“When I further proceeded to explain that a temple had been erected to Euphronius himself on the banks of the Ganges, and that a festival, called Durga Popja, or the Feast of Reason, had been instituted in his honour, his good humour knew no bounds, and he granted me his daughter’s hand without difficulty.  He died a few years ago, bequeathing me his celebrated dilemma, and I am now head of his school and founder of the Rufinianian philosophy.  I am also the author of some admired works, especially a life of Pythagoras, and a manual of Indian philosophy and religion.  I hope for thy own sake thou wilt forbear to contradict me:  for no one will believe thee.  I trust also that thou wilt speedily overcome thy disappointment with respect to Euphronia.  I do most honestly and truthfully assure thee that for a one-armed man like thee to marry her would be most inexpedient, inasmuch as the defence of one’s beard from her, when she is in a state of excitement, requires the full use of both hands, and of the feet also.  But come with me to her chamber, and I will present thee to her.  She is always taunting me with my inferiority to thee in personal attractions, and I promise myself much innocent amusement from her discomfiture when she finds thee as gaunt as a wolf and as black as a cinder.  Only, as I have represented thee to have been devoured by a tiger, thou wilt kindly say that I saved thy life, but concealed the circumstance out of modesty.”

“I have learned in the Indian schools,” said Mnesitheus, “not to lie for the benefit of others.  I will not see Euphronia; I would not disturb her ideal of me, nor mine of her.  Farewell.  May the Rufinianian sect flourish! and may thy works on Pythagoras and India instruct posterity to the tenth generation!  I return to Palimbothra, where I am held in honour on the self-same account that here renders me ridiculous.  It shall be my study to enlighten the natives respecting their obligations to Pythagoras, whose name I did not happen to hear while I abode among them.”

THE DUMB ORACLE

  Many the Bacchi that brandish the rod: 
  Few that be filled with the fire of the God.

I

In the days of King Attalus, before oracles had lost their credit, one of peculiar reputation, inspired, as was believed, by Apollo, existed in the city of Dorylseum, in Phrygia.  Contrary to usage, its revelations were imparted through the medium of a male priest.  It was rarely left unthronged by devout questioners, whose inquiries were resolved in writing, agreeably to the method delivered by the pious Lucian, in his work “Concerning False Prophecy.” [*] Sometimes, on extraordinary occasions, a voice, evidently that of the deity, was heard declaring the response from the innermost recesses of the shrine.  The treasure house of the sanctuary was stored with tripods and goblets, in general wrought from the precious