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| Blindness acts like a dam, sending the streams of thought backward along the already-traveled channels, and hindering the course onward. | 1 |
| A vague caution, like that of a wild beast that is fierce but feeble—or like that of an insect whose little fragment of earth has given way, and made it pause in a palsy of distrust. | 2 |
| A cheek like an apple-blossom. | 3 |
| Close as a nut. | 4 |
| Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity. | 5 |
| Dark as pines that autumn never sears. | 6 |
| Deep and yet soft, like notes from some long chord responsive to thrilled air. | 7 |
| Dimly like a half-remembered dream. | 8 |
| Disappeared, like a passing gleam. | 9 |
| Dissolved like an unsubstantial pageant. | 10 |
| Dry as ashes. | 11 |
| Old men’s eyes are like old men’s memories, they are strongest for things a long way off. | 12 |
| Familiar, like the amulet worn on the heart. | 13 |
| Anger and power are as fatal as lightning. | 14 |
| Each quiet day has fled like the same moth, returning with slow wing, and pausing in the sunshine. | 15 |
| Frank as growths of spring. | 16 |
| As fresh as rain drops. | 17 |
| Fruitful as seeded earth. | 18 |
| Steady gaze, like little dogs face to face with one of their own kind. | 19 |
| Gentle as a feather-stroke. | 20 |
Ghastly as smiles on some fair maniac’s face
Smiling unconscious o’er her bridegroom’s corse. | 21 |
| Grow like grass in May. | 22 |
| Hate is like fire; it makes even light rubbish deadly. | 23 |
| Hesitating, fluttering, like the bird with young wing, weak and dubious. | 24 |
| A woman’s hopes are woven as sunbeams; a shadow annihilates them. | 25 |
| Howls like a thousand demons. | 26 |
| Inevitable as the brute mother shields her young from attacks of the hereditary enemy. | 27 |
| Influences … inevitable as those musical vibrations which take possession of us with a rhythmic empire that no sooner ceases than we desire it to begin again. | 28 |
| Invariable as the waxen image of a little old lady under a glass case. | 29 |
| Invisible as thought. | 30 |
| Justice is like the Kingdom of God: It is not without us as a fact; it is within us as a great yearning. | 31 |
| A fine lady is a squirrel-headed thing, with small airs and small notions; about as applicable to the business of life as a pair of tweezers to the clearing of a forest. | 32 |
| Life is like a game of whist. I don’t enjoy the game much; but I like to play my cards well, and see what will be the end of it. | 33 |
| Lurks and clings as withering, damning blight. | 34 |
| Then Memory disclosed her face divine, that like the calm nocturnal lights doth shine within the soul. | 35 |
| Our two spirits mingled like scents from varying roses that remain one sweetness, nor can ever more be singled. | 36 |
| Neat as fresh spring herbs. | 37 |
| Paused, like some slow ship with sail unfurled waiting, in seas by scarce a wavelet curled. | 38 |
| Impatient people, according to Bacon, are like the bees, and kill themselves in stinging others. | 39 |
| Perfect as the dew-bead. | 40 |
| As plain as water’s water. | 41 |
| Quivering … like a cunning animal whose hiding-places are surrounded by swift-advancing flame. | 42 |
| Ready as bird that sees the sprinkled corn. | 43 |
| All serious reflections are like reflections in water—a pebble will disturb them, and make a dull pond sparkle. | 44 |
| Relentless as a curse. | 45 |
| Repose, as feebler wings do in a quiet nest. | 46 |
| Restless, as the fire that blows and spreads and leaps from high to higher where’er is aught to seize or to subdue. | 47 |
| Sad as twilight. | 48 |
| Scorches like a cave-hid dragon’s breath. | 49 |
| Shifts its scenery like a diorama. | 50 |
| Shrank like the snow that watchers in the vale see narrowed on the height each summer morn. | 51 |
| Silent as the elves. | 52 |
| You look … as silly as a tumbler when he’s been upside down and has got on his heels again. | 53 |
| Slays like lightning. | 54 |
| Works as slowly as old Doctor Time in curing folly. | 55 |
| The singer smiled, as doubtless Orpheus smiled, to see the animals both great and small, the mountainous elephant and the scampering mouse, held by the ears in decent audience. | 56 |
| Snapping like a mad dog. | 57 |
| Soft … like a whispered dream of sleeping music. | 58 |
| Soft as pattering drops that fall from off the eaves in fancy dance when clouds are breaking. | 59 |
| Struggles, like a living creature making its way from under a great snowdrift. | 60 |
| Sure as roundness in the dewdrop. | 61 |
| Swift as the wings of sound. | 62 |
| A swift movement, which was like a chained up resolution set free at last. | 63 |
| Swift as the vulture leaping on his prey. | 64 |
| Swift as the wind. | 65 |
As swift
As bird on wing to breast its eggs again. | 66 |
| Swift as fairy thought. | 67 |
| Swifter than centaurs after rapine bent. | 68 |
| Swifter than sight. | 69 |
| Swiftly as smiles are caught in looks that meet. | 70 |
| Thick as stars above. | 71 |
Thrilling her as with fire of rage divine
And battling energy. | 72 |
| Thrill in your veins like shouts of victory. | 73 |
| Transient as breath shaking a flame. | 74 |
| Transparent as a rock-pool. | 75 |
| Tuneless as a bag of wool. | 76 |
| Unknown as the Arimaspians. | 77 |
| Unlike as diamond is to charcoal. | 78 |
| Upward, like the simulated pyramid of flame on a monumental urn. | 79 |
| Useless as for her hand to try to grasp a shadow. | 80 |
| Gradually vanished like the receding hill-tops. | 81 |
| Veered like changing memories. | 82 |
| As willingly as any singing bird sets him to sing his morning roundelay, because he likes to sing and likes the song. | 83 |
| The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history. | 84 |
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