Oracular

L "Sire, this is Bertha Pearl's neat handywork, Her name , see here, Midsummer, ninety-one '— Elfinan snatch'd it with a sudden jerk, And wept as if he never would have done, Honouring with royal tears the poor homespun; Whereon were broider'd tigers with black eyes, And long-tailed pheasants, and a rising sun, Plenty of posies, great stags, butterflies Bigger than stags—a moon—with other mysteries. LI The monarch handled o'er and o'er again These day-school hieroglyphics with a sigh; Somewhat in sadness, but pleased in the main, Till this oracular couplet met his eye Astounded— Cupid, I do thee defy! It was too much. He shrunk back in his chair, Grew pale as death and fainted—very nigh! "Pho!

Not just sit around on my chair in Europe and look at famous cities, but make one!" Once a month, Sam's closest friends, Tub Pearson, his humorous classmate who was now the gray and oracular president of the Centaur State Bank, Dr. Henry Hazzard, the heart specialist, Judge Turpin, and Wheeler, the packinghouse magnate, came in for dinner and an evening of poker, with Fran as hostess at dinner but conveniently disappearing after it. Fran whisked in from her charity bridge as he was going up to dress. In her sleek coat of gray squirrel she was like a snow-sprinkled cat pouncing on flying leaves. She tossed her coat and hat to the waiting maid, and kissed Sam abruptly. She was virginal as the winter wind, this girl who was the mother of Emily about to be married. "Terrible bore, the bridge.

When I hear this oracular sentence, I am for a moment absorbed in thought, emphasizing to myself each word separately that I may come at the meaning of it, that I may find out by what degree of consanguinity They are related to me , and what authority they may have in an affair which affects me so nearly; and, finally, I am inclined to answer her with equal mystery, and without any more emphasis of the "they"—"It is true, they did not make them so recently, but they do now."

"He was," Mr. Scogan replied, "and with intention. It made him seem even profounder than he actually was. But it was only in his aphorisms that he was so dark and oracular. In his Tales he was always luminous. The ..." "But couldn't you give us a specimen," Denis broke in—"a concrete example?"

"They were an oracular force holding us in bondage. Those pearls of the Tyrant's awareness magnified that hold. He didn't predict events, he created them."

The oracular functions of the god rose naturally out of the above fundamental attributes, for who could more appropriately impart to mortals what little foreknowledge Fate permitted of her decrees than the agent of her most awful dispensations?