I was led to arrange "The Oracles from the Poets," by observing the vivid interest taken by persons of all ages in a very common-place Fortune-Teller in the hands of a young girl. It occurred to me that I might avail myself of this love of the mysterious, for the intellectual enjoyment of my family circle.
Instead, however, of the pastime of a few days, it has been the work of every leisure moment for six months. The first movement was the pebble thrown into the stream; circle after circle formed, until I found, with old Thomas Heywood,
"My pen was dipt
As well in opening each hid manuscript,
As tracts more vulgar, whether read or sung
In our domestic or more foreign tongue."
How rich these six months have been in the purest and highest enjoyment, I will not stop to say; but to be allowed to float in such an atmosphere, buoyed up with the sweetest sympathies of friends, may be conceived to be no common happiness. And now, with the hope of communicating a portion of this pleasure more extensively, I yield this volume up as a public offering, for the advancement of those rational social enjoyments which seem to belong to the moral movement of the age.
I do not know how far early associations may have influenced me, but I distinctly recollect the first Oracle of my childhood. At the age of eight years I attended a female seminary in a village. The classes were allowed a half hour for recreation, and they usually played on the green within view of the academy building. One day I observed a group of girls of the senior class pass beyond the bounds and enter the church, which was opened for some approaching occasional service. I followed quietly. They walked through the aisle with agitated whispers, and ascended to the pulpit. Then each, in turn, opening the large Bible, laid a finger, with closed eyes, on a verse, and read it aloud, as indicating her fate or character.
I well remember the eagerness with which I listened on the stairs, for I was afraid to crowd into the pulpit with the big girls. As they retired, I entered. I can recall the timid feeling with which I glanced round the shadowy building, the awe with which I closed my eyes and placed my small finger on the broad page, and the faith with which I read my Oracle.
I must make an early apology for venturing to alter the tenses of authors so as to conform to answers. I tried the method of literal extracts, but they were deficient in spirit and directness. I can now only warn my readers not to quote the Oracles habitually, as exact transcripts, but resort to the originals. I have trembled as if it were sacrilege to turn thus the streams of Helicon into this little channel, but I hope the evil may be balanced by the increased acquaintance of many with slighted authors.
I have not allowed myself to select from periodicals, though American journals contain perhaps more favorable specimens of our literature than the published volumes to which I have felt bound to confine myself.
My selections have extended so far beyond the limits of my plan, that I propose furnishing another volume, in the course of the year, with additional questions, including translations from popular authors. One question in the present volume, To what have you a distaste or aversion? is, I think, nearly exhausted, while its opposite, What gratifies your taste or affections? presents still an ample field for gleaning. Will this furnish any argument against those ascetics, who think misery preponderates over happiness? One fanciful question in the succeeding volume will be, What is the name of your Lady-love? and another, Of him who loves you?
I shall consider with respectful attention friendly suggestions made to me directly, or through my publishers, preparatory to the arrangement of another volume, particularly in bringing to view any poet, who, by accident, may have escaped attention.
I have been urged to communicate, in a preface, the literary results which have necessarily flowed from the examination and comparison of such a mass of poets, but the task is beyond the limits of this humble effort. It would, indeed, be a rich field for a Schlegel or De Stäel.
A few curious speculations, however, may present themselves to the most superficial critic. In Shakspeare, for instance, so affluent in various delineations of character and personal appearance, I looked in vain for places of residence. There seemed not to be even a fair proportion of passages descriptive of musical sounds, hours, seasons, and (except in The Winter's Tale) of flowers.
In Wordsworth, scarcely a flower or musical sound is described. They are alluded to, but not painted out. The poetry of Crabbe, though abounding in numerous characters, could surrender almost none for my purpose, on account of their being woven into the general strain of his narratives. Shelley, Landon, and Howitt, are eminently the poets of flowers, while Darwin, with a whole Botanic Garden before him, and Mason, in his English Garden, gave me, I think, none that I conceived fairly entitled to selection.
Few passages of any sort, except those hackneyed into adages, could be gained from Milton, on account of the abstract, lofty, and continuous flow of his diction. Coleridge has corresponding peculiarities.
Keats and Shelley are the poets of the heavens. Byron, with faint exceptions, does not describe a flower, or musical sound, or place of residence.
The American poets, in contradistinction to their elder and superior brethren of the fatherland, display a more marked devotion to nature, with which a continual glow of religious sentiment aptly harmonizes.
But I am recalled by these lengthening paragraphs to my disclaimer, and only wish that an abler and more philosophical pen than mine could take my recent experience.
After a close examination of the earlier dramatic poets, though I have rescued from them some exquisite gems, it seems to me far from desirable that they should be brought forward as prominently as many of their wordy commentators desire. A kind of pure instinct in the British taste has placed Shakspeare without a brother on the throne. The fathers of dramatic poetry acted according to their light, but it was not the "true light." A few relics, selected with caution, may honor their memory, but we should be careful while warning our youth against the impurities of some modern poets, how we extol these vulgarities of a darker moral age.
Before parting I must ask clemency for classing all my authors among Poets, that great word so deservedly sacred, and to which I bow with deep reverence; but the Parnassus of my Oracles has many steps, and I cannot but feel kindly towards those, who sit gracefully even on the lower platform, nor apprehend that they will do more than look up deferentially to the laurel-crowned worthies at its summit. Besides, it has been the character of my taste, or perhaps philosophy, whenever literally or figuratively I gather a wreath of flowers, to twine the wild blossom as heartily as the exotic, and even insert a weed, if its color or contrast lends beauty to the combination;—and thus with my Oracles.
QUOTED IN THE ORACLES.
ENGLISH.
AMERICAN.
The Game of the Oracles is composed of the following fourteen Questions, with sixty Answers each, numbered.
| What is your character?—Gentleman. | Page | 21 |
| What is your character?—Lady. | " | 35 |
| What is the personal appearance of your lady-love? | " | 51 |
| What is the personal appearance of him who loves you? | " | 69 |
| What is the character of your lady-love? | " | 83 |
| What is the character of him who loves you? | " | 97 |
| What season of the year do you love? | " | 111 |
| What hour do you love? | " | 129 |
| What musical sounds do you love? | " | 147 |
| What is your favorite flower? | " | 161 |
| What gratifies your taste or affections? | " | 175 |
| For what have you a distaste or aversion? | " | 193 |
| Where or what will be your residence? | " | 209 |
| What is your destiny? | " | 227 |
FOR THE GAME OF THE ORACLES FROM THE POETS.
FOR A FORTUNE-TELLER WITH TWO PERSONS.
The person who holds the book asks, for instance, What is your character? The individual questioned selects any one of the sixty answers under that head, say No. 3, and the questioner reads aloud the answer No. 3, which will be the Oracle.
FOR A ROUND GAME.
Where there are more than six persons present, it will be well to select the following questions, as the game, connected with the discussions to which it will probably give rise, will be too protracted by introducing the whole, and the remaining questions are of a sentimental rather than personal class.
| What is your character?—Gentleman. | Page | 21 |
| What is your character?—Lady. | " | 35 |
| What is the personal appearance of your lady-love? | " | 51 |
| What is the personal appearance of him who loves you? | " | 69 |
| What is the character of your lady-love? | " | 83 |
| What is the character of him who loves you? | " | 97 |
| Where or what will be your place of residence? | " | 209 |
| What is your destiny? | " | 227 |
A questioner having been selected, he calls on each individual to choose a number under the question proposed, and reads each answer aloud as the number is mentioned. If the party agree to the arrangement, the author of the Oracle can be demanded by the questioner, and a forfeit paid in case of ignorance, or a premium given for a correct answer.
If the person whose Oracle is read cannot tell the author, any one of the party may be allowed a trial in turn, and receive the premium.
All our knowledge is ourselves to know.
Pope.
Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us,
To see oursels as others see us;
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
And foolish notion!
Burns.
WHAT IS YOUR CHARACTER?
GENTLEMAN.
You kiss not where you wish to kill,
You feign not love where most you hate,
You break no sleep to win your will,
You wait not at the mighty's gate.
Lord Vaux.
2. E'en your failings lean to virtue's side.
Goldsmith.
3. Polite, yet virtuous, you have brought away
The manners, not the morals of the day.
Cowper.
4. Thou art slow to science; the chart and letter'd page
Have in them no deep spell whereby thy spirit to engage;
But rather thou wouldst sail thy boat, or sound thy bugle-horn,
Or track the sportsman's triumph through the fields of waving corn,
Than o'er the ponderous histories of other ages bend,
Or dwell upon the sweetest page that ever poet penn'd.
Mrs. Norton.
5. A spider you may best be liken'd to,
Which creature is an adept, not alone
In workmanship of nice geometry,
But is beside a wary politician.
Taylor.
6. I know thee brave—
A counsellor subtle, and a leader proved—
With wisdom fitting for a king's right hand;
Firm in resolve, nor from thy purpose moved:
Then what lack'st thou to render thee beloved?
Thou'st wooed and won a gentle heart, and more—
Hast trampled it to dust.
Allan Cunningham.
7. I would rather wed a man of dough,
Such as some school-girl, when the pie is made,
To amuse her childish fancy, kneads at hazard
Out of the remnant paste.
John Tobin.
8. Thou, with a lofty soul, whose course
The thoughtless oft condemn,
Art touch'd by many airs from heaven
Which never breathe on them.
Moved too by many impulses,
Which they do never know,
Who round their earth-bound circles plod
The dusty paths below.
Albert G. Greene.
9. You look the whole world in the face,
For you owe not any man.
Longfellow.
10. You loiter, lounge, are lank and lazy,
Though nothing ails you, yet uneasy;
Your days insipid, dull, and tasteless,
Your nights unquiet, long, and restless;
And e'en your sports at balls and races,
Your galloping through public places,
Have sic parade, and pomp, and art,
The joy can scarcely reach the heart.
Burns—Twa Dogs.
11. Thou'st never bent at glory's shrine,
To wealth thou'st never bow'd the knee,
Beauty has heard no vows of thine,
Thou lovest ease.
R. H. Wilde.
12. A gentleman of all Temperance.
Measure for Measure.
13. You are positive and fretful,
Heedless, ignorant, forgetful.
Swift.
14. There is one rare, strange virtue in thy speeches,
The secret of their mastery—they're short.
Halleck.
15. For contemplation framed,
Shy and unpractised in the strife of phrase,
Yours is the language of the heavens, the power,
The thought, the image, and the silent joy.
Words are but under-agents in your soul.
Wordsworth.
16. You take delight in others' excellence,
A gift which nature rarely doth dispense;
Of all that breathe, 'tis you, perhaps, alone,
Would be well pleased to see yourself outdone.
Young—Epistles.
17. You are the Punch to stir up trouble,
You wriggle, fidge, and make a riot,
Put all your brother puppets out.
Swift.
18. You'd shake hands with a king upon his throne,
And think it kindness to his majesty.
Halleck.
19. The meanest thing, earth's feeblest worm,
You fear to scorn or hate;
But honor in a peasant's form
The equal of the great.
Ebenezer Elliott.
20. You may be thrown among the gay and reckless sons of life,
But will not love the revel scene or head the brawling strife.
Eliza Cook.
21. You are one,
Who can play off your smiles and courtesies
To every lady, of her lap-dog tired,
Who wants a plaything.
Southey.
22. Come, rouse thee now;—I know thy mind,
And would its strength awaken;
Proud, gifted, noble, ardent, kind.
Anna P. Dinnies.
23. In choice
Of morsels for the body, nice are you,
And scrupulous;—
And every composition know
Of cookery.
Pollok—Course of Time.
24. A man thou seem'st of cheerful yesterdays,
And confident to-morrows.
Wordsworth.
25. Sir, I confess you to be one well read
In men and manners, and that usually
The most ungovern'd persons, you being present,
Rather subject themselves unto your censure,
Than give you least occasion of distaste,
By making you the subject of their mirth.
Ben Jonson.
26. When nae real ills perplex you,
You make enow yoursel' to vex you.
Burns.
27. You speak an infinite deal of nothing.
Merchant of Venice.
28. Calm, serene,
Your thoughts are clear and honest, and your words,
Still chosen most gently, are not yet disguised
To please the ear of tingling vanity.
W. G. Simms.