"mbt" hidden in books

membership being therefore

The object of these was primarily religious: the worship of a particular deity, the care of a particular temple; the first condition of membership being therefore community of blood.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius

Men behaved themselves

Though in the various Examples which I have here drawn together, these several great Men behaved themselves very differently towards the Wits of the Age who had reproached them, they all of them plainly showed that they were very sensible of their Reproaches, and consequently that they received them as very great Injuries.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

manhood before the

48 If we may judge by his name, Papias was a native of Phrygia, probably of Hierapolis [160] , of which he afterwards became bishop, and must have grown up to youth or early manhood before the close of the first century.
— from St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon A revised text with introductions, notes and dissertations by J. B. (Joseph Barber) Lightfoot

more bitter than

So good a lady that no tongue could ever Pronounce dishonour of her-by my life, She never knew harm-doing-O, now, after So many courses of the sun enthroned, Still growing in a majesty and pomp, the which To leave a thousand-fold more bitter than 'Tis sweet at first t' acquire-after this process, To give her the avaunt, it is a pity Would move a monster.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

manner by the

This has been effected chiefly through the natural selection of numerous successive, slight, favourable variations; aided in an important manner by the inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts; and in an unimportant manner, that is, in relation to adaptive structures, whether past or present, by the direct action of external conditions, and by variations which seem to us in our ignorance to arise spontaneously.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

My best thanks

My best thanks are due to Rev. J. H. Kennedy and Mr. F. Purser for much valuable aid during xlv the passage of this translation through the press.
— from Kant's Critique of Judgement by Immanuel Kant

me by the

“I wrote to her as follows: “‘Dear mamma, come directly and sign my marriage contract with a gentleman introduced to me by the duke, with whom I shall be leaving for Rome on Monday next.’
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

MR BOSWELL TO

]— 'MR. BOSWELL TO DR.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

meant by the

What is meant by the exaggeration of Dickens?
— from English Literature Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World by William J. (William Joseph) Long

may be the

Silence may be the order for him, too.
— from The Lost Prince by Frances Hodgson Burnett

must be the

The very thing which I should have thought must be the main business of a statesman—the determination of the proper relations of classes to one another—we have handed over to the chances of competition.
— from A Modern Symposium by G. Lowes (Goldsworthy Lowes) Dickinson

may be taken

It is needless to trace the network of elusion in which the administrative ingenuity of Chinese officialdom was exercised, and the specimen given above may be taken as typical of the 46 system.
— from The Englishman in China During the Victorian Era, Vol. 1 (of 2) As Illustrated in the Career of Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., D.C.L., Many Years Consul and Minister in China and Japan by Alexander Michie

myself but that

I require some care of myself, but that care is not ineffectual; and when I am out of order, I think it often my own fault.
— from Life of Johnson, Volume 4 1780-1784 by James Boswell

mind but the

What was paraded, as a kind of transcendental analogy between things not before suspected of resemblance, discovered by the "spiritual insight" of the moral seer, is in fact no more than a grave clench,—a solemn quibble,—a conceit; arising not from the perfection of mind, but the imperfection of language.
— from The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 of Literature, Science and Art. by Various

must be the

"Then there must be the one that had the secret hiding-place in it!"
— from The Sapphire Signet by Augusta Huiell Seaman

manufactured by the

["Polo's description of the wine-pots of Samara hung on the trees 'like date-palms,' agrees precisely with the Chinese account of the shu theu tsiu made from 'coir trees like cocoa-nut palms' manufactured by the Burmese.
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 2 by Rustichello of Pisa

men began to

The men began to throw nuggets at her, and Maudie, never pausing in the dance, caught them on the fly.
— from The Magnetic North by Elizabeth Robins

may be true

It often refers to a very wonderful story, which may be true enough, but which is so marvellous that it requires a firm trust in the veracity of the narrator for us to believe it.
— from Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy by Frank Richard Stockton

This tab, called Hiding in Plain Sight, shows you passages from notable books where your word is accidentally (or perhaps deliberately?) spelled out by the first letters of consecutive words. Why would you care to know such a thing? It's not entirely clear to us, either, but it's fun to explore! What's the longest hidden word you can find? Where is your name hiding?

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