"Simile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... things of life grow out of the tiniest ones. There is the old simile of the acorn and the oak, for instance. But oaks take a long time to grow, and everybody concerned in oak culture is calmly expecting them to do it. Imagine an acorn exploding to let out an oak huge enough ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... major, "that it is not only un-necessary, but conceited in those who would show their reading; but this does not disprove the advantages which are obtained. The mind well fed becomes enlarged: and if I may use a simile, in the same way as your horse proves his good condition by his appearance, without ascertaining the precise quantity of oats which has been given him; so the mind shows by its general vigour and power of demonstration, that ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... domestic entomology, is there more than lies on the surface in the elegant simile "As snug as a bug in a rug?" A rough variety of dog was termed a "rug" in Shakspeare's time; quartered on which, the insect might find good entertainment—a plentiful board, as well as a snug lodging. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 232, April 8, 1854 • Various
... speake, and so be taken in something I would not utter, which happilye the itchyng ears of young gentlemen would so canvas that when I would call it in, I cannot, and so be caught with the Tortoise, when I would not[23]." And, when she had finished her discourse, Surius again employs the simile for the purpose of turning a neat compliment, saying, "Lady, if the Tortoise you spoke of in India were as cunning in swimming, as you are in speaking, she would neither fear the heate of the sunne nor the ginne of the Fisher." This ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... there in Paradise, is His presence. Here on earth, there in Paradise, is the love and prayer and praise going forth to Him, and the strength and power of God coming back from Him. You know His own simile, "I am the Vine, ye are the branches." From the central Vine the life rises and flows to every farthest branch and twig and leaf, connecting them all in the one life. He the Sacred Vine is on earth with us and in Paradise with them. Some of ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... over the world. A steep bank of loose earth of any kind, that has been at all exposed to the weather, contains in it, though it may not be three feet high, features capable of giving high gratification to a careful observer. It is almost a fac-simile of a mountain slope of soft and decomposing rock; it possesses nearly as much variety of character, and is governed by laws of organization no less rigid. It is furrowed in the first place by undulating lines, by the descent of the rain, little ravines, ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... forgotten that the branch of the subject which we have been studying may be looked upon as representing the lowest steps only of a great staircase which ascends, until, to our gaze, it is lost in unknown infinite heights. It is only the foot of a ladder, to use another simile, resting on the material earth, which we have been considering; at most the two or three lowest rungs. But to the eyes of some, even now and here, glimpses of angels ascending and ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... the knees. The rest of the outline, according to the imagination of the observer, may assume that of an elephant, or something, perhaps, "very like a whale." Some fanciful observation of this kind may have suggested the otherwise unaccountable simile to Curran. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... this excellent simile. God's common call is to all His creatures who live within the sound of His Gospel. His special call is when He bestows the grace, peace, and pardon of the Gospel of Christ upon His people. The brooding ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... have lied, as I have done so often before. I so far thought of my father, but I had forgotten my mother. And now! they are both ill, both silent, both as down in the mouth as if—I can find no simile. You may fancy how happy it is for me. If it were not too late, I think I could almost find it in my heart to retract, but it is too late; and again, am I to live my whole life as one falsehood? Of course, it is rougher than hell upon my father, but can I help it? They don't see either ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... an antiquarian interest. It was given by the architect, and includes, in the lower section, a picture of Renwick presenting the plans of the Cathedral to Cardinal McClosky. The rose window is said to be a fac-simile of the rose window at Rheims, recently destroyed by German bombs; a provenance that may be the more securely claimed since the original has been immolated. As a matter of fact, it too bears the stigma of the Centennial period, of ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... breath and control, he sat up and entertained in his mind the conception of meeting death with dignity. However, the conception did not come to him in such terms. His idea of it was that he had been making a fool of himself, running around like a chicken with its head cut off—such was the simile that occurred to him. Well, he was bound to freeze anyway, and he might as well take it decently. With this new-found peace of mind came the first glimmerings of drowsiness. A good idea, he thought, ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... is this mark upon the handkerchief?" asked Natalie, for she had seen a fac-simile of the little device, upon old Vingo's bandanna, which he used to lend her when she was a child, and she had handled it so carefully, because he had told her that it was the most valuable thing he owned in the world, beside his Bible, and she had ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... feeling that the brilliancy of his simile has been taken off by the interruption. "I was going to say a propos of Miss Bella's remark about no one gaining any ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... instructed concerning Christian liberty, and the abrogation of the ceremonial law, because the gospel was as yet not fully propagated; and when the Mosaical rites were like a dead man not yet buried, as Augustine's simile runs. So that all this can make nothing for holidays after the full promulgation of the gospel, and after that the Jewish ceremonies are not only dead, but also buried, and so deadly to be used by us. Hence it is, that the Apostle will not bear with the observation ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... sufficiently curtly in a careless simile. A Socialist means a man who thinks a walking-stick like an umbrella because they both go into the umbrella-stand. Yet they are as different as a battle-ax and a bootjack. The essential idea of an umbrella is breadth and protection. The essential idea of a stick is ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... voice should be used in reading a Simile in poetry? The simile should be read in a lower tone than the rest ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... bestowed several weeks' labour to disfigure the whole, altering page for page, line for line, and word for word, but interspersed numberless dots, strokes, and flourishes; so that when he published a fac-simile, every one admired the learning of Vella, who could translate what no one else could read. He complained he had lost an eye in this minute labour; and every one thought his pension ought to have been increased. Everything prospered about him, except his eye, which some thought was not so bad neither. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... undergarment which I cannot bring myself to name, and ripped it to the very tail, nearly dragging me off the saddle. When we reached level ground, the vestment alluded to was hanging, wet and sticky, on my arms, like a child's pinny unfastened behind, or, to use a more elegant simile, like the front half of a herald's tabard. What I should have done was to have reversed the thing, and put it on like a jacket; but, being in a desperate hurry, and slightly annoyed by the accident, and not feeling the sun after just leaving the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... handsome singular-looking man. His hair was light, his whiskers a little darker, and his blonde moustache curled up towards his eyes like corkscrews or a ram's horns (congratulate me on my simile). A very merry laughing eye he had, too, blue of course, with that coloured hair; altogether a very pleasant-looking man, and yet whose face gave one the idea that it was not at all times pleasant, but on occasions might look terribly ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... irresponsibles, drifting like ships without rudders—had brought into Trevison's heart a great longing. He was like a man who for a long time has been deprived of the solace of good tobacco, and—to use a simile that he himself manufactured—he yearned to capture someone from the East, sit beside him and fill his lungs, his brain, his heart, his soul, with the breath, the aroma, the spirit of the land of his youth. The appearance of Miss Benham at Manti had thrilled him. ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... merely made use of the cockroach simile because it occurred to me as I traversed the Italian quarter and gazed upon its denizens, an occasional accidental rub against one of whom made me shudder. Innocent they may be, but they don't look it, and when I was taken up a ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... wait, say a week at least having killed all your mules for you, before I shot down your dogs—but not being exactly Phoibos Apollon, you are to know further that when I did think I might go modestly on, ... [Greek: omoi], let me get out of this slough of a simile, never mind with what dislocation of ancles! Plainly, from waiting and turning my eyes away (not from you, but from you in your special capacity of being written-to, not spoken-to) when I turned again you had grown formidable somehow—though that's not the word,—nor ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... lies, and's of no use at all, But, in its full perfection of decay, Turns vinegar, and comes again in play. Thou hast a brain, such as it is indeed; On what else mould thy worm of fancy feed? Yet in a Filbert I have often known Maggots survive when all the kernel's gone. This simile shall stand, in thy defence, 'Gainst such dull rogues as now and then write sense. Thy style's the same, whatever be thy theme, As some digestion turns all meat to phlegm. He lyes, dear Ned, who says, thy brain it barren, Where deep conceits, like vermin breed in ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... the house, he thought how like the life offered by Auntie Sue was to the quiet waters of The Bend, and—his mind finished the simile—how like the life to which he would go was to the rapids at Elbow Rock; and, yet, he reflected, the waters could never reach the sea without enduring the turmoil of the rapids. And, again, the thought came, "The Bend is ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... pretended "antique manuscripts" preserved among the Chatterton papers in the British Museum, as well as the fac-simile of the "Yellow Roll," published in the Cambridge edition of Chatterton's works, are, however, so totally unlike the writing of the era to which they purport to belong, that no doubt need be ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... with a torn shirt that exposed a dirty shoulder and a freckled back, with trousers so badly shattered that two hands could hardly hold them together,—as Mr. Pennington expressed it, Bud looked like a second-hand boy. The simile pleased Pennington so that he renewed his laughter, and paid no heed to the chatter of the pack clamoring to tell all in one breath, the history of the incident that had led to Bud's dilapidation. Also they were drawing gloomy pictures of the appearance of ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... hat when you speak of feeding on hares." (Considering the nature of the boy's toilet the simile was hardly an apt one.) "Our ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... crew of the Catamaran saw it—suspended on outspread wing, without any perceptible motion except in its tail; the long, forked feathers of which could be observed opening and closing at intervals; according to the sailor's simile, like the blades of a pair of scissors. But this motion might be merely muscular, and compatible with a state of slumber or unconscious repose. At all events, the bird has been seen to keep its place in the air for many minutes at a time, with no other motion observable than that of ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... be done with it if it were won? "Get a fac-simile made, and an appropriate inscription," recommended Lord Erymanth. "Probably they would take ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... confessional of a family or a neighborhood is the bedside of one who sees the green fields only as did the Lady of Shalott, by holding a looking-glass so that it reflects the out-of-doors. Let me carry that simile one step further, and say that the mirror of the soul when kept free from fleck and stain, reveals the beauties of the universe. And I am not sure but that the soul, freed from the distractions of sense ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... Mac called us, and the world must apply the simile as it thinks fit. The wizard of the Never-Never weaves his spells, until hardships, and dangers, and privations, seem all that make life worth living; and then holds us "tethered goats"; and every time the town calls us with promises of gaiety, ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... well known as a friend of Art and a public donor, reprinted this tract, in fac-simile, from his own copy; twenty-seven copies of the original 12mo size, and twelve on old paper, small 4to. I have an original copy, wanting the plate, and with "Price sixpence" carefully erased, to the honor ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... Ottley's History of Engraving, vol. i. p. 86; where a fac-simile of this cut is given—which, in the large paper ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... vivid and artistic expression. If his statement does not kindle the imagination, it falls short of his aim. He visualizes his most subtle and abstract conceptions—sees the idea wedded to its correlative in the actual world. A new figure, a fresh simile gave him a thrill of pleasure. He went hawking up and down the fields of science, of trade, of agriculture, of nature, seeking them. He thinks in symbols, he paints his visions of the ideal with pigments drawn from the world all about him. To call such men as Emerson and Carlyle painters ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... ye seen, etc. The simile in lines 104-115 could have been written only by one familiar with mountain regions. Browning knew the Alps and Apennines. Did David at any time live in ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... his portraits. To the names of Chopin's friends and acquaintances to whom I am indebted for valuable assistance, those of Madame Peruzzi and Madame Schumann have, therefore, to be added. My apologies as well as my thanks are due to Mr. Felix Moscheles, who kindly permitted a fac-simile to be made from a manuscript, in his possession, a kindness that ought to have been acknowledged in the first edition. I am glad that a second edition affords me an opportunity to repair this much regretted omission. The manuscript ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... not help smiling at the simile, and bent down her head. Brook was watching her, he understood and was annoyed, for he loved his mother ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... a long arm, and the multitude became silent. Then he spoke with much strong simile drawn from the phenomena of nature, and Henry, although he knew little of what he said, knew that he was speaking with eloquence. He learned later that Captain Pipe was urging with zeal and fire the ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... chosen to work out your own destiny, and for many a night your uncle fumed over it until at last he said that the child who fought for scraps in the gutter grew to be worth any two of the spoon-fed. You know how fond he is of forcible simile, and he frowned when I suggested that Canada was not a gutter. Still, it is too late to consider whether you did well, and I ask, as a last favor, if you are ever unfortunate, if only for the sake of old times, you will let us know. And now I wish you all ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... those monarchs. They must fancy everybody lives in a flutter of flags and walks about under triumphal arches, like as if I were to stitch shoes in my Sunday clothes." By a defiance of chronology Crowl had them on to-day, and they seemed to accentuate the simile. ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... in Cornwall was by very narrow stony lanes to "Place," a curious house restored from old plans and drawings to a fac-simile of a Cornwall house of the past as it had been defended by one of the ancestresses of the present family, the Treffrys, against an attack made upon her, by the French during her husband's absence. The hall was lined with Cornwall ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... acknowledged organ. Major Carteret shared this feeling. Only this very morning, while passing the city hall, on his way to the office, he had seen the steps of that noble building disfigured by a fringe of job-hunting negroes, for all the world—to use a local simile—like a string of buzzards sitting on a rail, awaiting their opportunity to batten upon the helpless ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... arises from the inability to express the literal meaning conveyed in a Metaphor. The application of the principle of Proportion to the explanation of Metaphor has been found to dissipate much of this confusion. The youngest pupils readily learn how to "expand a Metaphor into its Simile;" and it is really astonishing to see how many difficulties that perplex young heads, and sometimes old ones too, vanish at once when the key of "expansion" is applied. More important still, perhaps, is the exactness of thought introduced by this method. The pupil knows that, if he ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... but, if rejected, my MSS. were courteously returned, with a note from the editor. As a sample I give the following. The original is a lithographed fac-simile of the handwriting of Mr. Dickens, printed in blue ink, the date and the title of the manuscript being ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... all the energy of the expression, she asked the meaning of the French word marcassin. As there are no wild boars in England, those to whom she addressed herself, told her that it signified a young pig. This scandalous simile confirmed her in the belief she entertained of his perfidy. Brisacier, more amazed at her change, than she was offended at his supposed calumny, looked upon her as a woman still more capricious than insignificant, and never ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... my Gertrude; but your simile might be juster. Rather let these banks be as our lives, and this river the one thought that flows eternally by both, blessing each with ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... et Santrae dicendum ita censuissent obsecuturum sese fuisse ait, contra perpetuam Latinae linguae consuetudinem. Neque se tam insignite locuturum, absona aut inaudita ut diceret. Litteras autem super hac re fecit, item inter haec exercitia quaedam ludicra; et quiesco non esse his simile quae supra posui, nee a quiete dictum, sed ab eo quietem; Graecaeque vocis [Greek: eschon kai eskon], lonice a verbo [Greek: escho ischo] et modum et originem verbum illud habere demonstravit. Rationibusque haud sane frigidis docuit ...
— The Roman Pronunciation of Latin • Frances E. Lord
... and fed their live stock. They seem to have realized that there are no short cuts in the processes of nature, and that the law of compensations is invariable. The foundation of their agriculture was the fallow[1] and one finds them constantly using it as a simile—in the advice not to breed a mare every year, as in that not to exact too much tribute from a bee hive. Ovid even warns a lover to allow fallow seasons to ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... frittered away, and then the whole line fell into the scorched grass. Another line followed. They were tall men, and did not falter as they came forward, but it seemed to me they walked like men conscious of going to death. They died. The simile is outworn, but it was exactly as though some invisible ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... the neat simile used by Dr. Bernhard C. Hesse, it is like cloth-making where "ten fibers make 300 yarns which are ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... prior to the physical universe, which is His grandson. The whole universe is thus seen as the orderly manifestation of one principle. Philo, expanding a favorite image of the Haggadah, illustrates God's creation by the simile of a king founding a city. "He gets to him an architect, who first designs in his mind the parts of the perfect city, and then, looking continually to his model, begins to construct the city of stones and wood. So when God resolved to found the world-city, He ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... fiftieth anniversary of Chopin's death, published a special number in October, 1899, with the picture of a farmer named Krysiak, born in 1810, the year after the composer. Thereat Finck remarked that it is not a case of survival of the fittest! A fac-simile reproduction of a hitherto unpublished Polonaise in A flat, written at the age of eleven, is also included in this unique number. This tiny dance shows, it is said, the "characteristic physiognomy" of the composer. In reality this polacca is thin, a tentative ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... is the most dreadful simile we have ever come across even in poetry. Mr. Griffiths should beware of originality. Like beauty, it is ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... illustration is not an appropriate one, because the sun is apprehended in the water erroneously only while the antaryamin really abides within all things, and therefore must be viewed as sharing their defects (19); we reply that what the simile means to negative is merely that Brahman should, owing to its inherence in many places, participate in the increase, decrease, and so on, of its abodes. On this view both similes are appropriate (20).—Analogous similes we observe to be employed in ordinary life, as ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... as are the modern beliefs in the venomous properties of the toad, or the ancient beliefs in the occult and mystic powers of various parts of its frame when used in incantations. Shakespeare, whilst attributing to the toad venomous qualities, has yet immortalized it in his famous simile by crediting it with the possession of a "precious jewel." But even in the latter case the animal gets but scant justice; for science strips it of its poetical reputation, and in this, as in other respects, shows it, despite fable and myth, to be zooelogically an interesting, ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... in now, and was standing behind his future father-in-law's chair. "A skyrocket is a bad simile," he remarked. "Everybody knows what ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... blades; how gallant Richard clove an anvil in twain, or something quite as ponderous, and Saladin elegantly severed a cushion; so that the two monarchs were even—each excelling in his way—though, unfortunately for my simile, in a patriotic point of view, Richard whipped Saladin's ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... "reason." An explanation of some kind was an absolute necessity, just as some working explanation of the universe is necessary—however absurd—to the happiness of every individual who seeks to do his duty in the world and face the problems of life. The simile seemed to me at the time an ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... element added to the list of disagreeables—or, to follow his simile, another card was dealt him which he would like to have discarded, but which he must keep in his hand and play with what skill he might. He was not the care-free Charming Billy Boyle who had made ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... may call up conflicting mental images. When using metaphor, simile, etc., carry one figure of speech through, instead of shifting to another, or dropping suddenly back ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... simile a toy? will he be poison'd with a simile? Brother Thorello, what a strange and vain imagination is this? For shame be wiser, on my ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... not waste time in simile or in metaphor. She calls him a black-hearted scoundrel and clumps him over ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome
... processes of aeration in bread-making, the oldest and most time-honored is by fermentation. That this was known in the days of our Saviour is evident from the forcible simile in which he compares the silent permeating force of truth in human society to the very familiar household process of raising bread by ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... For unnumbered years Mrs. Butt had miscooked his meals. The little house was almost inconceivable without Mrs. Butt. And Mrs. Butt had departed. Already he missed her as one misses an ancient and supersensitive corn—if the simile may be permitted to one; it is a simile not quite nice, but, then, Mrs. Butt was not quite nice either. The fault was not ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... But see where your stern father comes It is not meet that he should find you thus." Puff. Hey, what the plague!—what a cut is here! Why, what is become of the description of her first meeting with Don Whiskerandos—his gallant behaviour in the sea-fight—and the simile of the canary-bird? Tilb. Indeed, sir, you'll find they will not be missed. Puff. Very well, very well! Tilb. [To CONFIDANT.] The cue, ma'am, if you please. "Con. It is not meet that he should find you thus. Tilb. Thou counsel'st right; but 'tis no easy task For barefaced grief to wear ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... of rubbish, purporting to come from the Fayyum, were the alleged poems of Sappho. You swallowed the bait which has waited for you so long, and, if it is any consolation to you, I will admit that in the opinion of the profession, to continue my piscatorial simile, I have landed the ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... equally conspicuous in the Character of an Earl, as Drake was in that of a Sailor, was Robert Devereux Lord Essex. This unfortunate young Man was not unlike in character to that equally unfortunate one FREDERIC DELAMERE. The simile may be carried still farther, and Elizabeth the torment of Essex may be compared to the Emmeline of Delamere. It would be endless to recount the misfortunes of this noble and gallant Earl. It is sufficient ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Smith, criticism became light-headed, and fairly exhausted its whole vocabulary of panegyric in giving him welcome. "There is not a page in this volume on which we cannot find some novel image, some Shakspearian felicity of expression, or some striking simile," said the critic of the "Westminster Review." "Having read these extracts," said another exponent of public opinion, "turn to any poet you will, and compare the texture of the composition,—it is a severe ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... himself to cover it, almost alone. Lorn himself was reminded of the heroes of Highland romance, as he saw the knightly figure riding calmly along the shore of the lake, guarding his flying army by the might of his presence, and the Archdeacon of Aberdeen found a simile for him in the romances of Alexander; but three men named M'Androsser, a father and two sons, all of great strength, sprang forward, vowing to slay the champion, or make him prisoner. One seized his rein, and ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... isogamy[obs3]. analogue; the like; match, pendant, fellow companion, pair, mate, twin, double, counterpart, brother, sister; one's second self, alter ego, chip of the old block, par nobile fratrum[Lat], Arcades ambo[obs3], birds of a feather, et hoc genus omne[Lat]; gens de meme famille[Fr]. parallel; simile; type &c. (metaphor) 521; image &c. (representation) 554; photograph; close resemblance, striking resemblance, speaking resemblance, faithful likeness, faithful resemblance. V. be similar &c. adj.; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... struck by the simile, but he reflected that Aurora looked much more like a butterfly than a caterpillar, a fact which, if it meant anything, should signify that he knew the worst beforehand. Ercole declined to enter into any account of his conjugal experiences, ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... bed-chamber, with its antique air and quaint garniture, there stood a bedstead, the fac-simile of the one upon which he died. Here we lingered long and lovingly, and turned to another department, in one corner of which stood a harpsichord, once belonging to his niece, Miss Lewis. In fancy I could see her fairy fingers ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... intellect, and cordially promotes that royal exultation in the affluence of physical vitality and of spiritual freedom that so often seems to lift her above the common earth. There have been moments when it seemed not amiss to apply Shakespeare's own beautiful simile to the image of queen-like refinement, soft womanhood, and spiritualised intellect that this wonderful actress presented—"as if an angel dropped down from the clouds." Her Portia was stately, yet fascinating; a woman to inspire awe and yet to captivate every heart. Nearer to Shakespeare's ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... A fac-simile of the letter[2] which he addressed to the English iron masters a short time after his arrival in London is preserved in the United States National Museum. It contains a cross section, side elevation and ground plan of the rail for which he ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various
... fac simile copies of all the plates and figures referred to, but it is taken for granted that those sufficiently interested in this study to examine this paper have access to the published fac ...
— Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices • Cyrus Thomas
... simile," said Calton, sipping his wine; "but I'm afraid the police will have a more difficult task in discovering the man who committed the crime. In my opinion he's ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... illustrated by numerous examples of the most exquisite Greek and Roman Coins, executed in fac-simile of the Originals, in actual relief, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various
... This simile, comparing Jerusalem to these ancient cities of evil repute, was answered by Isaiah's opponents with the statement that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were idol worshipers, but that the people of Judah brought their sacrifices ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... probability, of scarlet hue, but now almost rivals in color the jet-black locks which it confines. His face— well, we will pass that over, and, on our return to civilized life, will refer the curious inquirer for a fac-simile to the first best painting of Salvator, there to select at pleasure the most ferocious bandit countenance that he can find. And now the remainder of his person. He wears an open jacket of dirt-crusted serge, covered in front with a gorgeous eruption of plated buttons, and a waistcoat ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... Cornelio's father, conducting him into a series of perilous mishaps and desperate dangers, to which his adventure with the jaguars and rattlesnakes, while suspended between the two tamarinds, was nothing more, according to the simile of Sancho Panza, than "tortus y pan pintado" (couleur de rose). To proceed, then, ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... I travelled about America with two sticks, like a Japanese nobleman with his two swords. I fear the simile is too stately. I bore more resemblance to a cripple with two crutches or a highly ineffectual version of the devil on two sticks. I carried them both because I valued them both, and did not wish to risk ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... motley crowd they were—Mohammendans, Chinese, I-pien, Hua Miao, and other hooligans. Mobilization was effected by spies taking round secret cases (the ch'uandan) containing two pieces of coal and a feather—a simile meaning that the rebels were to burn like fire and fly like birds. Meanwhile, military forces had been dispatched from Yuen-nan-fu, the capital (twelve days away), and from Ch'u-tsing-fu (seven or eight days away), and these, to the strength of a thousand, now came to ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800. To which is appended a fac-simile reprint of Dr. George Buchanan's Oration on the Moral and Political Evil of Slavery, ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Grant Palmer entered, carrying in his hand a valise which seemed to be a fac-simile of the one lying on the sofa. Palmer's quick eye caught sight of it as he ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... You're eaten up with vain pride." Joyce bit her lip to choke back a swelling in her throat. "The Dave we used to know wasn't like that. He was friendly and sweet. When folks were kind to him he was kind to them. He wasn't like—like an old poker." She fell back helplessly on the simile she had ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... at dear home I found all I loved in good health. My excellent wife and affectionate boys and girls clung round me, and I was as happy as an innocent sucking pig, or, if my reader thinks the simile not in place, as happy as a city ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... invent a new simile, it is like a pebble dropped into a placid lake; the ripples form ever-widening circles, and the influence of an influence ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells
... use a simile, when we say, "The actions of princes are like those great rivers, the course of which every one beholds, but their springs have been seen by few." "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people." "The music of Caryl was like the memory ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... tur-r-key in a trap," his mother was wont to comment. "Always stretchin' his neck an' lookin' up an' away—when he mought git out by looking down." And the simile was so apt that it stayed in ...
— The Lost Guidon - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... bone (I don't mind the simile) not because he was afraid, I think, but because Mr. John Dane's chin was much squarer and firmer than his; and because such sense of justice as he had told him that the ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... looked at her fully, with calm and fearless dignity. "I have no claim upon you, thank God! I am less to you than a dropped lamb, lost in a thicket of thorns, is to the sheep that bore it! That's a rough country simile,—I was brought up on a farm, you know!—but it will serve your case. Think nothing of me, as I think nothing of you! What I am, or what I may be to the world, ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... example of the process. I cannot refuse, said Parmenides; and yet I feel rather like Ibycus, who, when in his old age, against his will, he fell in love, compared himself to an old racehorse, who was about to run in a chariot race, shaking with fear at the course he knew so well—this was his simile of himself. And I also experience a trembling when I remember through what an ocean of words I have to wade at my time of life. But I must indulge you, as Zeno says that I ought, and we are alone. Where shall I begin? ...
— Parmenides • Plato
... 1806), "Although the war, which terminated in a separation of the two nations, inflicted wounds which, it is to be feared, still rankle, yet the more considerate of both countries have long desired (if I may be allowed a transatlantic simile) that the hatchet of animosity might be buried in the grave of oblivion" (page 6). A little further on he confesses his timidity, when, speaking of the political leaders at home, he says, "I could have enlarged on the demerits of these political impostors, but I feared I might disgust the English ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... known walnuts only growing in the forest, gazed down now with something of wonderment at this one which stood alone. A sense of its spreading magnificence was borne in upon him, and though the simile was foreign to his mind, it seemed as distinct and separate from the thousands of other trees that blended in the leagues of surrounding forestry as might a mounted and sashed field marshal in the centre of an ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... Rhetoric.—A special characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry is the rarity of similes. In Homer they are frequent, but Anglo-Saxon verse is too abrupt and rapid in the succession of images to employ the expanded simile. The long poem of Beowulf contains only five similes, and these are of the shorter kind. Two of them, the comparison of the light in Grendel's dwelling to the beams of the sun, and of a vessel to a flying bird, have been given in the original Anglo-Saxon on pages 16, ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... The 'Jumping Frog' was the first piece of writing of mine that spread itself through the newspapers and brought me into public notice. Consequently, the 'Saturday Press' was a cocoon and I the worm in it; also, I was the gay-coloured literary moth which its death set free. This simile has been used before. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Danske! When he does wake up he will find his conquering methods a trifle out of date. Paragot did not take this view of his simile. I believed him, however, and looked forward to the day when his winning design for a cathedral would strike ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... from its fellows. In most of her poems, particularly the later ones, everything by way of punctuation was discarded, except numerous dashes; and all important words began with capitals. The effect of a page of her more recent manuscript is exceedingly quaint and strong. The fac-simile given in the present volume is from one of the earlier transition periods. Although there is nowhere a date, the handwriting makes it possible to arrange the poems with general ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... This simile has occurred to poets in all lands, in all ages. In an old Chinese poem (JOLOWICZ, der Poetische Orient, s. 7) we are told that 'in the south there lives a tree, the Ivy Ko clings and winds around it, bringing the most excellent of joys and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... beginning 'swa bieth geomorlic' seems to be an effort to reach a full simile, 'as ... so.' 'As it is mournful for an old man, etc. ... so the defence of the Weders (2463) bore heart-sorrow, etc.' The verses 2451 to 2463-1/2 would be parenthetical, the poet's feelings being so strong as to interrupt the simile. The punctuation of the fourth ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... was this truth in the legal simile of furniture: that the slave, though certainly a man, was in one sense a dead man; in the sense that he was moveable. His locomotion was not his own: his master moved his arms and legs for him ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... within brackets to have been an afterthought but to have been written by the same hand as the rest of the poem. I suppose xii. 103 to have been also added by the writer when she decided on sending Ulysses back to Charybdis. The simile suggests the hand of the wife or daughter of a magistrate who had often seen her father ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... like a stuck pig," replied one of the men, resorting to simile to aid his description, as is the wont ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... treating upon the affections, the lecturer held out the idea that as manifested in the sexes they were opposite if not somewhat antagonistic, and required a union as in chemistry to form a perfect whole. The simile appeared to me far from a correct illustration of the true union. Minds that can assimilate, spirits that are congenial, attract one another. It is the union of similar, not of opposite affections, which is necessary for the perfection of the marriage bond. There seemed a want ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... abominations indulged in with impunity, upon the other, he witnesses a sublime generosity which cannot be weakened or crushed. The modest violet may exhale its fragrance through an overgrowth of noxious weeds—and humanity bears out the simile. ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... image, of course,—not his. It was not a simile that was in his mind, or is in anybody's at such a moment,—it was a pang of wordless passion, and then a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... confidante; but Troubridge, though now one of the Board that issued his orders, was his inferior in grade, and he resented the imagined condition of being baffled in his wishes by a junior. The latter, quick-tempered and rough of speech, but true as his sword, to use St. Vincent's simile, must have found himself put to it to uphold the respect due to his present position, without wronging the affection and reverence which he undoubtedly felt for his old comrade, and which in the past he had shown by the moral courage that even ventured to utter ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... A Simile, or Comparison, is a figure of speech in which we point out or assert a likeness between things otherwise unlike; as, The gloom of despondency hung like a cloud ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... that famous simile is, read a few lines from Wordsworth's "On the Sea-Shore," which lingers in our mind like a strain of ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... as balmy as a day in June, and to complete the simile of the old song, he had put on a blue frock-coat, dispensing with an overcoat, after sending Adolf down three times to make sure that there was not the least suspicion of east in the wind; and the frock-coat was buttoned ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... are summoned forthwith. The ring is clamorously identified, the reward is paid, and the finder nearly thrust out of doors. The lady returns and expresses some little dissatisfaction with her sister and sister-in-law, because they happen to have paid forty or fifty dollars for a fac-simile of her diamond ring—a fac-simile made out of real pinch-beck ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... speaking on the railway which it had been decided should start from Cairns to Herberton, he argued, "S'help me G——, Mr. Speaker, they are building a railway at Cairns over a mountain, down which a crow couldn't fly without putting breeching on." The simile convulsed the House, but did not ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... critic who peruses these writings will, doubtless, have the goodness to point out that the simile of the Mediterranean heath is applied to two personages in this chapter—to Ottilia and Dorothea, and say, Psha! the fellow is but a poor unimaginative creature not to be able to find a simile apiece at least for the girls; how much ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... habiliments; if she be fickle at all, (and speak to the fact, ye disappointed bachelors and ye complaisant husbands!) in what is she more fickle than in dress? We might waste a life in finding a suitable simile for her volatility in this matter: rainbows with changing colours, water on a windy day, the wind itself in the month of March, the much-desiderated perpetual motion; all are feeble similes to describe a woman's fickleness ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... with reference to this island, that when the Spaniards under the orders of Juan Ceron landed here in 1509, it was as full of people as a beehive is full of bees and as beautiful and fertile as an orchard. This simile and some probably incorrect data from the Geography of Bayaeete led Friar Inigo Abbad to estimate the number of aboriginal inhabitants at the time of the discovery at 600,000, a number for which there is no warrant in any of the writings of the Spanish chroniclers, ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... thus? Or hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?" Here the Apostle really seems to have thought of predestination. But the simile must not be pressed, lest we arrive at the Calvinistic blasphemy that God positively predestined some men to heaven and others to hell. The tertium comparationis is not the act of the Divine Artificer, but the willingness of man to yield his will to God like clay in the ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... are perfectly ideal. The infant that Raffael's Madonna holds in her arms cannot be guessed of any particular age; it is Humanity in infancy. The babe in the manger in a Dutch painting is a fac-simile of some real new-born bantling; it is just like the little rabbits we fathers have all seen with ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... of the Brahmin as an inflammation in the body politic I disown all offensive and invidious implications. I am only using a convenient simile. You may reverse it if you like and make the disease stand for the Purbhoo, in which case the Brahmin will be the blister. Which way fits the facts best will depend upon which caste chances at the time to be nearest to the vitals ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... A photographic fac-simile of the letter now in New York, and a photostat of the original copy retained by WASHINGTON are in the collection of ...
— Washington's Masonic Correspondence - As Found among the Washington Papers in the Library of Congress • Julius F. Sachse
... simile!" said I; yet I couldn't help laughing. "I, too, am obstinate as a pig; and being proud of my Dutch blood, I like her the better for hers, all the more because it's obstinate blood, and it wouldn't be true Dutch if it were not. I tell you, ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... laughed and said with mock gravity, "Don't you know that the trunk of an elephant that can lift the most ponderous weights, disdains not to take up the most minute? This is the case with my great mind, (laughing anew,) and you must allow the simile is worthy the subject. Jesting apart, I do like a little scandal—I believe all English people do. An Italian lady, Madame Benzoni, talking to me on the prevalence of this taste among my compatriots, observed, that when she first knew ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... "Well, my simile isn't far wrong in other respects," he replied, with a flash of her spirit. "But anyhow I pictured you surrounded by all the beautiful things of your life here, forever in the scent of flowers, in the ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... pen stuck through them, of course," said she, "to make the simile more complete. Of all the ladies of my acquaintance I think Lady Dido was the most absurd. Why did she not do as Cleopatra did? Why did she not take out her ships and insist on going with him? She could not bear to lose the land she had got by a swindle, and then she ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... there in its haunting enigmas and unsolved mysteries an answer to the enigma of self. Like life, like truth, like love, like all realities viewed from the angle of human vision, the desert is a paradox. Its vast emptiness is more than full; its unashamed sterility is but the simile ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... Hindu poet of Upper Hindustan; his poetry is of a sombre hue, but natural and sympathetic; the simile here is, that no creature has yet survived the pressure of the heavens and the earth; the heavens, being in motion, representing the upper millstone, and the earth (supposed to be at ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... (Taine) saw him once when quite young. He is well known; first, through his correspondence, and next, by his mother's diary. ("Journal d'une bourgeoise pendant la Revolution," ed. Locroy.)—We have a sketch of David ("La Demagogie a Paris en 1793," by Dauban, a fac-simile at the beginning of the volume), representing Queen Marie Antoinette led to execution. Madame Julien was at a window along with David looking at the funeral convoy, whilst he made the drawing.—Madame ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... it?" he suggested, naively reinforcing his simile. "I don't know what the dickens they're all meant for, but a good many of them seem to have escaped from the Lyceum—Juliets, and Portias, and Shylocks, ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore |
