We are continually making comparisons between objects of the same kind; for example-

The library is more beautiful than the church.

This stone is like granite.

Lincoln may have been as great a man as Washington.

But these are mere comparisons. Perhaps nearly as often we allude to similarities between objects of different kinds. We do this in two ways. Sometimes we say that one thing is like another; for example:

The army stood like a wall.

For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

Holmes has been likened to a fountain, constantly bubbling over with sweet feeling and bright thought. Such figures of speech are called similes.

Sometimes we do not express resemblance; we imply it. We call one thing by the name of another; for example:

Bread is the staff of life.

The general was a tower of strength.

He is a dynamo in breeches. Adversity is the grindstone of life.

These figures are called metaphors, a Greekword which means carrying over. A metaphor carries over the name of one thing to another.

Exercises

433. Study carefully the following examples of simile:

1. How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

2. Good nature is the most precious gift of Heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather.

3. Men whose lives glided on, like rivers that water the woodlands, Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven.

434. Make a careful study of the following examples of metaphor:

1. Antony is but a limb of Caesar.

2. And the tongue is a fire.

3. Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear.

For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops And hung them thickly with diamond-drops, That crystaled the beams of moon and sun, And made a star of every one.

4. Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air.

5. Nor would I fight with iron laws, in the end Found golden.

6. When clocks Throbb'd thunder thro' the palace floors, or call'd On flying Time from all their silver tongues.

7. Tubal. Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, in one night fourscore ducats. Shylock. Thou stickest a dagger in me.

The Point Of Resemblance

When we say a man is a fox, we have in mind the characteristic common to both, - cunning. It is by fixing the attention on the point of resemblance that a figure makes an idea specific.

Exercise

435. In the following metaphors and similes, what is the point of resemblance that suggests the comparison ?

1. A fiery temper; a rippling laugh; glassy eyes; golden hair; silvery waves; red-hot "liner"; iron muscle; catlike step; a ray of hope; growling thunder; mackerel sky; a sea of upturned faces; the snakelike caravan; crawling centuries; a striking thought; life's fitful fever; Stonewall Jackson; a hard heart; the silver moon.

2. The tongue of the just is as choice silver.

3. Boston is sometimes called the hub of Massachusetts, and Worcester the heart of the commonwealth.