"Simile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... society on these occasions gave her solid pleasure; so did the drive and the lunch; the satisfactions were apparently upon the same plane. She was aware of the plum, if I may be permitted a brusque but irresistible simile; and with her mouth open, her eyes modestly closed, and her head in a convenient position, she waited, placidly, until it should fall in. The Farnham ladies would have been delighted with the result of their labours in the sweet reason ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... in the street, with their long loose cloaks and huge bonnets, you would speak differently. O Dick, how happy they all seem! don't they? and how cosy everything looks! Such a contrast to our great big rooms, where you feel like a—a—" Winnie stopped short for lack of a simile, and her ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... radiance that has been held the most sublime simile that language yields. Then, following with a most delicate transition, we have the genial and gentle humour in the picture of the pedagogue and his pupils, and then the village inn and the rustics discussing news "much older ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... 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 branches are in ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... Almost an unaltered copy of a Portolano from the 14th century. From Nordenskjoeld's fac-simile atlas). This illustrates the remarkable correctness in the drawing of the Mediterranean basin and the coasts of W. Europe, reached by the Italian and Balearic coast-charts, or Portolani, in ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... Inattention to all around them. Hyaena can loll in her Coach, with something so fixed in her Countenance, that it is impossible to conceive her Meditation is employed only on her Dress and her Charms in that Posture. If it were not too coarse a Simile, I should say, Hyaena, in the Figure she affects to appear in, is a Spider in the midst of a Cobweb, that is sure to destroy every Fly that approaches it. The Net Hyaena throws is so fine, that ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... How near was she to be undone, Till pious love inspired her son! What cannot our vicegerent do, As poet and as patriot too? Let his success our subjects sway, Our inspirations to obey, And follow where he leads the way: Then study to correct your taste; Nor beaten paths be longer traced. No simile shall be begun, With rising or with setting sun; And let the secret head of Nile Be ever banish'd from your isle. When wretched lovers live on air, I beg you'll the chameleon spare; And when you'd make ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... apply to the sinner some searching and fearful text of scripture, he was tempted to withhold it, on the ground that it condemned himself also; but, withstanding the suggestion of the tempter, to use his own simile, he bowed himself, like Samson, to condemn sin wherever he found it, though he brought guilt and condemnation upon himself thereby, choosing rather to die with the Philistines than ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... satisfied of this than a tiniest curve of the nostril set you doubting. But no; she was neither scornful nor defiant—alert rather, as a fair animal quivering with life, confronting some new experience that for the moment it fails to read. Or—borrowing her morning's simile, to convert it—you might liken her to huntress-maiden Diana, surprised upon arrested foot; instep arched, nostril quivering to the unfamiliar, eyes travelling in sudden speculation over a group of satyrs in a glade. For a certainty that poise of the chin emphasised ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... related to the healthy stimulus of creative thinking, as a small electrical battery to the terrestrial currents. Well-built rhetorical climaxes, sharp and sudden contrasts, Poor Richard's common-sense, a page boiled down to a sentence, a fresh simile from Nature, a subtle mood projected upon Nature, a swift controversial retort, all these things are called thoughts. The pleasure in them is so great, that one fancies they leave him in their debt. That depends upon one's standard of indebtedness. Now a penny-a-liner is indebted to a single phrase ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... "Masaniello,") which was once, in all 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, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... Scott, in the Quarterly Review. The scene of the poem is in Mauchline, where Poosie Nancy had her change-house. Only one copy in the handwriting of Burns is supposed to exist; and of it a very accurate fac-simile has been given.] ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... for simile renown'd, Pleasure has always sought, but never found Though all his thoughts on wine and women fall, His are so bad, sure he ne'er thinks at all. The flesh he lives upon is rank and strong; His meat and mistresses are kept too long. But sure we all mistake this pious man, Who mortifies ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... mind to a drunken peasant, who, falling from one side of his horse, and set straight on his seat by one desirous of helping him, instantly falls again on the other side. The simile—if limited to periods of transition—is most just. The youth of Italy, suddenly emancipated from the servile education of more than three centuries, and intoxicated with their moral liberty, find themselves in the presence of a Church destitute of all mission, virtue, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... frailties and degradations of poor Jack, who, whatever be his faults, 'leads the way aloft on dark and stormy nights?' 'If the constituents of London mud can be resolved, if the sand can be transformed into an opal,' to use the noble simile of a great living writer, 'and the water into a drop of dew or a star of snow, or a translucent crystal, and the soot ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... to-day in their masons' yards altogether the same in value to the hearts of the French people as that which the eyes of St. Louis saw lifted to its place? Would a loving daughter, in mere desire for gaudy dress, ask a jeweler for a bright fac-simile of the worn cross which her mother bequeathed to her on her deathbed?—would a thoughtful nation, in mere fondness for splendor of streets, ask its architects to provide for it fac-similes of the temples which for centuries ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... means of a catch or trigger, which Mr. Strutt reasonably enough thinks gave rise to the lock on the modern musket. The old logicians illustrate the distinction in their quaintest fashion. Bayle, explaining the difference between testimony and argument, uses this laconic simile, "Testimony is like the shot of a long-bow, which owes its efficacy to the force of the shooter; argument is like the shot of the cross-bow, equally forcible, whether discharged by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various
... day resembles a trunk which has to be filled; and when we fancy that we have packed it to the uttermost, we shall still find that by good management it might, and would, have held more.—Our quotation is from memory, but correct as to simile and substance; and we consider the remark not ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... without windows, if you need them. Who's to be the wiser? Pick your men—those you can trust. You don't require a whole troop, and half-a-dozen onzas will tie as many tongues. It's as easy as stealing a shirt. It is only stealing a chemisette. Ha! ha! ha!" and the ruffian laughed at his coarse simile and coarser joke, in which laugh he was joined ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... simile he used. In his own thoughts from the very beginning he had used the analogy of sound—of the chord. As well might one note feel called upon to cry to another in the same chord, "Hark! I'm sounding with you!" as that Spinrobin should ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... this simile was not altered by the fact that in this case the slave woman was an agnostic, while the patrician girl had been brought up in the creed of Christ. Sylvia had long since begun to question the formulas of a church whose very pews were rented, and whose existence, she declared, had to be justified ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... and conscious superiority, any suggestion of shame at thus appearing before a common man and a mendicant was as impossible to her nature as it would have been to a queen or the goddess of his simile. His presence and his compliment alike passed her calm modesty unchallenged. The wretched scamp recognized the fact and felt its power, and it was with a superstitious reverence asserting itself through his native extravagance ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... mediaeval—to the foreign mind the empire remained the acme of Chinese civilization; and to kill it meant to lop off the head of the Chinese giant and to leave lying on the ground nothing but a corpse. It was in vain to insist that this simile was wrong and that it was precisely because Chinese civilization had exhausted itself that a new conception of government had to be called in to renew the vitality of the people. Men, and particularly diplomats, refused ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... certain proportion of which has stuck to the fingers of Mr. Krueger, his family and intimates. The "vultures" have brought riches, industry, and civilisation into a wild and uncivilised country. The simile of the bird of prey is more applicable to the Boer than to ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... so far," said the Count, in a hesitating tone. "Could not we just see one country first, then another, and another, and so on? We shall know far more about them than if we ran round the globe as fast as the lightning flashes, or bullet or arrow flies, or a fish swims; or you may choose any other simile you like to denote speed," observed the Count. "In that case we should only see things on our right hand, and on our left, and I do not think we should know much about the countries ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... on one stalk," said Lumley, gayly: "by the by, it is not a complimentary simile. What young lady would be like a cherry?—such an uninteresting, common, charity-boy sort of fruit. For my part, I always associate cherries with the image of a young gentleman in corduroys and a skeleton jacket, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The simile is not a happy one. It does not help to reconcile us to an artificial approximation of books that are heterogeneous, unequal in value, and, frequently, composed under influences far removed from the after-thought that was given to them by a putative father. Balzac was ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... but happy simile; it is easy to see where you draw your inspiration from. If you had only said butterine, inferior butter, you know, the counterfeit article, it would ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... but the advance guard of a painful truth! What if this keen analyst of other men's ideas—she dared not finish the thought. With a sluggish movement the music uncoiled itself like a huge boa about to engulf a tiny rabbit. The simile forced itself against her volition; all this monstrous preparation for a—rabbit! In a concert-hall the poetic idea of the tone-poem was petty. And the churning of the orchestra, foaming hysteria of the strings, bellowing of the brass—would ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... SAID much, sir,' said Bill. 'But he offered to fight this Pitman for a pot of beer. He had lost his book, too, and the receipts, and his men were all as mortal as himself. O, they were all like'—and Bill paused for a simile—'like lords! The superintendent sacked them ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... Hechler said it was sincerely to be hoped that this papyrus of the Bible, probably the oldest now known to exist, would soon be published in fac-simile. ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... me think of grass of Parnassus and bell-heather, she is so solitary and delicate and strong.' He wanted Althea to realise that his real appreciation was for types very different from Lady Pickering. She smiled kindly, as if pleased with his simile, and he went on. 'You are like pansies, white ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... just comparison, and excellent simile, by my soul! But I'm surpris'd he did not include the Clergy among the number of professions unfit (as he said) ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... feller t' office in my day. Take Ross Shelby now: both times he run fer th' 'Sembly I worked like a nailer. 'Cause why? He done right by me. Why I luved that cuss like—like—" he hesitated for a simile—"like my own son," he added, with the passing of one of his brood, and forthwith whacked the youngster for overturning the bait can. "Jes' like my own son. An' so I should still ef he hedn't done me dirt; ef he'd ben square. Now, ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... him in his little Ferdy, for which he would be grieved to seem ungrateful. But yet—but yet—the responsibility, the anxiety, the ceaseless fretting care! This fierce, unbroken city";—he spoke of it as though it were a newly-lassoed and untamed mustang,—I liked the simile; "this lawless, blasphemous, obscene, and dangerous community; these sights of heartlessness and cruelty; these sounds of selfish, greedy contention; the absence of all taste and culture,—no lines of beauty, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... objective existence of this material Upadhi. From his standpoint it is Maya or illusion which exists as a necessary condition of Pragna. But to avoid confusion, I shall use the ordinary language; and to enable my readers to grasp my meaning clearly the following simile may be adopted. Suppose a bright light is placed in the centre with a curtain around it. The nature of the light that penetrates through the curtain and becomes visible to a person standing outside depends upon the ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... Glooskap unrolls, and with which he deceives the fairies, who think they have him fast, while he is escaping, means delusive speech or plausible talk. To "talk like paying out rope" is an old simile. ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... fable turns this simile into better poetry, "She was like a second and a more wondrous moon made ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... most wonderful thing in the world. I was in love with a girl once—and I know. She didn't give a hang for me; she thought I was a baby. I suffered awfully; but I know that my love was beautiful, as beautiful as—" He looked around for a simile—"as to-night. I think it's because of that that I hate mugging and petting and that sort of thing. I don't want beauty debased. I want to fight when orchestras jazz famous arias. Well, petting is jazzing love; and I hate it. Do ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... adjustment of peace does not, I believe, consist in our playing the arbiter, saying: "It must be thus, and the weight of the German empire stands behind it." Peace is brought about, I think, more modestly. Without straining the simile which I am quoting from our everyday life, it partakes more of the behavior of the honest broker, who really wishes to bring ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... If this simile is not enough, we may compare the imagination—"the madman at home" as it has been called—to an unbroken horse which has neither bridle nor reins. What can the rider do except let himself go wherever the horse wishes to take him? And ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue
... whose outlines you now behold will, to adopt the simile of the chief designer, when completed, compose a song that ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... wrong in referring this stirring proclamation to the year 508, when Theodoric sent troops into Gaul to save the remnants of the Visigothic Monarchy from the grasp of Clovis. The first sentence recalls the expression 'certaminis gaudia,' which Jordanes no doubt borrowed from Cassiodorus. For the simile at the end of the letter, cf. Deuteronomy xxxii. 11, 'As an eagle stirreth ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... would like to marry again. She blushed, and fixed her eyes down upon the hole she had made in the pie, and then I observed that if there was a hole in my side as big as there was in the pie before her, she would see her image in my heart. This pretty simile did the business for me, and in a month we were married; and I never shall want a dinner as long as I live, either for myself or friend. I will put you on the free list, O'Donahue, if you can condescend to a cook's shop: and I can assure you that I think I have done a very wise thing, for ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... from the French, greatly contributed to promote the state of literature in England. In regard to his types, Mr. Dibdin says he appears to have made use of five distinct sets, or fonts, of letters, which, in his account of Caxton's works, he has engraved plates in fac-simile. Edward Rowe Mores, in his "Dissertation upon English Typographical Founders and Foundries," says Caxton's letter was originally of the sort called Secretary, and of this he had two fonts; afterward he came nearer to the English face, and had three fonts ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... unsettled in harvest time, the reapers display greater energy and activity during the intervals of sunshine; hence the point of the simile. ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... not believe, then?' we have as answer a simile of the sea, which cannot slumber like a ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... 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 ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... the 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 it has been well ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the most curious of the Aztec picture-writings is in the Bodleian Library, and in fac-simile in Lord Kingsborough's Antiquities of Mexico. In it are shown, in a series of little pictures, the education of Mexican boys and girls, as prescribed by law. The child four days old is being sprinkled with water, and receiving ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... are helpless, I fear. At any rate, talking of hanging, or the infliction of any other punishment, is quite futile so long as you do not possess the power to carry out your sentence. To return to my simile of the general: a general can order any private in his army to be hanged, and the man is taken out and hanged accordingly, but if one of the guild is to be executed, he must be condemned by an overwhelming ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... would be instantly resented by Kaiser William as personal to himself. John was Jesus' Durand, His von Stuckenburg, His Whitelaw Reid. And no diplomat ever used more tactful language than this John when questioned about his Master. In Jesus' own simile, John was His best man. Jesus was a bridegroom. John stood by His side as ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... as an appendix to the third volume of the "Roman de la Rose." He also wrote three treatises upon natural philosophy, and an alchymic allegory, entitled "Le Desir desire." Specimens of his writing, and a fac-simile of the drawings in his book of Abraham, may be seen in Salmon's "Bibliotheque des Philosophes Chimiques." The writer of the article, "Flamel," in the "Biographie Universelle," says that, for a hundred years after the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... which Goethe wrote to M. M——, after Byron's death, he speaks of his relation with the noble poet; after saying how "Sardanapalus" appeared without a dedication, of which, however, he was happy to possess a lithographed fac-simile, he adds:— ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... soon!" Mime argues that such a thing is impossible, is out of nature; that what to the young bird is the old bird, which feeds it in the nest until it is fledged, that is to Siegfried, inevitably, Mime! This simile of Mime's suggests to Siegfried a further question. In asking it he has one of those brief accesses of pensiveness which endear him, disclosing the existence of a common human tenderness, after all, under that sturdy wrapping of joy befitting the child of demigods. ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... sir; bleeding like a stuck pig," replied one of the men, resorting to simile to aid his description, as is the wont of ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... Joseph D. Stiles, between 1854 and 1857, at the house of Josiah Brigham in Quincy, Mass., and were published at Boston in 1859, in a large volume of 459 pages, entitled "Messages from the Spirit of John Quincy Adams." The medium was in an unconscious trance, and the handwriting was a fac-simile of that of John Quincy Adams. But other spirit communications are given, and that which purports to come from Washington was in a handwriting like his own, though not of so bold and intellectual a style. I quote ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... slaveholding States to the drunken husband, and in so doing have pronounced judgment against them. As regards the state of the drunken man, his unfitness for partnership with any decent, diligent, well-to-do wife, his ruined condition, and shattered prospects, the simile, I think, holds good. But I refrain from saying that as the fault was originally with the drunkard in that he became such, so also has the fault been with the slave States. At any rate I refrain from ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... like Taiwhanga, were bound to tell upon the people around. Evidences began to multiply of a serious attention to the teaching of the missionaries. Here and there in unexpected quarters signs appeared of coming change. To use the picturesque native simile, "the fire was ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... gorgeous; the guests were dazzling in jewels and in decorations; the table was loaded with old plate and rare china; the prince made a speech and used her as a simile of love and joy and purity and peace. The rose felt giddy with triumph and with the fumes of the wines around her. Her vase was of purple and gold, and all the voices round her said, "Oh, the beautiful rose!" No one noticed the azaleas. ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... of black, relieved upon the breast of the close-buttoned Prince Albert coat by a blue satin badge, bearing upon its upper half a silver-gilt souvenir half-dollar, and upon the lower portion a tiny fac-simile ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... in bread-making, the oldest and most time-honored mode 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 ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... An edition de luxe, printed on exquisite paper, with 16 illustrations by Thomas Stothard, R.A., with an introduction by Austin Dobson. Fac-simile of the frontispiece and title-page of the original edition, original prefaces. 555pp. Extra cloth binding, $1.25. Half calf, $2.50. Morocco, full ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... the authenticity of this relic. The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick mentions the gift of this relic by the saint to St. MacCarthainn. Dr. Petrie concludes that the copy of the Gospels contained therein, was undoubtedly the one which was used by our apostle. We give a fac-simile of the first page, which cannot fail to interest ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... to bestow on others; at least, not in these weeks of 'cock-a-doodle-dooing,' as Mrs. Robson persisted in calling it. It was seldom that Bell was taken with a humorous idea; but this once having hatched a solitary joke, she was always clucking it into notice—to go on with her own poultry simile. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... knew its name. But how came I, then, to this perception of it? I can {222} answer nothing save this, that on entering that church I was in darkness altogether, and on coming out of it I saw the fullness of the light. I can explain the change no better than by the simile of a profound sleep or the analogy of one born blind who should suddenly open his eyes to the day. He sees, but cannot define the light which bathes him and by means of which he sees the objects which excite his wonder. If we cannot explain physical light, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... that any captain had led since the Roman legions left the world, defies from the gorges of Savoy, and division behind division advances through the passes and across the plains of Burgundy and Lorraine. One simile leaps to the pen of every historian who narrates that march, the approach of some vast serpent, the glancing of its coils unwinding still visible through the June foliage, fateful, stealthy, casting upon its victim ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... acute thinker Lord Brougham remarked that in the clear sky of scepticism he saw only one small cloud drifting up and that was Modern Spiritualism. It was a curiously inverted simile, for one would surely have expected him to say that in the drifting clouds of scepticism he saw one patch of clear sky, but at least it showed how conscious he was of the coming importance of the movement. Ruskin, too, an equally agile mind, said that his assurance ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... knowledge of Julias and Louisas. If we proceed to particulars, and engage in the never-ceasing inquiry of 'Have you read this?' and 'Have you read that?' I shall soon leave you as far behind me as—what shall I say?—I want an appropriate simile.—as far as your friend Emily herself left poor Valancourt when she went with her aunt into Italy. Consider how many years I have had the start of you. I had entered on my studies at Oxford, while you were a good little girl working your sampler ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... used in the winning of men over to one's side is a peculiarly attractive, a matchless simile. And all of this handling of men has often been for personal ends, often for wholly selfish ends, often for strong national ends. Almost never has it been for the benefit of the man being won, save ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... impairing the success of the experiments. The long distance experiments may consist either of the receiving of single words, names, etc., or else distinct, clear messages or ideas. Some find it no more difficult to reproduce simile geometrical designs, such as circles, squares, triangles, etc., than to ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... This last simile had evidently particularly delighted the poet. So much so, that he brought it in at the close of every succeeding verse. The "epick" went on, of course, to unravel the threads of the "adventure," and to intimate pretty plainly who "the youth" referred ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... in a deep breath—and gasped, for the pungent fumes, acrid and penetrating, of sulphuric and nitric acids, stabbed her lungs. It was like the breath of hell, to fit the simile, and aptly Professor Burr seemed the devil himself, manipulating ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... Indian letter. Here it is." Malachi then produced a piece of birch-bark, of which the underneath drawing is a fac-simile. ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... flowers like jasmine. This simile would be unlikely to occur to the ordinary observer who sees a ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... spirits;—and is, Jotting and all, as insignificant a Letter as any other portion of the "Rookery Colloquy," though its fate was a little more distinguished. Prussian Dryasdust is expected to give it in FAC-SIMILE, one day,—surely no British Under-Secretary will exercise an unwise discretion, and forbid him ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... white, and the clouds suggested the idea of a celestial shepherd, driving myriads of sheep to the pasture. Children alone can dry up their tears with the rapidity of Nature in the tropics; perhaps we may have already made the remark, and must, therefore, beg pardon for repeating the simile a second time. ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... unnatural condition. He thinks he 'gets on' with it; and in an imperfect way and degree does so. Rarely, we find, does such a one get so far as into the 'conics;' and he is not certain to be in the habit of reading reviews: if we were sure, however, that he could comprehend and would meet with our simile, we would say to him, that the tardy inclination up which he now plods painfully, must, if graphically represented, be shown by an oblique line descending, in fact, below the curve of his possibilities, more rapidly even than it ascends above ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... cui parlammo sopra, la cui lunghezza due uomini colle braccia distese potevano misurare. Tutto all' intorno del muro vi erano degli scaffali quali si vedono ordinariamente negli archivi ad altezza d' uomo, e nel mezzo della stanza v' era un altro scaffale simile o tavola per tenervi scritture, e tale da potervi girare intorno. Il legno di questa tavola era ridotto a carboni, e cadde, come e facile ad imaginarselo, tutta in pezzi quando si tocco. Alcuni di questi rotoli ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... a very old simile, but Madam Liberality really was like a cork rising on the top of the very wave of ill-luck that had swallowed up her hopes. Her little white face and undaunted spirit bobbed up after each mischance or malady as ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... the face of such sincere and humble admiration, was truly gracious. The glimpses the little bent, old sextoness got of the young folks, the sense of life going on about her, were as good as a play, to quote her own simile, confided of an evening to Tobias, her great black cat, the only other inmate ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... said, just a shade sadly. "I know. It isn't." He seemed deep in thought, as if he were deciding whether or not to get rid of Anne Boleyn. It was, Malone thought, an unusually apt simile. Boyd, six feet tall and weighing about two hundred and twenty-five pounds, had a large square face and a broad-beamed figure that might have made him a dead ringer for Henry VIII of England even without his Henry-like fringe of beard and his mustache. ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... soul—must be in the proper mood, the flesh itself elevated into harmony with the exalted spirit, else he will fail to elicit the tones or to give the expression desired. This is a rough and a poor simile, when we consider how wonderful an instrument a human being is, with the body that burns with thought, and the spirit that quivers and cries with pain, and when we think how its innumerable, complex chords ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... the new edition there are added about forty reproductions in fac-simile of autographs of distinguished singers and instrumentalists, including Sarasate, Joachim, Sir Charles Halle, Paderewsky, Stavenhagen, Henachel, Trebelli, ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... on a favourite topic, and would have expatiated long enough, for she was a professed admirer of masculine beauty, but there was something which displeased the boy in her last simile; so he cut the conversation short, by asking whether she knew exactly how much money his grandfather had left with Dr. Gray for his maintenance. "She could not say—didna ken—an awfu' sum it was to pass ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... was there in its stead; and all seemed to be stained and rotten, for swarms of worms seemed creeping in and out, while the figure grew paler and paler, till my uncle, who liked his pipe, and employed the simile naturally, said the whole effigy grew to the colour of tobacco ashes, and the clusters of worms into little wriggling knots of sparks such as we see running over the residuum of a burnt sheet of paper. And so with the ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... bodies in Scripture are not numerous, and deal with them either as time-measurers or as subjects for devout allusion, poetic simile, or symbolic use. But there is one characteristic of all these references to the phenomena of Nature, that may not be ignored. None of the ancients ever approached the great Hebrew writers in spiritual elevation; none equalled them in poetic sublimity; and few, if ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... helpless and bewildered before Mr. Marrapit's gusty agony. Instead of resisting the torrent, directing its course, he had been caught where it surged fiercest, hurled down-stream. In the vulgar simile of his reflections he ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... The hackneyed simile of the cat and the mouse seemed to me to be especially applicable in the present instance. In one breath I was told that there would be many interviews of the kind I was then enjoying (?), and in the next that my destination was Siberia. It was certainly ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... "luminous": the "choice"—here are three ways of qualifying the objects which artists seek to present. Matthew Arnold was captivated by the simile of light, and having repeated Amiel's passionate cry for "more light," used "sweetness and light" as a refrain in all his criticism. Walter Pater, to whom the beauty of the human form, and therefore of sculpture, was especially appealing, loved to use ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... provisions to the Indians. When they extract the contents and throw the can in the water, it floats away, and Bull used that as a simile, knowing they would all understand. The deputation appeared perfectly satisfied with the explanation and went away thoroughly convinced that Boyton was supplied with no interior mechanism in the way of ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... everywhere. The legislative workshops turn out only "the latest novelties" of the season. Or perhaps a newspaper would be a still better simile. First there is the 'interpellation,'[C] once at least every day; that corresponds to the leading article. Then there are questions for ministers on this, that and the other trivial occurrence; that is the serial or short story. Then there ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... Nancy to see the effect of this simile, which was quite an inspiration, but the girl was intent on smoothing the creases out of her very ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... pause ensued; in fact it was a very awkward pause. The die was cast, the matter ended, and what were the principals to do until the ratifications had been exchanged or, a better simile perhaps, the decree nisi pronounced absolute. Mr. Champers-Haswell remarked that the weather was very cold for April, and Alan agreed with him, while Sir Robert found his hat and brushed it with his sleeve. Then Mr. Haswell, in desperation, for in minor matters he was a kindly sort ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... ei vede, Rallenta quel vigor ch'avea raccolto, E l'imperio di se libero cede Al duol gia fatto impetuoso e stolto, Ch' al cor si stringe, e chiusa in breve sede La vita, empie di morte i sensi e 'l volto. Gia simile all' estinto il vivo langue Al colore, al silenzio, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... The aromatics, especially the thus, or frankincense, of Arabia, occupy the xiith book of Pliny. Our great poet (Paradise Lost, l. iv.) introduces, in a simile, the spicy odors that are blown by the north-east wind from the Sabaean coast:——Many a league, Pleased with the grateful scent, old Ocean smiles. (Plin. Hist. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... to be a good deal of the parrot inside as well as outside the covers, and we congratulate our own sweet singer 'Blue Bird,' who has so often made these columns melodious, that she has escaped the ignominy of being exhibited in Messrs. —— and Co.'s aviary." I should add that this simile of the aviary and its occupants was ominous, for my tuneful choir was relentlessly slaughtered; the bottom of the cage was strewn with feathers! The big dailies collected the criticisms and published them in their own columns with the grim irony of exaggerated head-lines. The book sold tremendously ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... have been a living lion for ever so short a time, and be dead, than be a Pera dog forever. The Preacher would have been nearer to the truth if he had said that a living man is better than a dead man. But the Preacher was an Oriental, and naturally had to use a simile ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... violently when Mrs. Barnes entered, turned toward the latter a face as white, so Thankful described it afterward, "as unbleached muslin." This was not a bad simile, for Miss Timpson's complexion was, owing to her excessive tea-drinking, a decided yellow. Just now it was a very ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... that little dash of descriptive writing. In conjunction with the noun horse Cappy Ricks had employed the indefinite article a, and while a horse was a horse and Cappy might have had a Shetland pony in mind when he coined the simile, nevertheless, a still small voice whispered to Matt Peasley that at the time Cappy was really thinking of a Percheron. The longer Matt chewed the cud of anticipation the more acute grew his regret that he had threatened to throw his successor overboard. He ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... half-breathed utterance of this expression startled the man. The simile he had used was a repetition of what he had just heard in a conversation between men at an adjoining table in the restaurant. He had often heard the expression before, but had certainly never utilized it personally. ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... "This sad simile is much in the fashion of the old Moralizers, such as I conceive honest Baxter to have been, such as Quarles and Wither were with their curious, serio-comic, quaint emblems. But they sometimes reach the heart, when a more elegant ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... my letter. I can defend every word in it. It contains the simile of the elephants, which I am sorry for, as I fear those described as tame may be foolish enough to endeavour to show they are not so by affecting a degree of vivacity beyond their nature; but still I ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... esse Historiam. 8. Hist. Animal. 12. asseverat. Ego quo minus hoc statuam, tum Authoritate primum Doctissimi Strabonis I. Geograph. coactus sum, tum potissimum nunc moveor, quod nostro tempore, quo nulla Mundi pars est, quam Nautarum Industria non perlustrarit, nihil tamen, unquam simile aut visum est, aut auditum. Accedit quod Franciscus Alvarez Lusitanus, qui ea ipsa loca peragravit, circa quae Aristoteles Pygmaeos esse scribit, nullibi tamen tam parvam Gentem a se conspectam tradidit, sed Populum esse Mediocris ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson
... nach Braunschweig" rides his hobby in the shape of his fifty-seven sermons.[88] Lessing uses the Steckenpferd in a letter to Mendelssohn, November 5, 1768 (Lachmann edition, XII, p.212), and numerous other examples of direct or indirect allusion might be cited. Sterne's worn-out coin was a simile adopted and felt ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... electors, Dr. Mansfield; the manuscript records of ordinations by Bishops Seabury and Jarvis; the manuscript records of the convocation of the clergy of Connecticut, open at the vote accepting the Prayer-Book of 1789; a manuscript fac-simile of a volume of Bishop Seabury's journal; the sermon preached by Bishop Skinner at the consecration; a large collection of Bishop Seabury's works, including one of his loyalist pamphlets which he wrote at the ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... allusions which the ordinary reader finds somewhat cryptic; anyone who has seen the terrified stampede of cattle with their tails erect when attacked by the gad-fly, will recognize the force of the simile. The gad-fly pierces the skin of the animal, laying its eggs beneath, just as the ichneumon makes use of a caterpillar to provide a host for its progeny. No doubt the operation is a painful one, but the caterpillar may survive, even into its chrysalis stage, and ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... gloves, kissed Aunt Rachel's cold cheek, and ran out into the lane with blushes so charming and becoming that she might have been taken for the very humanized spirit of the dawn, lingering an hour or two beyond her time to make acquaintance with daylight. If this simile should seem to border on the ridiculous, the responsibility of it may be safely thrown upon Reuben, who not merely met her with it in his mind, but conveyed it to her as they walked homeward together. Ezra was even more bashful than Ruth, though in him the sentiment wrought ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... is concerned. I, too, have my stable to cleanse; only it belongs not to Augias, but to Schwarzenberg. Still, I will try to purify it. But I must set about my undertaking with dexterous hands; of that, however, let us speak hereafter. I shall first consider your simile, drawn from the story of Hercules. Do you know, Leuchtmar, the names of my twelve tasks, and their extent? I ask you once more, do you know who I am, or, rather, what my name is? Look, there lies the document which I am just on the point of sending to my good subjects, and ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... possibility, and then wholly disappeared. And this disheartening miracle was worked before the eyes of Senator Hanway, and before the eyes of his friends; and yet no one might stay the calamity in its fulfillment. The amazing story, avoiding simile and figure, may be laid open in ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... of the whole of the simile in Cato, of which that is the concluding line; the sandy desart had struck him so strongly. The sand has of late been blown over a good deal of meadow; and the people of the island say, that their fathers remembered ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... The august simile of the philosopher, who likened the world to a vast animal, is appearing each day as too real for poetry. The ocean lungs pulse a gigantic breath at every tide, her continental limbs vibrate with light and electricity, her Cyclopean fires burn within, and her atmosphere, ever giving, ever ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... decisive and bloody battle of that dreadful age, by which Europe was delivered from Asia, even as at a later day the Saracens were shut out of France by Charles Martel. "Bellum atrox, multiplex, immane, pertinax, cui simile nulla usquam narrat antiquitas." [Footnote: Jordanes.] Attila began the fight; on his left were the Ostrogoths under Vladimir, on his right were the Gepidae, while in the centre were stationed the Huns, with their ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... dissociated from the fruits of his acts. Hence such a falling off at the man or the dissociation of heaven is likened to a bird's dissociation from its perch when the chain tying it to the perch is broken. The simile seems to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... he called wassail; but I could always guess the fact from his appearance. His method of work was equally irregular, and he lived from hand to mouth. He would be idle as a forced peach on a hot-house wall (to use a simile of his own) for weeks at a time; and yet when he was seized with a desire to work, it was no uncommon thing for him to paint or compose twenty-four hours at a sitting, and come to the Bureau or my house, almost before I was out of bed, with dishevelled raiment ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... the hour of two so gently, that it sounds like the tinkling of sheep-bells coming through the misty twilight air from the green meadows. With which felicitous simile we will give our hero a little sleep, after having kept him up two hours ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... to themselves. Many of the blocks were, very probably, purchased in the Low Countries. A very few are almost certainly of English manufacture, and among them are Caxton's illustrations of the Canterbury Tales: on this account we have given a fac-simile of the most important of them, representing the pilgrims seated round the table at the "Tabard" prior to starting on their immortal journey. What is certain is that many of these wood-block portraits of knights, supplied to the printers by English or Dutch artists, underwent many ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... that I might discover a mode of life for it, so that it might not only conceive of such a life, but actually enjoy it on the earth. I wished to search out a new and higher set of ideas on which the mind should work. The simile of a new book of the soul is the nearest to convey the meaning—a book drawn from the present and future, not the past. Instead of a set of ideas based on tradition, let me give the mind a new thought drawn straight ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... in the end? One flies to the east, the other to the west; they lose the principal, dispersing it in the crowd of incidents after an hour of tempest, they know not what they seek: one is low, the other high, and a third wide. One catches at a word and a simile; another is no longer sensible of what is said in opposition to him, and thinks only of going on at his own rate, not of answering you: another, finding himself too weak to make good his rest, fears all, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... had been too great to descend to such trifles! he 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... 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 ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... equally opportune river-god or earthquake; episodes innumerable, branching off from the main stem of the narrative at the most critical point, and luxuriating in endless ramifications. Beauty, eluding unwelcome embraces, is never too hotly pressed to dally with an engaging simile or choose the most agreeable words for depicting her tribulation. Why indeed should she hurry? It is all a polite and pleasant make-believe; and when Marina and Doridon are tired, they stand aside and ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... her pencil moved as easily as her tongue, and no more striking simile could possibly be used. Her handwriting was not Spencerian; she had neither time, nor patience, it is to be feared, for copybook methods, and her unformed characters were frequently the despair of her teachers; but write she could, write she would, write she must and did, in season ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... override her tone, she plays one false at once—like a lancet that slips, or grows dull and rusty." He polished one of the needles on a soft square of new chamois-leather while he spoke, as if to give point and illustration to his simile. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will, therefore, permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... would have answered with some magnificent compliment, or far-fetched simile lifted from the pages of romancers. In truth he had thought of several such while, like a half-starved dog seeking a home, he wandered round and round the mill-house in the snow. But he was now far beyond all ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... 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 immediate marching of ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... painted in that simile of a scattered flock lays stress on the universality of transgression, on its divisive effect, on the solitude of sin, and on its essential characteristic as being self-willed rejection of control. But the isolation caused by transgression is blessedly counteracted by the concentration ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... [the folio's] margins," and that, for the purpose of making the list in question, he had "recently rexamined every line and letter of the folio." He had previously printed for private circulation a few fac-simile copies of eighteen corrected passages in the folio; and with the volume last mentioned, his publications, and, we believe, all others,—of which more anon,—upon the subject, ceased. Mr. Collier, it should be borne in mind, has been for forty years ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... fanciful, 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 ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... up, it was after a sad fashion at first. To resume my simile of the pimpernel—it was to disclose a heart in which the glowing purple was blanched to a sickly violet. What happiness he had, came in fits and bursts, and passed as quickly, leaving him depressed and miserable. He was always either wishing to be happy, or trying to be sure of ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald |
