Lucky dip for lovers
Sarah Burton
THE LADIES’ ORACLE by Cornelius Agrippa Bloomsbury, £6.99, pp. 110 ISBN 0747579059 ✆ £5.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 First published in 1857, The Ladies’ Oracle dates from a period when very little literature of real merit was widely considered appropriate reading material for respectable young women, with the consequence that the presses fairly overran with little books designed to fill, rather than enrich, their idle moments — lest the Devil had plans for them — and otherwise kill the precious hours they had before serving their time as wives. Many of these handy volumes were promoted as instructive or edifying; others had less serious intentions and one suspects that many a hopeful maiden would have hastily shoved her copy of the Oracle into her needlework basket on hearing the approach of mater, pater, governess or nurse.
To use The Ladies’ Oracle one has first to select a question from a comprehensive list (‘The one that I love, what does he really think of me?’; ‘What must I do to prevent their discovering what I wish to conceal?’; ‘Shall I die maid, wife, or widow?’) and then, with eyes closed, place a finger on one of 16 symbols. By marrying the number of your question with the symbol you have selected, you are sent to another page to discover your answer.
The results, I have found, in stringent laboratory-style conditions, are infallibly correct. I am to have four husbands. I am thought pretty because I am. The world thinks me happier than I really am. (It was most gratifying to learn that the world thought my friend better than she really was.) My 84-year-old motherin-law is to have many lovers. (Since she has just moved in with us it is mightily convenient to have been thus forewarned. I have cancelled the single adjustomatic bed and ordered a durable double in its stead.) The Ladies’ Oracle will be a most serviceable book at Christmas when it will meet the nonsensical need to give a present when one has no idea of what the recipient likes, wants or needs, but must be given something, which at the same time will convey the idea that you have spent some time in coming up with something truly original: this is one for inscrutable teenage niece and aunt of indeterminate years and/or sexual orientation alike. (Or ditto uncle.) However, be warned: the news the Oracle foresees is not always what one hopes for. I asked, ‘Has my husband loved any other woman as much as he loves me?’ The reply came, ‘He has done so, and will doubtless do so again.’ But slightly daunted, I enquired, ‘Will my husband make me happy?’ only to be told, ‘Household affairs will give you a foretaste of hell’. Having had quite enough information about my husband’s future transgressions (for which he suffered quite considerably over dinner), I struck out on a different tack: ‘Shall I have many adventures?’ ‘Yes,’ came the reply. ‘So many that you will be disgusted.’ The only real virtue of books like The Ladies’ Oracle — apart from their value as period pieces — lies not in getting answers to your questions about your future: the very questions that you find yourself asking are far more telling.
Sarah Burton’s A Double Life: A Biography of Charles and Mary Lamb is available in paperback from Penguin at £8.99.
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