All the wonder was how the gentleman, with his lack of worldly wisdom and agonizing consciousness of ridicule, could have been induced to take a measure at once so prudent and so laughable. — from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne
other room could hardly
Miss Sharp put out her right forefinger, and gave him a little nod, so cool and killing, that Rawdon Crawley, watching the operations from the other room, could hardly restrain his laughter as he saw the Lieutenant's entire discomfiture; the start he gave, the pause, and the perfect clumsiness with which he at length condescended to take the finger which was offered for his embrace. — from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
of religion could have
Mankind would have been the happier, if some things which are now allowed had from the beginning been denied to them; if the sanction of religion could have prohibited practices inimical to health; if sanitary principles could in early ages have been invested with a superstitious awe. — from The Republic of Plato by Plato
of recoverance changed her
r own default and perceiving that it was seen of all, past hope of recoverance, changed her note and proceeding to speak after a fashion altogether different from her beginning, came to the conclusion that it is impossible to withstand the pricks of the flesh, wherefore she said that each should, whenas she might, privily give herself a good time, even as it had been done until that day. — from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio
of ridiculous contrariety he
When Hippocrates heard these words so readily uttered, without premeditation, to declare the world's vanity, full of ridiculous contrariety, he made answer, that necessity compelled men to many such actions, and divers wills ensuing from divine permission, that we might not be idle, being nothing is so odious to them as sloth and negligence. — from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton
of rags covered his
A mass of rags covered his shoulders, and an old staved-in beaver, turned out like a basin, hid his face; but when he took it off he discovered in the place of eyelids empty and bloody orbits. — from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
of Russia could have
Like an experienced sportsman he knew that the beast was wounded, and wounded as only the whole strength of Russia could have wounded it, but whether it was mortally wounded or not was still an undecided question. — from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf
I have italicised and emphasized the words maintained in a continuous stream of tone , because it calls attention to one of the numerous resemblances between the style of Chopin and that of Wagner, who in his music dramas similarly keeps up an uninterrupted flow of richly colored harmonies to sustain the vocal part. — from Chopin and Other Musical Essays by Henry T. Finck
From the Latin of Vincent Bourne, by William Cowper [1731-1800] H2 anchor THE HOUSEKEEPER The frugal snail, with forecast of repose, Carries his house with him where'er he goes; Peeps out,—and if there comes a shower of rain, Retreats to his small domicile amain. — from The Home Book of Verse — Volume 3 by Burton Egbert Stevenson
in the time-honored manner of roundup cooks, he came softly up to the bed-tent, lifted a flap deprecatingly and announced in a velvet voice: "Breakfast is served, gentlemen." — from The Happy Family by B. M. Bower
of reciprocal compliments had
By some violent Whigs he was arraigned of injustice to Milton; by some Cambridge men of depreciating Gray; and his expressing with a dignified freedom what he really thought of George, Lord Lyttelton, gave offence to some of the friends of that nobleman, and particularly produced a declaration of war against him from Mrs. Montagu, the ingenious Essayist on Shakspeare, between whom and his Lordship a commerce of reciprocal compliments had long been carried on [223] . — from Life of Johnson, Volume 4
1780-1784 by James Boswell
of rail communication had
In practice, however, as he proceeded to point out, this ideal system could not be fully adopted, partly because the planning of railways is influenced by the configuration of the country, which may not permit of geometrical designs for iron roads; and partly because the trunk lines of national systems of rail communication had already been laid by private enterprise on the principle of catering for the social and economic needs of the community and of returning interest on capital expenditure, rather than of serving military or political purposes. — from The Rise of Rail-Power in War and Conquest, 1833-1914 by Edwin A. Pratt
one really cannot help
In the first place, one really cannot help (with the opening speech of the Prometheus , and the close of the Eumenides , and the whole of the Agamemnon in one’s mind) saying that this is rather hard on the Greeks. — from Matthew Arnold by George Saintsbury
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?