A modest, pensive looking girl, apparently about seventeen, was timidly
holding forth her hand for examination, at the time we entered.
Avarabet, (for that was the name of this philosopher,) uttered two or
three words, with a significant shake of his head, upon which I saw the
rising tear in her eyes. She withdrew her hand, and had not courage to
let him take another look.
A fat woman, of a sanguine temperament, holding a little girl by the
hand, then stepped up and showed her fingers. He pronounced her amorous,
inconstant, prone to anger, and extravagant; that she had made one man
miserable, and would probably make another. She also abruptly withdrew,
giving manifest signs of one of the qualities ascribed to her.
An elderly matron then approached, holding forth one trembling, palsied
hand, with a small volume in the other. Avarabet hesitated for some
time; examined the edges as well as the surface of the nails; drew his
finger slowly over them, and then said,--"You have a susceptible heart;
you are in sorrow, but your affliction will soon have an end." It was
easy to see, in the look of the applicant, signs of pious resignation,
and a lively hope of another and a better state of existence.
I thought I perceived in the scene that was passing before us, an
exhibition that is not uncommon on our earth, of cunning knavery
imposing on ignorance and credulity; and I expressed my opinion to the
Brahmin; but he assured me that the class of persons in the moon, who
were resorted to on account of their supposed powers of divination, was
very different from the similar class in Asia or Europe, and that
oracular art was here regularly studied and professed as a branch of
philosophy.
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