HOW TO MAKE ANAGRAMS.
“Now that’s too bad!” exclaimed little Bess, striking her pencil down quickly on the slate, which had for five minutes been shaded by her brown curls, as she bent earnestly over it. “I do say it’s too bad.”
“What is too bad, Bess?” asked her oldest sister, Mary, who, apparently occupied with her history, had been stealing occasional glances at the animated face over the slate, and watching with pleasing interest the busy fingers putting down letters, and tripping back and forth among them with her pencil-point. “What is too bad, Bess? I thought something was pleasing you very much.”
“Oh! did you? Well, I was just ready to have such a good one—these anagrams, you know. I surely thought I had extra axes, and just because of an r, it’s all spoiled!”
“What were you going to make your extra axes out of?” asked Mary, with a curious smile.
“Now, don’t make fun of me, please. Artaxerxes was my word.”
“Well, I should think that would just make it,” said Mary, thoughtfully. “Are you sure it will not?”
“Don’t you see that r?” asked Bess, holding up her slate and giving a bayonet thrust to the offending letter.
“Yes; but what has that r, all alone by itself, to do with it?”
“Why, it’s my proof. You see I write down my word, and rub out each letter of it as I use it in picking out my new words, so if none are left, my anagram is complete.”
“So you found an extra r, instead of an extra axe, in your way? Well, that is rather trying; but then there are plenty of more words, and it isn’t much work to get them out. You have a capital way. Besides, that wouldn’t have been so very good a one. You know ‘Aunt Sue' says the word and the sentence should bear some relation to each other. Now, if Artaxerxes had been a famous wood-cutter instead of a Persian king, it might have been too bad.”
“But wasn’t he a warrior, too and mightn’t they be battle-axes?”
Mary admitted the force of this, with a smile, as she went on to say:
“When we see such anagrams as ‘astronomers—no more stars,’ and ‘parishioners—I hire parsons,’ there is a certain sense of fitness that produces all the pleasure I can find in an anagram.”
“I know they’re better; but, then, not half of them do mean anything. I never could make such ones.”
“I should try, if I made them out at all, to have them just right. You must remember it takes some patience to get them, as well as to make them. You want the satisfaction of feeling paid when you’re through.”
“Patience! I should think it did!” said Bess, laughing and repeating, “Oh, Sam, cut my pen!” in a very comical manner. “If that didn’t take the patience of Job! And what did it mean, after all? I’m sure Webster don’t know! I think they ought to be fair, at least!”
“So do I,” said Mary, laughing at Bessie’s earnestness. “Now try the word homestead, Bess, and see what you can make of that.”
“Why, is it one?”
“I’m not quite sure; I was running it over in my mind to-day; but I had no slate to prove my canceling correct.”
“What did you think it made?”
“Do-eat-hams.”
“Oh, so it will,” said Bess, hastily putting down the letters; “and you know they do eat hams at homesteads!” Then Bess began drawing the tip of her forefinger slowly through each letter, repeating slowly, “do e-a-t-h- —There, now, that’s worse than Artaxerxes! If that e was only an a!”
Mary looked on the slate a moment, and then said, pleasantly, “But you see it isn’t!”
“How easy you do take things, Mary! Now, that would be so good, and it comes so near!”
“That’s the best way to take things, isn’t it, Bess?” said Mary, gently lifting Bessie’s face by the little fat chin, and looking into her large blue eyes lovingly. “Anagrams, you see, may teach us a lesson.”
“Almost anagrams, you should say,” said Bess. “Well, let’s try something else. Shall we try ‘Aunt Sue?’”
“Yes, put it down.”
“I can get—let me see—yes, ‘use-a-nut;’ but that don’t mean anything like ‘Aunt Sue.’”
“Oh, yes, that will do as well as your ‘battle-axes.’ You know, she keeps ‘nuts’ for the 20,000 to crack in her ‘drawer.’”
“Oh, that’s it!—let me send it.”
“Very well; and if I get time, we will try and have two or three more ready by the next number, and every one with a meaning.”
When Bess gave Mary her good-night kiss, she said to herself, “I like to get out puzzles; but I’d rather have Mary’s patience than all the anagrams in the world. I wonder if I should try very hard, if I ever could be like her!”
ANAGRAMS.
100. Tom can pet lions.
101. Main race.
102. Amy’s purple net.
103. Lo! a slop.
104. O! hark!
105. I harm the Chat.
106. Hen, I am he.
107. Mid nice rains.
108. I sent one part.
109. Tore a limb.
110. Test Mars.
111. Ira, run, go get it.
112. Cid is a common toad.
113. Care on lip.
114. Sal I run.
115. A lion; capture it.
116. Bind sure.
117. Priest tied guitar.
118. Accord I try not.
119. Mend it in a tree.
120. O! if I can sit so.
121. Is it anger? no.
122.
Fi rwods locdu fiatsys het rhtea,
Eht threa gimth nidf sles earc;
Utb oswrd eilk rumsem isbdr padret,
Dan veale tub typem rai.
A itleti dsai—nad yrtul isda—
Nac peeder yoj tarpim,
Naht shots fo dowrs chwih chear teh dahe
Tbu venre chout het ahetr.
the puzzle is, to get from the entrance, A, to the centre, B, without crossing any of the white lines.
123.
124. Transpose a Persian monarch into a part of the human frame.
125. Transpose an article of food into a verb signifying to abate.
126. To what port was Henry VIII. bound when he sought a divorce from his wife?
127. He was —— who came to ——. Express a truth taught in Scripture by the above, filling the two blanks with the same word taken first forward, and in the second blank backward.
128. Why would it be sure to be better?
129.
My whole, I lightly swim
The smooth lake’s sparkling brim,
Or down the river skim.
Transpose me, all around
The wide world’s endless bound,
In every clime I’m found.
130.
My first, you hear its sullen roar
When wandering by the ocean’s shore;
My second in the gambler’s art
Hath played no mean or paltry part,
But, fired with sordid thirst to win,
It often aids him in his sin.
My whole is something that is found
Upon the face of all around,
Yet if you take from me my face,
I am a title commonplace.
131. If the earth were annihilated, why would it be a pleasant pastime to make it again?
132. My first describes a person, add an adjective and show that person’s condition.
133. What is it you must keep after giving it to another?
134. How would you express in one word having met a doctor of medicine?
135. What is that which makes every person sick except the one who swallows it?
136. Why is a person who never lays a wager as bad as a regular gambler?
137. What is the difference between a sun-bonnet and a Sunday bonnet?
138. If I shoot at three pigeons on a tree, and kill one, how many will remain?
139. My first means more than one? my second means a solitary one; my third is highly popular now (with boys more than with their parents.—A. S.), and my whole you are to guess.
| 140. | A | TgEooNdT | , | 5a50ue500 | & | stoo500 | . |
| I | but | 1000is |
141. Transpose an animal into a bird.
142. Transpose part of our flag into spirits.
143. In a word of eight letters, the first three and the last three (transposed) name the same animal. The remaining two (transposed), with the last letter, name another animal. What is the word?
144.
I am composed of 12 letters:
My 11, 7, 2, 6, 1 is a place of trade.
My 9, 12, 3 is a locality where a certain individual passed the night.
My 5, 4, 10, 8 is a useful animal.
My whole is a well-known personage.
145. What town in Asia is a fit residence for a wild beast?
146. When does the weather show a good disposition?
147. Behead a crime and leave common sense.
FLOWERS.
148. A raised floor and a letter of the alphabet.
149. An article made by farmers, and an article made by mechanics.
150. An animal, and what he possesses, unless he has been very unfortunate.
151.
152. My second will be better as my first, if careful and energetic as my whole.
153. Why is a drummer the greatest person of the times?
154. When is a sewing-machine a very great comfort?
155. My first is a preposition; my second an animal; my third, in Saxon, means a meadow; my whole we all should be.
156. Three men—A, B, and C—traveling with their wives, come to a river which they must cross. The only boat they can have will carry but two persons at once. How can they all get to the opposite side, no lady being left without her husband in company with the other gentlemen?
157. Straight as an arrow, swift as the lightning, and bright as a sunbeam, I take my flight to the uttermost parts of the earth.
158. My first is a color; my second an agreeable exercise; my third an article of clothing; and my whole a celebrated character.
159. What two female names express a chemist?
160.
I’m pretty, I’m useful in various ways,
But if often you kiss me, ’twill shorten your days;
I part with one letter, and then I appear
What young men are fond of all days in the year;
I part with two letters, and then without doubt,
I’m just what you are if you can’t find me out.
(Fill the blanks in each with the same word, differently accented.)
161. The — to Fingal’s cave would — a stranger.
162. Men sometimes — travelers fainting in a —.
163. To select — often — a writer to annoyance.
164. As an excuse for illiberality, persons sometimes — to the —.
165.
COMETS, CONSTELLATIONS, AND FIXED STARS ENIGMATICALLY EXPRESSED.
166. Obstinacy and deceit.
167. A nickname, an epistle, and a laborer.
168. Swifter, a forest, and an affix.
169. A precious stone.
170. Past tense of a regular verb, and a security.
171. A prophetess and a color.
172. Find five letters capable of being transposed into five different words: two nouns, two adjectives, and a verb.
173. Three circles have their centers upon the same right line. The first has twice the area of the second, and is externally tangent to it. The third, of which the diameter is one foot, circumscribes the first and second. Required the radius of the greatest circle which can be inscribed within one of the two equal curvilinear triangles thus formed.
174. When does the weather resemble a lawyer?
175. My first, in sound, is a bird’s nickname; my second and third are pronouns; my fourth is three-quarters of what fashionable ladies like to do; my whole is an adjective that has been sadly perverted.
176. My first is a verb, my second a nickname or verb, and my whole is to circulate.
177.
178. Why is a passenger by the 12.50 train very likely to be too late?
179.
Nine less ten,
With fifty twice told,
Is what many feel
When they’are growing old.
180. What two letters give a word meaning to debate?
181. Behead an animal, transpose, and leave another animal.
182. What does the boy, in his first surprise, say to his water-wheel?
183. What is the political character of a water-wheel?
184. In what coin is its financial value estimated?
185. What is the water-wheel paradox?
186. I am a word of four letters: in me may be found, 1 a verb, 2 an animal, 3 a viscid liquid, 4 a science, 5 a conjunction, 6 a preposition.
PLANTS, FLOWERS, ETC.
187. Part of every animal and part of every vegetable.
188. A beast of burden and a poison.
189. A sweet substance and a cluster.
190. A weapon and part of the body.
191. A household article and what often forms part of it.
192.
193.
Dear friends, your notice now I crave,
For I’m a king, a queen, a slave;
Each human being claims my name,
And rightly, too, so where’s the blame?
Although I’m never more than one,
Just cross me once, you’ll find I’m some!
Whate’er my state of toil or rest,
I always love myself the best.
I may be greater, never less,
So now, young Merrys, please to guess.
194. My first is a kind of tippet, my second a Latin preposition, my third is exact, my fourth is a conjunction, and my whole is what my first was named after.
195. a My first (in sound), second, and whole are birds.
b My first, second, and whole are plants.
196. Both my first and second (in sound) are found in the scale. Entire, I am a term of praise.
197. Transpose a coin into some bonds of union.
198. Transpose a bird into an animal.
199. Transpose another animal into a bird.
200. Transpose what we often see on a creek into what we often see (on warm summer days) in a creek.
201. Transpose part of our flag into spirits.
202. Transpose an animal into a vegetable.
203. Transpose the inhabitants of a country into a covered vehicle.
204. Transpose a part of day into a stick.
205.
206. My second is the same as my first, and my whole is a shrub.
207. My first is a bird; my second an insect; my whole is "daddy-long-legs."
208. I am a beautiful tree; curtail and transpose me into another tree; transpose the latter into a useful article; replace the last letter, behead and transpose, and you have a boundary line. Curtail the entire word twice, and you have a picture; take the second and third letters away from the entire word, transpose the remainder, and you have another tree.
209. Behead a hod, and leave a kind of cloth.
210. Entire, I am something funny; beheaded, an entrance; beheaded again, I am a fragment.
211. E10100010001000UN1100ATXN.
212.
Deep in the wood of spreading oaks,
Beneath the tangled boughs,
Where Nature dwells untouched by man,
My first in luxury grows.
My next in gorgeous robes arrayed,
Is queen of all her kind,
Where Nature’s touch is most displayed
In beauty undefined:
My whole a lovely garden treasure,
Emblem of love, of joy, and pleasure.
213. Why is the hottest country the best?
With the letters of the words in italics form the original words to fill the blanks:
214. I met a gunner —— his game.
215. Rob, I came not to apply the ——.
216. He was so —— that he did me an evil turn.
217. I mob seven cats owing to my ——.
218. A —— has often to mind his map.
219. My first is a body of water, my second a relative, my whole a time.
220. Which are the most entertaining of bats?
221.
222. Change my head several times, and make (1) a color, (2) a regard, (3) a nickname, (4) to harden, (5) to excite, (6) a mate, (7) an implement, (8) a fish, (9) to form in mass, (10) a part of a coil, (11) to catch.
223.
I am composed of 8 letters:
My 7, 4, 6 is a tumor.
My 5, 3, 1, 8 is a fluid.
My 2, 6 is a pronoun.
My whole is sometimes worn by a lady or gentleman.