"Acrostical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will be dead in an hour," he said, "the fact of your being a dyspeptic need not trouble you any more than if you were an acrostic. Let me therefore suggest that you try a sausage ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... Evelyn retired into her book, and the two little girls put their heads together over a newly-arrived acrostic, calling on Elfie ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pointed them to a star of hope. There are five independent poems in as many chapters. Chapters 1, 2, 4 and 5 have each 22 verses or just the number of the Hebrew alphabet. Chapter 3 has 66 verses or just three times the number of the alphabet. The first four chapters are acrostic, that is each verse begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In chapter three, each letter is used in order and is three times repeated as the initial letter ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... psalms of the Psalter. In the first four the characteristic five-beat measure, by which the deep emotions, especially that of sorrow, were expressed, is consistently employed. Each of these four is also an acrostic, that is, each succeeding line or group of lines begins with a succeeding letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This acrostic form was probably adopted in order to aid the memory, and suggests that from the first these poems were written to be used in public. Even so the Jews ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... the young lover was, he does not seem to have been wholly lost to others of the sex, and at this same time he was able to indite an acrostic to another charmer, which, if incomplete, nevertheless proves that there was a "midland" beauty as well, the lady being presumptively some member of the family of Alexanders, who had ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... astonish the world. Then he told me that the matter had been delayed, but that he was no longer required to suppress it; that the revelation was in the form of a book—a book which revealed conclusively to any one who would take the trouble to follow the directions that the acrostic name of Francis Bacon in a great variety of forms ran through many—probably through all of the so-called Shakespeare plays. He said it was far and away beyond anything of the kind ever published; that Ignatius Donnelly and others had merely glimpsed the truth, but ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... namesake that he wrote many letters about him. Nearly every ship that sailed for Boston brought a letter from him to the Franklin family, and almost every letter contained a piece of poetry from his pen. One of his letters about that time contained the following acrostic on Benjamin's name: ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... ACROSTIC (Gr. akros, at the end, and stichos, line or verse), a short verse composition, so constructed that the initial letters of the lines, taken consecutively, form words. The fancy for writing acrostics is of great antiquity, having been ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... that he wrote L'Amorosa Fiammetta and the allegorical prose pastoral (with songs interspersed) which he entitled Ameto, and in which Fiammetta masquerades in green as one of the nymphs. The Amorosa Visione, written about the same time, is not only an allegory but an acrostic, the initial letters of its fifteen hundred triplets composing two sonnets and a ballade in honour of Fiammetta, whom he here for once ventures to call by her true name. Later came the Teseide, or romance of Palamon and Arcite, the first extant ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... letters of the Latin names of the kings of Bonaparte's family form the Latin word Nihil, (nothing;) and this used to be called the genealogical acrostic: ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... the context.] The Rectification of the subject (man) taken up by the Art, is achieved through the purification of the earthly elements according to the indication of the alchemists who call the beginning of the work "Vitriol," and form an acrostic from the initial letters of this word: "Visita Interiora Terrae, Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem" [ Visit the interior of the earth; by purifying you will find the hidden stone]. Half way up there floats ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... into which this grand poem is divided are named after the letters of the Hebrew alphabet; but from the translation given in our English Bible no one could infer that in the original every one of the eight verses in each section begins with the letter after which it is named, thus forming a very long acrostic. ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... mistress by employing it to form their acrostics. I have seen some of the latter where, both sides and crossways, the name of the mistress or the patron has been sent down to posterity with eternal torture. When one name is made out four times in the same acrostic, the great difficulty must have been to have found words by which the letters forming the name should be forced to stand in their particular places. It might be incredible that so great a genius as Boccaccio could have lent himself to these literary fashions; yet one of the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... a very curious acrostic, copied from a monument in the Church of St. Germans, Cornwall. You will perceive that it is in memory of "Johannes Glanvill, Minister;" and it is surmounted with the arms of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 232, April 8, 1854 • Various
... lends a certain distinction even to the verses of the people, which we are discussing here. Certain other stylistic qualities of these metrical epitaphs, which are intended to produce somewhat the same effects, will not seem to us so admirable. I mean alliteration, play upon words, the acrostic arrangement, and epigrammatic effects. These literary tricks find little place in our serious verse, and the finer Latin poets rarely indulge in them. They seem to be especially out of place in an epitaph, which should avoid studied effects and meretricious devices. But writers ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... dedication of "The Squire's Daughter Fantasia"? The composer of "The Starry Night Valses" would like a lithographic portrait of Mr. Lionel Moore to appear on the cover. A humble admirer of Mr. Lionel Moore's great impersonation of Harry Thornhill begged to forward the enclosed acrostic, and might he be allowed to print it in the Mudborough Young Men's Mutual Improvement Magazine? Messrs. Smith & Smith would be extremely obliged if Mr. Lionel Moore would honor them with his opinion of the accompanying pair of their ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... Unity, "is Mr. Washington Irving of New York. He has just returned from the Grand Tour, and he writes most beautifully. He has sent me an acrostic for ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... The answer to the acrostic is "mantrap"; the missing rhyme is "mishap." The entire solution was given in something under half an hour by Popsie Bantam. She was a very bright girl, and afterwards married a ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain |
