takes in the Quarterly or Edinburgh, is a literary character; the lady who has one head-dress in the year from a Bond-street milliner, becomes the oracle of fashion, "the observed of all observers;" here dinners are talked of as excellent, at which neither French dishes nor French wines were given, and a little raspberry ice would confer wide celebrity on an evening party, and excite much animadversion and surprise. Here, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... Fafnir reminds us of Python, whom Apollo overcame; and, as Python guarded the Delphic Oracle, the dying ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... apprehension, but sent to Tarascon for Dr. Raget, who was the oracle of the neighborhood; he was with the Marquis ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... Riverside regarded the famous pitcher as one of its greatest assets. He had given the quiet little village a fame that it would never have had otherwise. In the words of Sol Cramer, the hotel keeper and village oracle, Joe had ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... an account of which we get from Apulaeus and Dio Cassius. It was deep. From the orifice, which was surrounded by a balustrade, escaped so dense a vapour that animals held in it died, and men who inhaled it were stupefied. The priests who ministered to the oracle professed to be immune, but Strabo tells us that they simply held their breath when they stooped over the fumes. He who desired to consult the oracle was for a while placed on a platform above ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... stand firm on the right, yuh know, old Dennie just says straight and flat, 'Professor Burgess, I'm ashamed of you.' Dennie's a brick. And do you know, Burgess, spite of his cussed thin hide, we've got to toughen for him out here in Kansas; spite of all that, HE LIKES DENNIE SAXON. The oracle hath orked, the sibyl hath sibbed. But say, Vic, if he does come down hard on you, ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... appropriate praise that her records enable the magnanimous to silence the selfish and cowardly by appealing to actual events for the information of these truths which they themselves first learned from the surer oracle of their own reason." ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... fussy, over-anxious face appealed to his sense of pity. "Oh, yes, I believe so," he said. "They think you are trying to do your best and all that sort of thing. You don't enthuse them as my grandfather used to do; but, then, he had the grand manner, and the grand way of speaking as if he were an oracle. You have put all that aside—except when you make speeches which have been written for you by your ministers. Well, decent people respect you for it; but it has its drawbacks; the crowd prefers the other thing occasionally;—it likes still to pretend, at moments of ceremony, that it believes ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... very cordially and, on being told of her misfortune, at once agreed to assist her. So the sorceress consulted her Oracle, which told her truly anything she wanted to know, and then said to ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... Museum, Athens). A Cretan Girl (Museum of Candia, Crete). Aegean Snake Goddess (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). A Cretan Cupbearer (Museum of Candia, Crete). The Francois Vase (Archaeological Museum, Florence). Consulting the Oracle at Delphi. The Discus Thrower (Lancelotti Palace, Rome). Athlete using the Strigil (Vatican Gallery, Rome). "Temple of Neptune," Paestum. Croesus on the Pyre. Persian Archers (Louvre, Paris). Gravestone of Aristion (National Museum, Athens). Greek Soldiers in ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... 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 wont to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the same zeal penitents 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 be the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... enchantment, break your mystic spell, Land of the lotus, smiling land farewell! For ever it may be, what oracle can tell? ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... to ignore it; many of us felt drawn by a brotherhood of humanity to the late scholarly Pope, when we learned that, as death looked him in the face, he clung to Pagan Horace as a truthful and sympathetic oracle. "And we all go to-day to this singer of the ancient world for guidance in the deceptions of life, and for steadfastness in the ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... another boat, and sail for twelve days; and then you will arrive at a large city, called Meroe; this city is said to be the capital of all Ethiopia. The inhabitants worship no other gods than Jupiter and Bacchus; but these they honour with great magnificence. They have also an oracle of Jupiter; and they make war whenever that god bids them by an oracular warning, and against whatever country he bids them. Sailing from this city, you will arrive at the country of the Automoli, in a space of time equal to that which ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... Andy, with the air of an oracle. "Well, one night a streak of moonlight, like a long white finger, came in through a crack above and lit up those two tiny huddled shapes in their crevice. It came so suddenly upon them that Little Silk Wing, under the touch of that blue-white ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... a good word for him to the 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 after ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... XXII. An oracle said that the citadel of Troy would never be taken as long as the Palladium, or image of Pallas, remained in it. So Diomedes and Ulysses stole ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... cavern, from the nymph of Egeria, the laws which were to govern Rome. But no criticism can shake the record of that illness and that mutilation of the boy Josiah Wedgwood, which made a cavern of his bedroom, and an oracle of his own inquiring, searching, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... straggling beard a uniform dull ashen gray. No Chinese hair, it seems, ever becomes white with age. He seemed to have assumed the duties of cook for while we were there be lighted the fire in the kitchen and was busy, but was always the final oracle on any matter of difference of opinion between the younger men regarding answers to questions. Two sleeping apartments adjoining the kitchen, through whose wide kang beds the waste heat from the cooking was conveyed, ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... to think ill of them. As one woman, they were led by him, and conformed their opinions. The only seceder was Louisa Anderson, who had her brother for her oracle; and, indeed, the more youthful race, to whom Harvey was the glass of fashion, uttered disrespectful opinions as to the doctor's age, and would not accede to his being, as Mrs. Ledwich declared, "much younger ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... a narrow-minded, selfish man, caring very little for any one's comfort but his own, and at times was exceedingly cross and testy. Unfortunately, he took great interest in politics, and was quite an oracle in the village bar-room. He was bigoted and "set" in his opinions, considering all who differed from him as enemies to their country, and called them rascals and hypocrites freely. His wife had been dead about two years, when a presidential election came on. James Foster, unluckily, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • 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
... oracle declares, temperance and fortitude, prudence and every virtue, are certain purgatives of the soul; and hence the sacred mysteries prophesy obscurely, yet with truth, that the soul not purified lies in Tartarus, immersed in filth. Since the impure is, from ...
— An Essay on the Beautiful - From the Greek of Plotinus • Plotinus
... which the name of Phidias was connected was the building of the temple of Theseus, called also the Theseion. This was a very important temple, and was constructed in obedience to the command of an oracle in this wise: In B.C. 470 the island of Scyros had been taken by the Athenians, and upon this island Theseus had been buried. After the battle of Marathon, in which he had aided the Athenians, Theseus was much regarded by them, and in B.C. 476 they were directed to remove ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... carries too great a burden and too high destinies, and it is only when the gods wish to destroy or chastise a race that they first make it mad. Not by revolutions can humanity be perfected. I might quote from an old oracle, "The gods are never so turned away from man as when he ascends to them by disorderly methods." Our spirits may live in the Golden Age, but our bodily life moves on slow feet, and needs the lantern on the path ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... and matchless eloquence braved the mob law of the North and the organized brigandage and robbery of the South in the dark days of the past, days that tried men's souls, standing in the sunlight of rejuvenated manhood, still was the oracle of the oppressed in ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... for all its members, and the Stove Circle soon had many a raw recruit drumming up trade, making house-to-house canvasses. In this way, the circulation finally reached the five-thousand mark. There were certain unions, such as that of the cloak-makers, that regarded the paper as their special oracle—swore by it, used it in their arguments, made it a vital part ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... practicable slope; there she took to the moorland, and made for Corbyknowe. Her resolve had been from the first, if Phemy would not listen, to carry her, like the unmanageable child she was, home to the mother whose voice had always been to herself the oracle of God. It was in a loving embrace, though hardly a comfortable one, and to a heart full of pity, that she pressed the poor little runaway lamb: her mother was God's vicar for all in trouble: she would bring the child to reason! Her heart ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... than the far more agreeable part of the same doctrine which taught that, as an antidote to their influence, each individual was also accompanied by a benignant spirit. "The ministration of angels," says a writer in the Athenian Oracle, "is certain; but the manner how, is the knot to be untied." It was an opinion of the early philosophers that not only kingdoms[1] had their tutelary guardians, but that every person had his particular ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... of these men, to stun all companies with noisy information; to still doubt, and overbear opposition, with certain knowledge or authentick intelligence. A liar of this kind, with a strong memory or brisk imagination, is often the oracle of an obscure club, and, till time discovers his impostures, dictates to his hearers with uncontrouled authority; for if a publick question be started, he was present at the debate; if a new fashion be mentioned, he was at court the first day of its appearance; ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... battle lasted from ten in the morning to three in the afternoon; and that the English, after having seen several of their ships sunk, finally sheered off with all the sail they could carry. Barrere, the reporter and oracle of the committee of public safety, even outstripped Bon Saint Andre in the strength of lying and power of invention: he amused the national convention with an account of the victory of the republican fleet, far more fabulous than the commissioner's. Some of his statements, gross ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... read Doctor Hirtz's letter annexed to Herr Meiser's will, thought that he owed some acknowledgments to that excellent gentleman. He made a call upon him, and embraced him, addressing him as the oracle of Epidaurus. The doctor at once took possession of him, had his baggage brought from the hotel and gave him the best chamber in his house. Up to the 29th day of the month, the Colonel was cared for as a friend, and exhibited as a phenomenon. Seven photographers disputed the possession of so ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... girls one after another, shall marry, to which he answers according to his own whim, or agreeable to the intimacies he has taken notice of during the time of merriment, and whatever he says is absolutely depended upon as an oracle; and if he couple two people who have an aversion to each other, tears and vexation succeed the mirth; this they call "cutting off the fiddler's head," for after this he is dead ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... tenderest child, that my grave was not dug long years ago, in some valley, or on some hillside, that lies far, far behind us. It is enough. Thou shalt wander no more on this hopeless search. But when thou hast laid thy mother in the earth, then go, my son, to Delphi, and inquire of the oracle ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... too generous not to give Credit to his Words, shew'd himself to his People, who were transported with Excess of Joy at the Sight of their darling Prince; falling at his Feet, and kissing and embracing 'em; believing, as some divine Oracle, all he assur'd 'em. But he besought 'em to bear their Chains with that Bravery that became those whom he had seen act so nobly in Arms; and that they could not give him greater Proofs of their Love and Friendship, since ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... flared up before the nodding glass and metal of the top. His eyes looked at it, narrowed with attention, as if expecting an imperceptible sign. With his grave face he resembled a booted and misshapen pagan burning incense before the oracle of a Joss. There was no mistake. It was the lowest reading he had ever seen in ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... heart. The people at once admired and loved him. He passed for the happiest man in the world. The whole empire resounded with his name. All the ladies ogled him. All the men praised him for his justice. The learned regarded him as an oracle; and even the priests confessed that he knew more than the old arch-magi Yebor. They were now so far from prosecuting him on account of the griffin, that they believed nothing but ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... booths of the old, wooden Rialto, hung on the outskirts of the crowd before Ser Gobbo, to catch from the gossip of the more lettered ones about him the details of the morrow's festa which he might not read for himself; for the knowledge would make him the oracle of his little circle in Burano—or at least with Giovanna, when he should bestow his silken trifle for the morrow's splendor. For, of course all Venice would be there to see ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... inhabit the city of Pandion, to be mindful of Bacchus, all together throughout the wide streets to return fit thanks to the Bromian, and crowned with wreaths, to cause the odor of sacrifice to rise from the altars. In this oracle, Athens is the city of Pandion, because it was reported that under his rule the worship of Dionysus was introduced into the city. This and the other commands from Dodona and Delphi concerning Dionysus refer to the introduction of the worship of the god; for in every one the statement is absolute; ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... matter the greater was their wonder about it—they were left in all the distresses of desire unsatisfied—saw their doctors, the Parchmentarians, the Brassarians, the Turpentarians, on one side—the Popish doctors on the other, like Pantagruel and his companions in quest of the oracle of the bottle, all ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... came up here an hour ago with Lucy, and we had a most interesting talk with my old friend and the two others who always come and join him. He is evidently the Sir Oracle of them, and I should think must have been in his time ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... 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 ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... stockade by Shiakar's warriors. At length a sortie became indispensable to obtain provisions, but the enemy were too numerous to justify the risk. Upon this, Amarar called his soothsayer, and required him to name a propitious moment for the sally. The oracle retired to his den, and, after suitable incantations, declared that the effort should be made as soon as the hands of Amarar were stained in the blood of his own son. It is said that the prophet intended the victim to be a youthful son of Amarar, who had joined his mother's family, ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... him) and ask sheepishly:—"You think he will die?" Singleton looked up.—"Why, of course he will die," he said deliberately. This seemed decisive. It was promptly imparted to every one by him who had consulted the oracle. Shy and eager, he would step up and with averted gaze recite his formula:—"Old Singleton says he will die." It was a relief! At last we knew that our compassion would not be misplaced, and we could again smile without misgivings—but ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... in the streets, however, received her in a very different way from those of Orleans, with trouble and alarm, staring at her as at a dangerous and malignant visitor. The Brother Richard, before mentioned, the great preacher and reformer, was the oracle of Troyes, and held the conscience of the city in his hands. When he suddenly appeared to confront her, every eye was turned upon them. But the friar himself was in no less doubt than his disciples; he approached her dubiously, crossing himself, ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... comprehension. To the last moment they had been sceptical, for Lady Maclaughlan had shook her head and humphed whenever the subject was mentioned. For several months they had therefore vibrated between their own sanguine hopes and their oracle's disheartening doubts; and even when the truth was manifest, a sort of vague tremor took possession of their mind, as to what Lady Maclaughlan would think ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... and beauty, bids the people follow her to the temple, there to renew their supplications. The next scene shows the temple of Apollo. The high priest and the people make passionate appeal to the god for the life of their king, and the oracle replies that Admetus must perish, if no other will die in his place. The people, seized with terror, fly from the place, and Alcestis, left alone, determines to give up her own life for that of her husband. The high priest accepts her devotion, and in the famous air 'Divinites ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... the oracle, putting her warm hand upon the heart of the patient, "only in a dead faint and chilled to the marrow of her bones, poor heart! Whatever made her run out so in this storm? Where did you find her? had she fallen down in a fit? ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... that a wise ruler who, when alive, had rendered conspicuous services should after death continue to be consulted. The fame of such a man would grow with age; his good deeds and his powers would become apotheosized; he would become an oracle whose advice might be sought and whose help be obtained in grave crises. In other words the dead king would be "deified," or at any rate credited with the ability to confer even greater boons than he was able ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... Beargarden. Then his friend had suggested something about the young lord's bets. He was endeavouring to unriddle all this with a brain that was already somewhat muddled with alcohol, when Captain Green got up from his chair and standing over the Major spoke his last words for that night as from an oracle. "Square is all very well, as long as others are square to you;—but when they aren't, then I say square be d——. Square! what comes of it? Work your heart out, and ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... 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 by private ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... the answer was to come. Twice before had they consulted that dread oracle, whose response was certain death to one of their number. Twice before had they recognised and submitted to its decree. No preliminaries needed to be discussed. These had been long ago arranged. There was nothing more to ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... an audience loath to leave and eager to hear every word from lips which seemed then to be those of an oracle, Mr. Lincoln dwelt with great seriousness, even with solemnity, upon this subject which now wholly engrossed his mind. The contest of arms was over, but the President realized that the great pressure ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... they mistake a wheedling cant for affectionate solicitude; if they defer to pompous egotism and dogmatical assertion, when it is so convenient a foundation for all their other faith to believe their teacher is an oracle? No marvel if they are delighted with whimsical conceits as strokes of discovery and surprise, and yet at the same time are pleased with common-place, and endless repetition, as an exemption from mental ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... assumed the rigidity, yet all the softness of a highly-polished Grecian statue; and stood before me, as if by enchantment, half woman, half marble, beautiful inexpressibly. I was sorely tried. There was no action, no waving of the arms, as she spoke. Her voice came forth musically, as if from sacred oracle, that oracle having life only in words. Monsieur Manuel ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... the 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 ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... sailor became an oracle; the others hung upon his words, and followed his brown finger on the ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... 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 ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... shifting phases and the lunar varieties of that mighty changeable planet, that lovely satellite of man, Shakspeare stands not the first only, not the original only, but is yet the sole authentic oracle of truth. Woman, therefore, the beauty of the female mind, this is one great field of his power. The supernatural world, the world of apparitions, that is another. For reasons which it would be easy to give, reasons ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... that was 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, ...
— Gems Gathered in Haste - A New Year's Gift for Sunday Schools • Anonymous
... less sagacity than his, and scared from his side men more consistent than he had ever pretended to be. But on him they were lost. The counsel of Achitophel, that counsel which was as if a man had inquired of the oracle of God, was turned into foolishness. He who had become a by-word, for the certainty with which he foresaw and the suppleness with which he evaded danger, now, when beset on every side with snares and death, seemed ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... were seen 'silent as in a picture.' 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 great destiny of his species. No one would ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... prophetess was then in the zenith of her reputation—the celebrated Nun of Kent—whose cell at Canterbury, for some three years, was the Delphic shrine of the Catholic oracle, from which the orders of Heaven were communicated even to the pope himself. This singular woman seems for a time to have held in her hand the balance of the fortunes of England. By the papal party she was universally believed to be inspired. ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... forwards to the General Staff Marquee with the draft of my guesses, my first being that we would probably lose 35 to 45 per cent. But the General Staff have also been consulting their oracle and were clear for 50 per cent. Months of the most anxious calculations will not get a white man one whit forrarder in seeing into the brains of an Asiatic Army or in forecasting Mediterranean weather. Safest to assume that both brains and weather will behave as the German General Staff would ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... suis vatibus, i.e. by the captured Etruscan soothsayer (haruspex). 1-2. ab externis oraculis, i.e. by the Delphic Oracle. 2-3. iam in partem ... (alios) deos. Camillus had vowed to give to Apollo the tenth part of the spoils of Veii. 3-4. alios ... spectare, i.e. Juno. 'It was a Roman practice to invite the patron deity of a place ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... give you oracle for oracle. I am a Protestant in principle, but not in fact," was the ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... spoke truth, and so the battle ended; and Frank went to his books, while Amyas, who must needs be doing, if he was not to dream, started off to the dockyard to potter about a new ship of Sir Richard's, and forget his woes, in the capacity of Sir Oracle among the sailors. And so he had played his move for Rose, even as Eustace had, and lost her: but ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... comprise the Strawberry spinach, which, under that name, was wont to be grown in our flower-gardens; the Good King Harry, the Garden Oracle, the Prickly, and the Round, are the varieties commonly used. The Oracle is a hardy sort, much esteemed in France, and is a native of Tartary, introduced in 1548. The common spinach has its leaves round, and is softer and more succulent than any ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... Napoleon's Oraculum and Dream Book. Containing the great oracle of human destiny; also the true meaning of almost any kind of dreams, together with charms, ceremonies and curious games of cards. A complete ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... phases in the process of getting to know Townsend. To begin with, they thought he was a man inspired with the highest political wisdom and knowledge. His gifts of dialectical vaticination made them look upon him as the lively oracle of the special Providence which he himself was accustomed to say presided over the British Empire. After a time, however, they began to think that he was what they called too "viewy," too much inclined to paradox, too wild. Often, alas! the feeling in regard to him ended here, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... that? Such an oracle really whets my curiosity. What am I to-day? What was I the yesterday of ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... only oracle; Who could buy lands and pleasure at his will, Yet slighted that which silver ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... myth to account for the practice. 'Wolves came and carried off the entrails from the fire; shepherds, following them, were killed by mortal vapours from a cave; thence ensued a pestilence, because they had followed the wolves. An oracle bade them "play the wolf," i.e. live on plunder, whence they were called Hirpi, wolves,' an attempt to account for a wolf clan-name. There is also a story that, when the grave of Feronia seemed all on fire, ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... under the immediate direction of a theocracy, though in fact they were slaves to the most dangerous kind of despotism; for as often as any individual of the community pretended to think for himself, or differ in opinion from the ordinary and his band of associates, the oracle decreed that he should be instantly sent upon the mission which they had fixed in Greenland, or to the colony they had established in Pennsylvania. As these religionists consisted chiefly of manufacturers who appeared ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... twice. The historian who could not talk was not likely to appreciate the great talker who cared nothing for history: so one is not surprised to find Johnson dismissed in the famous Memoirs as merely the "oracle" of Reynolds. A much greater friend was another member of "The Club," Percy, of the Reliques of Poetry, afterwards a Bishop, with whom he often quarrelled but was always reconciled. Boswell managed the most important of their reconciliations by obtaining ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... oracle of 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. ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... oracle. After two hours' dodging and maneuvering the fox came out at the very end of Bellman's Coppice, with nothing near him but Richard Bassett. Pug gave him the white of his eye in an ugly leer, and headed straight as ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... Hermione, that if any body had any petitions, or addresses to make to the Prince, it was by her sole interest; she sat in their closest councils, and heard their gravest debates; and she was the oracle of the board: the Prince paying her perfect adoration, while she, whose charms of youth were ended, being turned of thirty, fortified her decays with all the art her wit and sex were capable of, and kept her illustrious lover as perfectly her slave, as if she had engaged him by all those ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... regarded all mankind with distrust. On the Bench, his disposition vented itself in judgments remarkable for their brevity and the irascible tone in which they were delivered. His utterance was sonorous, with the mysterious pomp and grandiloquence of an oracle, kindling up at times into solemn denunciation. His "make up" must have been perfect in its way, from the awful air of preparation for which his speeches are said to have been so remarkable. Thurlow acted with Pitt and the Whigs, and was ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... which we may as well mention that he carried out; so that in a few years Mr. Kornicker became a very vivacious gentleman, of independent property, who frequented a small ale-house in a retired corner of the city, where he snuffed prodigally, and became a perfect oracle, and of much reputed knowledge, from the sagacious manner in which he shook his head and winked on ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... perplexity, he wandered almost as by instinct to the lodgings of the Lemprieres. He had long been accustomed to regard the simple good faith and courage of Mme. de Maufant as an infallible oracle in cases of conscience. Never had so hard a need for an infallible oracle presented itself ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... in virtues pure; My friend is he—Fate willed it—true and tried. I 'll not forget Chandanaka, be sure, What time the oracle is justified. 26 ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... be 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 thy truth." ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... 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 ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... bowed his head, and Dion saw him peer cautiously through the tangled locks which fell over his face to see how Pericles had taken this prophecy. The Great Archon was standing quietly beside Anaxagoras, and neither one gave any sign of being impressed by the oracle. The priest scowled ...
— The Spartan Twins • Lucy (Fitch) Perkins
... sons, is the oracle of Jehovah, Carrying out a plan which is not mine, Establishing a treaty contrary to my spirit, So that they heap sin upon sin; Who would set out for Egypt without asking my decision, To flee to the ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... moreover, I had the honour to sit in the General Assembly (meaning, as an auditor, in the galleries thereof), and have heard as much goodly speaking on the law of patronage, as, with the fructification thereof in mine own understanding, hath made me be considered as an oracle upon that doctrine ever since my safe and happy ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... scrupulously," Alessandro said with fervour. "We shall crown her Queen of our College of the Muses; she shall be priestess, sacred image, and oracle; and most honourably served." ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... artist;—of Talleyrand, and many other celebrities;—and of incidents which seemed to take us back to a former generation. Often at this and subsequent visits I ventured to suggest, (not professionally,) after some of these reminiscences, "I hope you have taken time to make a note of these";—but the oracle nodded a sort of humorous No.—A drive to Sleepy Hollow—Mr. Irving again managing the ponies himself—crowned our visit; and with such a coachman and guide, in such regions, we were not altogether unable to appreciate ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... to which Monk had sent them in 1651: Vol. IV. 296), Mr. James Wood of St. Andrews, old Mr. David Dickson, now Professor of Divinity in Edinburgh, and our perpetual friend Baillie. The minority, or Protesters, were led by such ministers as Mr. James Guthrie of Stirling, their first oracle, Mr. Patrick Giliespie of Glasgow University, Mr. John Livingston of Ancram, Mr, Samuel Rutherford of St. Andrews, and Mr. Andrew Cant of Aberdeen; with whom, as their best lay head, was Johnstone of Warriston. Peace-makers, such as Mr. Robert Blair of St. Andrews and Mr. ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... 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 Portuguese poet, sanctioned by the approbation ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... strong opposition from the women, the transition is portrayed touchingly and in all the fullness of its tragic import, in the "Eumenides" of Aeschylus. The story is this: Agamemnon, King of Mycene, and husband of Clytemnestra, sacrifices his daughter, Iphigenia, upon the command of the oracle on his expedition against Troy. The mother, indignant at the sacrifice of her daughter, takes, during her husband's absence, Aegysthos for her consort. Upon Agamemnon's return to Mycene, after an absence of many years, he is murdered by Aegysthos ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... Europe, contains in its true signification something mystic and religious. The female patriarch of the household was regarded with superstitious veneration. Her sayings were wise and good, and the warrior sat at her feet on the eve of battle and gathered from her as from an oracle, the confidence and courage which nerved him for the fight; and today the picture of an aged mother sitting by the hearth, and the recollection of her counsels, is a source of comfort and strength to many a son ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... determined by Mordecai, not by himself: he was no longer confident what questions he should be able to ask; and with a reaction on his own mood, he inwardly said, "I suppose I am in a state of complete superstition, just as if I were awaiting the destiny that could interpret the oracle. But some strong relation there must be between me and this man, since he feels it strongly. Great heaven! what relation has proved itself more potent in the world than faith even when mistaken—than expectation even ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... his easy-chair, talked for twenty years, the oracle of the literary world, and Boswell, soon after his death, gave to the world the clever record of these conversations, which has aided to secure the place in literature he had obtained by his writings. Goldsmith (1728-1774), had he never written poems, would stand among the ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... the great oracle, of course, as to the deer respectfully peeped at in the park, or the squirrels, the hares and rabbits, in the forest, and the inhabitants of the stream above or below. It was he who secured and tamed the memorials of their visit—two starlings for Dennet and Aldonza. The birds were to be ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Now, do you suppose that with these eighteen or twenty talents alone he fed his army, won the battle of Granicus, subdued Asia Minor, conquered Tyre, Gaza, Syria and Egypt, built Alexandria, penetrated to Lybia, had himself declared Son of Jupiter by the oracle of Ammon, penetrated as far as the Hyphases, and, when his soldiers refused to follow him further, returned to Babylon, where he surpassed in luxury, debauchery and self-indulgence the most debauched and voluptuous of the kings of Asia? Did Macedonia furnish ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... enjoyment 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
... compassion. We have succeeded 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 faith ...
— Memoir • Fr. Vincent de Paul
... injured page; It has been used as ill in every age, And is constrain'd with patience all to take: 160 For what defence can Greek and Hebrew make? Happy who can this talking trumpet seize; They make it speak whatever sense they please: 'Twas framed at first our oracle to inquire; But since our sects in prophecy grow higher, The text inspires not them, but they the ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... day I did not hate Nor doubt, nor quail nor curse. I, reverencing the people, did not bate My reverence of their deed and oracle, Nor vainly prate Of better and of worse Against the great conclusion of their will. And yet, O voice and verse, Which God set in me to acclaim and sing Conviction, exaltation, aspiration, We gave no music to the patent thing, Nor spared a holy rhythm to throb and swim About the name of him ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... the wide extended air, executing vengeance, executing slaughter, you do I supplicate, I supplicate: suffer the offspring of Agamemnon to forget his furious madness; alas! for his sufferings. What were they that eagerly grasping at, thou unhappy perishest, having received from the tripod the oracle which Phoebus spake, on that pavement, where are said to be the recesses in the midst of the globe! O Jupiter, what pity is there? what is this contention of slaughter that comes persecuting thee wretched, to whom some evil genius casts tear upon tear, transporting ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... the mortal thing, are conformed to; society itself is not her care, nor civilization, nor anything that belongs to man above the brute. Her word, consequently, need not disturb us; she is not our oracle. It rather belongs to us to win further victory over her, if it may be, by our intelligence, and control her vital, as we are now coming to control her material, powers and ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... your grandmother is just half a century behind the age,' she said. 'I hope you are not going to allow your life in London to be regulated by an oracle ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... for him, however, by Mr. Pickwick, that he had a handsome independence to retire on, upon which he still lives at an excellent public-house near Shooter's Hill, where he is quite reverenced as an oracle, boasting very much of his intimacy with Mr. Pickwick, and retaining a most unconquerable aversion ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... terrified as a child that wakes to find itself deserted in the dark. Also an uncanny sense of terrors to come oppressed me, till I could have cried aloud if only to hear the sound of a mortal voice. Yonder was the grim statue of Fate, the Oracle of the Kings of the Sons of Wisdom, which was believed to bow its stony head in answer to their prayers. I ran to it, eager for its terrible shelter, for on either side of it were figures of human beings. Even their cold marble was company of a sort, ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... spent in this silent entreaty, the oracle seemed to have sent forth its response; and Rube, returning the stopper to its place, came walking forward to ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... another class who try to work the oracle through the Governors, but that has not ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... his temper, yet he cannot keep it. 5. Can the process be analyzed and drawn out, or does it act like a dose or a charm which comes into general use empirically? 6. It is natural and becoming to seek for some clear idea of the meaning of so dark an oracle. 7. A laboring man knows he should not go to the ale-house, and his wife knows she should not filch when she goes out charing, but, nevertheless, in these cases, the consciousness of a duty is not all one with the performance of it. 8. Or rather, ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... this man, though thus greatly honoured, spake not greatly of himself; but when the oracle of God was delivered to him out of the bush, he said, Who am I, that thou dost send me? I am of a slender voice, ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... nevertheless, even now, say all this to Achilles if he will listen to you. Who knows but with heaven's help you may talk him over, for it is good to take a friend's advice. If, however, he is fearful about some oracle, or if his mother has told him something from Jove, then let him send you, and let the rest of the Myrmidons follow with you, if perchance you may bring light and saving to the Danaans. And let him send you into battle ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... Meadows! 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 ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... 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 directed; and what ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... first Viscount, was a man of light and leading in the Parliamentary party; "the oracle," as Clarendon styles him, "of those who were called Puritans in the worst sense, and steered all their counsels and designs." He deserved his nickname, Old Subtlely, for he had a clear insight into the real issues from the ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... Ostrogoths of Pannonia were supported by his powerful aid against the oppression of the neighboring Huns. The North (such are the lofty strains of the poet) was agitated or appeased by the nod of Euric; the great king of Persia consulted the oracle of the West; and the aged god of the Tyber was protected by the swelling genius of the Garonne. [6] The fortune of nations has often depended on accidents; and France may ascribe her greatness to the premature ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... The oracle spoke through the bearded lips of a farmer perched on the top step of his cabin porch. The while he construed omens, a setter pup industriously ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... fellow countrymen into a corner at the point of a logical bayonet from which they felt that there was no escape, he proposed that the question what was to be done should be referred to an oracle in which the whole country had the greatest confidence, and to which recourse was always had in times of special perplexity. It was whispered that a near relation of the philosopher's was lady's-maid to the priestess who delivered the oracle, and the Puritan party declared that the strangely ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... an Armada is at my heels, the cares of the moon do not concern me," went on Baldry, with the gravity of an oracle. "Had Nero not fiddled, perhaps ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... 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
... lie beyond it? If man is indeed, as Shakespeare describes him, 'a being of large discourse, looking before and after,' we could scarcely resist the belief, that, when once assured of the possibility of information on his head, he would, as it were, rush to the oracle, to have his absorbing problems solved, and his restless heart relieved of its load of uncertain forebodings."* [Bush's Statement of Reasons, &c., ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington
... to be found 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 ...
— The Frog Prince and Other Stories - The Frog Prince, Princess Belle-Etoile, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp • Anonymous
... a beast that flies," said the old priest, "even as the oracle declared. Glory to Pachacamac, even ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... the lovely Samuel was seen To grow beneath the tabernacle's shadow; Become the Hebrews' hope and oracle. May'st thou like him ...
— Athaliah • J. Donkersley
... said that the General has industriously propagated this opinion, in order that he might have more authority in civilizing a rude and ferocious people, as Lycurgus pretended to have the sanction of the oracle at Delphos, as Numa gave it out that he had frequent interviews with the nymph Egeria, or as Marius persuaded the Romans that he received divine communications from a hind. But I cannot allow myself to suppose that Paoli ever required the ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... should gradually be crushed, in proportion as the rulers sought to check the spirit of reform. Among the authors of this period may be mentioned Everaert and Machet. The refrain was much cultivated, and not, like the drama, for the expression of dissatisfaction. Anna Byns, an oracle with the Catholic party, wrote when the language was in its most degenerate state, under Margaret of Austria. She was styled the Sappho of Brabant, though her poems are all religious. They were translated into Latin, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... housekeeper at Laracor. Elsewhere Swift speaks of his "old Presbyterian housekeeper," "who has been my Walpole above thirty years, whenever I lived in this kingdom." "Joe Beaumont is my oracle for public affairs in the country, and an ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... boyhood to the threshold of youth—which was peculiar to Shelley. Most poets, probably, like most saints, are prepared for their mission by an initial segregation, as the seed is buried to germinate: before they can utter the oracle of poetry, they must first be divided from the body of men. It is the severed ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... 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
... the Athenians and the Dorians, an oracle had declared that the side would triumph whose king should fall. Codrus the Athenian king, to be more sure of sacrificing himself, assumed the dress of a peasant, and was soon killed; and the event soon spread ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... of the higher 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 Tongans were very fond), was carried next day ...
— The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study - Essay #8 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... gone off to Scythia, 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 ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... of inspirations. Let us oftener feel even the gentle southwest wind upon our cheeks blowing from the Indian's heaven. What though we lose a thousand meteors from the sky, if skyey depths, if star-dust and undissolvable nebulae remain? What though we lose a thousand wise responses of the oracle, if we may have instead some natural ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... far more than a Mason, he was a high initiate—the supreme oracle to which the secret societies applied for guidance. All this was disclosed a few years ago in the correspondence between Savalette de Langes and the Marquis de Chefdebien referred to in the previous ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... 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, ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... seems to be for ever escaping from legend and folk-tale, from word and custom, some breath of a world of beauty I sigh for but am not nigh to as these are. I think if that strange woman could have found a voice for what was in her heart she would have completed her vague oracle somewhat as ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... had faults, let us remember that he was stained by no crimes and vices, in an age of violence and wickedness. Until lately he has received almost unmixed praise. The Fathers of the Church revered him. To Erasmus, as well as to Jerome and Augustine, he was an oracle. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... 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 a man ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... himself. All love the Union, and are ready to fight, perhaps to die, for it. Aye! but what does that mean? Something as antagonistic in the interpretation thereof as the decisions touching an ancient oracle, a disputed biblical text, or a knotty passage from our ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... our diplomatic oracle, "she should have petitioned the First Consul for a permission to return, to France before she entered it; but out of regard for you, if she is prudent, she will not, I daresay, be ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... government awarded him a pension of L300 a year. By this time his great intellectual gifts had begun to be appreciated, and he was the first man of letters in England. In Thackeray's phrase, he "was revered as a sort of oracle." ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... to the Corinthians and endeavour to obtain some assistance from their founders. The answer he gave them was to deliver the city and place themselves under Corinthian protection. So the Epidamnians went to Corinth and delivered over the colony in obedience to the commands of the oracle. They showed that their founder came from Corinth, and revealed the answer of the god; and they begged them not to allow them to perish, but to assist them. This the Corinthians consented to do. Believing ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides |
