Simile

“ A Simile, or comparison, is an affirmation that one agent, object, or act, is like, or as, another,—there being a real or imaginary resemblance. Sometimes only the mere fact of a resemblance is affirmed. ”

“ Now, in the first place, you are aware that a simile is used for the purpose of setting off a thing or discrediting it, or comparing, or depreciating, or amplifying it, or of making credible what is scarcely credible. Where nothing of the kind is required, there will be no room for a simile. ”

“ If the comparison is imaginative rather than literal, our language becomes figurative, and usually takes the form of a simile or metaphor. Similes and metaphors are of great value in rendering thought clear. They make language forceful and effective, and they may add much to the beauty of expression. ”

“ But by the help of a comparison all effort is saved; the picture is instantly realized, and its full effect produced.
§ 38. Of the position of the Simile, it needs only to remark, that what has been said respecting the order of the adjective and substantive, predicate and subject, principal and subordinate propositions, &c., is applicable here. As whatever qualifies should precede whatever is qualified, force will generally be gained by placing the simile before the object to which it is applied. ”

“ One simile, that solitary shines In the dry desert of a thousand lines, Or lengthened thought that gleams through many a page, Has sanctified whole poems for an age. ”

“ The simile gives us such a new perception of the mysterious relations of mind and Nature that we should not be surprised if the object designated had really, in the great involvement of all things, some secret affinity with the thought; perhaps the thought has recognized the family mark and claimed kinship. This is an exalted claim because it sets free our personality. We become superior to Nature, and are made aware that we can vivify her as the Creator can; but, as we also are creatures, we admit her to a tender and refining confidence. ”

“ Not low and mean, like these, but beautifully familiarized to our conceptions, and condescending to human thoughts and notions, are all the discourses of our Lord—conveyed in parable, or similitude, what easy access do they win to the heart, [Pg 22] through the medium of the delighted imagination! speaking of heavenly things in fable, or in simile, drawn from earth, from objects common, accustomed.
Life's business, with such delicious little interruptions as our correspondence affords, how pleasant it is!—why can we not paint on the dull paper our whole feelings, exquisite as they rise up? ”

“ The use of metaphors, similes, and epigrams is an effective mode of emphasis. An apt metaphor or simile will remain in the minds of readers or hearers long after the trend of the argument is forgotten. ”

“ Style includes diction, expression, rhetorical figures such as metaphor and simile, the effect of an author's prevailing tone of thought, of his personal traits—in short, all that makes up the clothing of thought in words ”

“ The genius of metaphorical diction is consequently, as we shall have to elucidate more closely in our consideration of simile, to be regarded as responding to a need and potency of mind and the emotional life, which will not rest satisfied with that which is entirely simple, ordinary, and homely, but make an effort beyond this and over into something more recondite under the attraction which distinction offers and the impulse to co-ordinate contrasted effects. ”

“ Similes have now invaded all our literature, both prose and verse, and make a part of every thing we speak or write."
"I have looked into one of these volumes," [54] said the Italian, "and some of the similes appear to me difficult of application. A poet is here describing a greyhound in chase of a hare, and, in order to increase the speed of the dog, he compares it to Westminster Abbey." ”

“ In a simile, one thing is said to be like another.
We use both the metaphor and the simile quite frequently and naturally in our ordinary speech and writing, particularly when our feelings are aroused in any way.
1. Bread is the staff of life. (Metaphor.) [60] 2. The ground was an oven floor; and the breeze that passed by, the breath of a furnace. (Metaphor.) 3. His eye glowed like a fiery spark. (Simile.) 4. The carded wool, like a snowdrift, was piled at her knee. (Simile.)
Exercise 54.—Pick out the metaphors and similes in the following sentences:—
1. ”

“ One is tempted at times to account for the profusion and lack of spontaneity of similes in poets of this age by the supposition that they kept commonplace books of similes and inserted them as they thought fit. ”

“ Laura spent her energy in taunts, but Vittoria spoke only of her resolve, and to the point. It was, as his military instincts framed the simile, like the venomous crackling of skirmishing rifles before a fortress, that answered slowly with its volume of sound and sweeping shot. He had the vision of himself pleading to secure her safety, and in her hearing, on the Motterone, where she had seemed so simple a damsel, albeit nobly enthusiastic: too fair, too gentle to be stationed in any corner of the conflict at hand. ”

“ All such similes come from a mind quick to discern similarities, but very dull to feel incongruities; unaware therefore that it is on a verge where the sublime easily turns into the ludicrous; a mind and heart inevitably quaint to the very core. ”

“ And while on this topic, you brought forth those similes which they are in the habit of employing, which are, in truth, no similes at all. For who is ignorant that, if many men should choose to emerge from the deep, those would be nearer breathing who came close to the surface, but still would not be actually able to breathe any more than those who are at the bottom? ”

“ Similes.— To which let me here add another near of kin to this, at least in name, and that is letting the mind, upon the suggestion of any new notion, run immediately after similes to make it the clearer to itself, which, though it may be a good way and useful in the explaining our thoughts to others, yet it is by no means a right method to settle true notions of anything in ourselves, because similes always fail in some part, and come short of that exactness which our conceptions should have to things if we would think aright. ”

“ A third motive cause of similes, quite distinct from that of purely imaginative riot as also the self-absorbed sentiment or, under its other aspect, the dallying round important objects with the figurative power of the fancy, we have now to emphasize with particular reference to dramatic poetry. ”

“ I dwell on this before passing on to the poem, because I want to bring before you the remembrance of what a tremendous factor in literature, as in thought and in the whole of life is the principle of comparison, or, as we might put it, the principle of similitude or likeness. We learn about a thing we do not know through its likeness, as a whole or in some parts, to a thing we do know. ”

“ The manner in laughter, in tears, in irony, in indignations and enthusiasms, in judgments—and even in love. The manner in which, as in the features and character of a human face, the inner truth is foreshadowed for those who know how to look at their kind. ”

“ Perhaps no where does a more beautiful treatise of the kind exist. The good sense and wisdom of the thoughts, the delicacy of the feelings, and the charm of the style, are, throughout, equally conspicuous. ”

“ It is in the writings of these illustrious characters that we find originality of thought, justice of sentiment, and force of reasoning, occasionally elevating our conceptions, convincing our judgments, and softening our feelings. Many more examples might be adduced of those who prefer the exercise of composition to that of conversation, and who, in silently meditating upon some rational subject, and in recording the spontaneous flow of ideas and reflections, have felt a silent satisfaction, and an enlargement of mind, never found among the restraints, or the gaieties of society. ”

“ One single simple incident, a pleasantly naïve or even silly word, a blunder, a paradox, a clever remark, personal singularities or habits, nay, a peculiar expression, and whatever else would occur in a gay and bustling life—took the form of a dialogue, a catechism, a passing scene, or a drama,—often in prose, but oftener in verse. ”

“ For all words of that sort by which we express any objects in our mind, that is, conceive of them, are likenesses and images of the objects to which they correspond; and every likeness or image is more or less true, according as it more or less closely imitates the object of which it is the likeness. ”

“ Of these it may be said, that their form is their essence, and their object, the production of pleasure in their contemplation. This is their final end. They are as much the product of genius and the result of composition, as are the lines of the poet or the historian's period. ”

“ Soul, mind, spirit, these old and simple words are the strongest, the profoundest, the surest; age cannot antiquate them, nor science undo them; they last with the rocks, and still go beyond. But, having in view rather the operation than the cause, we find a use also in such alternative phrases as “mode of thinking,” “mode of feeling and thinking,” “habit of thought,” “moral and intellectual character or constitution,” and the like. ”

“ But what if emphasis is natural to us? What if emphatic expression is the spontaneous expression of our nature? What if emphasis is the form of passion, just as what is called naturalness is the expression of sensuality and of good sense? ”

“ His phraseology rolls ever in solemn and majestic periods, in which every substantive marches ceremoniously accompanied by its epithet; grand pompous words peal like an organ; every proposition is set forth balanced by a proposition of equal length; thought is developed with the compressed regularity and official splendour of a procession. ”

“ Judging by my own sensations, however, the difference is not merely of degree, but of kind, for such accounts, with the reflections made upon them, have in them a certain tone and tinting of the mind through which they pass, so that we get, not nature, but man softening her. ”

“ Even the humorous concluding scenes have traits of special grace, retaining in less emphatic passages a stray lire or word of power, as it seems, so that we watch to the end for the traces where the nobler hand has glanced along, leaving its vestiges, as if accidentally or wastefully, in the rising of the style. ”

“ All beauties of language, all flights of poetry, all particular scenes and speeches, powerful and impressive as they may be, are merely subordinate. No character, how exquisitely or elaborately soever conceived and finished, is drawn for itself ”

“ From the society of such characters, who seem to consider the noble productions of superior intellect, the fine and vigorous flights of fancy, the brilliant effusions of a sublime imagination, and the refined feelings of the heart, as fancied conceits or wild deliriums, those who examine them by a better standard than that of fashion or common taste, fly with delight. ”

“ All the secondary qualities, colours, sounds, tastes, smells, heat, hardness, everything, in short, which is an affection of sense, may be generalized at one sweep into our mere knowledge of things. But the primary qualities, which are usually restricted to extension and figure, and which constitute, it is said, the objective or real essence of things, and which are entirely independent of us, into what shall they be generalized? ”

“ It seems reasonable to me—upon the hypothesis that it is a person using another's mind or brain—that there must be more or less of that other's style or tone incorporated in the message, and that to the unseen personality, i.e., the power which impresses, the thought, the fact, or the philosophy, and not the style or tone, belongs. ”

“ The reasoning is conclusive, and the similitude extremely just. For judgment, when it is alone, is generally regulated, or at least much influenced, by custom, fashion, and habit; and never certain and constant but when founded upon and accompanied by taste, which is in the critic, what in the poet we call genius. ”

“ In literature there are found illustrations of contrast upon every page. There are contrasts of ideas, contrasts of emotions, contrasts of scenes, contrasts of characters, and many others. Under the head of “The Central Idea” will be found numerous examples of the first class. We shall here consider a few illustrations of the other classes, while in later pages will be found illustrations for more extended study.
Contrast of emotion is admirably illustrated in the following scene from The Merchant of Venice, Act iii., Sc. 1:
Shylock. ”

“ The perspicuity of his style, and the equally easy and eloquent turn of his periods, give life and energy to his thoughts; and, while the reader feels his heart bounding with delight, he finds his mind impregnated with instruction. ”

“ Now, obviously, all the particular kinds or modes of beauty must have, up to a certain point, the same nature. They must all possess that character in virtue of which they are called beautiful rather than good or true. ”

“ To draw after the life, in any given conjuncture, the poet must recollect (which may easily be done by consulting with his own conscious experience) that peculiar disposition of mind, into which the speaker is, of necessity, carried by the circumstances of his situation. And the sentiments, which give the image of this peculiar disposition, are the genuine lineaments of the character intended. ”

“ In place of a mental output, rigidly confined within unbending modes of thought and expression, we have a literature that reflects the varied phases of human life, that can discard romance and look upon the commonplace ”

“ He employs [p. 2] the series, the contrasts (single, double, and triple) , the conditional, the negative, the positive, and, in fact, all the known forms of arranging words so as to make them best express the orator’s meaning. Here is an effective concluding series he uses: “A city is adorned by good citizenship, the body by beauty, the soul by wisdom, acts by virtue, and speech by truthfulness,” and he follows this sentence with the following one: “But the opposites of these virtues are a disgrace.” ”