Oliver Wendell Holmes Similes. Frank J. Wilstach, comp. 1916. A Dictionary of Similes

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Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.

Oliver Wendell Holmes


Beaming as the summer’s morn.	1
Bedraggled, like the flounce of a vulgar rich woman’s dress that trails on the sidewalk.	2
His tail extended all the while Behind him like a rat-tail file.	3
Cherished beliefs are like those drinking glasses of the ancient pattern, that serve us all so long as we keep them in our hand, but spill all if we attempt to set them down.	4
Bend in the blast as blade of grass.	5
The bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you put upon it, the more it will contract.	6
Blooms like a bower in the garden of Bliss.	7
Blushed like blood.	8
Bobbing like a quill-float with a “minnum” biting at the hook below.	9
Breathing sweetness like a bridal bower.	10
Brief As sunset clouds in heaven.	11
Bright as the jewels of the seven-starr’d crown.	12
Bright As the resplendent cactus of the night That floods the gloom with fragrance and with light.	13
Calm as the patient planet’s gleam That walks the clouded skies.	14
A sound brain should always evolve the same fixed product with the certainty of Babbage’s calculating machine.	15
Loving eyes that gleam Clear as a starlit mountain stream.	16
Cling … like the spokes of a wheel.	17
Cold as the coiling water-snake.	18
As common as the power of moving the ears voluntarily, which is a moderately rare endowment.	19
Complexion clear and warm, like rose-cordial.	20
Talk about conceit as much as you like, it is to human character what salt is to the ocean; it keeps it sweet and renders it endurable. Say rather it is like natural unguent of the sea fowl’s plumage, which enables him to shed the rain that falls on him and the waves in which he dips. When one has had all his conceit taken out of him, when he has lost all his illusions, his feathers will soon soak through, and he will fly no more.	21
Conceit is just as natural a thing to human minds as a centre is to a circle.	22
I have sometimes compared conversations to the Italian game of Moral in which one player lifts his hand with so many fingers extended, and the other matches or misses the number, as the case may be, with his own. I show my thought, another his; if they agree, well; if they differ, we find the largest common factor, if we can, but at any rate avoid disputing about remainders and fractions, which is to real talk what tuning an instrument is to playing on it.	23
Cool as a moonbeam on a frozen brook.	24
Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses, On the old banks of the Nile.	25
As different … as a sigh from the southwest is from the northeastern breeze.	26
Dimpled as a baby.	27
Drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf, O’er the gulfs of the desolate sea.	28
Drifting like a flake of fire Rent by a whirlwind from a blazing spire.	29
The blood dropped out of her cheeks as the mercury drops from a broken barometer-tube, and she melted away from her seat as an image of snow.	30
Dry as the shell on the sand.	31
Easy as forgetting oaths.	32
The lack-lustre eye, rayless as a Beacon street door-plate in August.	33
An eye as clear and steady as the evening star.	34
As fabulous as Aladdin’s ring.	35
Faded like a dream of youth.	36
Faded … like dew upon the sea.	37
Fade like the roseate flush, the golden glow, When the bright curtain of the day is rolled.	38
Fade unspoken, Like daffodils that die with sheaths unbroken.	39
Like a leaf that quits the bough, The mortal vesture falls.	40
Fast as the rolling seasons bring The hour of fate to those we love.	41
Fear, like spare diet, starves the fevers of lust and quenches the flames of hell.	42
Fickle as a female in hysterics.	43
Firm as the band that clasps the antlered spoil.	44
Firm as the rooted mountain rock.	45
Fit like Sunday shoes.	46
Flat as a rose that has long been pressed.	47
Fled like a felon.	48
Fluttering like new-mown hay.	49
A headlong crowd is flying Like a billow that has broken and is shivered into spray.	50
Fly Like the cannons that burst on the Fourth of July.	51
Folded like a wave.	52
Fragrant as the breath of angels.	53
Frail as the web that misty night has spun.	54
Fresh as the breeze blowing over the heather.	55
Fresh as the dews of our prime.	56
Like a morning mist it gathered.	57
Gay as bridal bowers with vows of many-petalled maids.	58
The advent of genius is like what the florists style the breaking of a seedling tulip into what we may call high-caste colors…. It is a surprise—there is nothing to account for it.	59
Gleams like a diamond on a dancing girl.	60
Like phantoms painted on the magic slide, Forth from the darkness of the past we glide, As living shadows for a moment seen In airy pageant on the eternal screen.	61
Glimmering, like the balance-pan That weighs its guinea as he weighs his man.	62
Glow like a queen’s missal.	63
Glowed like the morn beneath Aurora’s wings.	64
Gone, like the tenants that quit without warning, Down the back entry of time.	65
As hard as the heart of a religious foe-curser.	66
Heats like the hammered anvil.	67
As holy, as the symbol that we lay on the still bosom of our white-robed dead.	68
Cheeks hueless as a brandy-peach.	69
Humbly, like a praying nun.	70
Hungry as the chap that said a turkey was too much for one, not enough for two.	71
Impends, like a crag over the brow of a lofty precipice.	72
Important as the linch-pin.	73
Kindling like a Christmas feaster When some wild chorus shakes the vinous air.	74
Laughter and tears are meant to turn the same machinery of sensibility; one is wind-power, and the other water-power: that is all.	75
Leads the passions, like the orb that guides, From pole to pole, the palpitating tides.	76
A new lecture is like any new tool. We use it for a while with pleasure. Then it blisters our hands and we hate to touch it. By-and-by our hands get callous, and then we no longer have any sensitiveness about it. But if we give it up the callouses disappear; and if we meddle with it again, we miss the novelty and get the blisters.	77
His back as limber as a canker worm’s.	78
I am lingering yet, as sometimes in the blaze of day A milk-and-watery moon Stains with its dim and fading ray The lustrous blue of noon.	79
Lively as a squirrel.	80
Lips as livid as the opening lilac-leaves.	81
London is like a shelled corn-cob on the Derby day.	82
Loose as Cossack pantaloons.	83
Lost, like the lightning in The sullen cloud.	84
Loud as the storm-wind that tumbles the main.	85
Loyal as the Liberty on a golden ten-dollar piece.	86
Lucid as a Japanese sphere of rock-crystal.	87
Men, like peaches and pears, grow sweet a little while before they begin to decay.	88
Melted like an image of snow.	89
Mild as moonbeams crazed with murderous hates.	90
Naked as a peeled apple.	91
Natural as primping at a looking-glass.	92
Noisy as a kettle-drum.	93
Wide open like the church portals when the bride and bridgeroom enter.	94
Packed like the leaves in a closed book.	95
Patterings like an April’s rain.	96
Plain as the record on the prophet’s scroll.	97
As plain as a hole in a grindstone.	98
Poets, like painters, their machinery claim, And verse bestows the varnish and the frame.	99
Puff like a paragraph praising a pill.	100
People that make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks. They amuse themselves and other children but their little trick may upset a freight train of conversation for the sake of a battered witticism.	101
Pure as the dew that filters through the rose.	102
Pure as the quarry’s whitest block.	103
The lack-lustre eye, rayless as a Beacon-street door-plate in August.	104
Reel like masts on ocean’s swell.	105
Beneath his glance the strong-knit joints relax As the weak knees before the headsman’s axe.	106
Remorselessly as the ocean moves in upon the shore.	107
Tender and reverential … as a nun over her missal.	108
Sad as the gust that sweeps the clouded sky.	109
Scattered all along, like emptied seashells on the sand.	110
Scattered … As leaves when wild winds blow.	111
She scatters the spray as the chaff in the stroke of the flail.	112
Scornful as spirit fallen, its own tormentor.	113
Seedy as a caraway umbrel late in the season.	114
Shone like the evening star.	115
Shot like a bullet from a gun.	116
Shouted and laughed, like a school full of boys from their benches set free.	117
Shrivels like a scroll.	118
A silence like that of dreams.	119
Silence, like a poultice, comes To heal the blows of sound.	120
Silent as midnight’s falling meteor slides into the stillness of the far-off land.	121
Simmer like a sea pent volcano.	122
Slow, like the tired heaving of a grief-worn breast.	123
Slowly, as when walking-beam first feels the gathering bead of steam.	124
Slumber like the leaves of a lily at nightfall.	125
Smack like a tight cork from a bottle.	126
Smiles as thick on rosy lips as ripples on the sea.	127
Smooth as the pond can be.	128
Society as cold as the glacier of an unsunned cavern.	129
Soft as rain.	130
As soft as swan’s down.	131
Soft as the moonbeams when they sought Endymion’s fragrant bower.	132
A good soldier, like a good horse, cannot be of a bad color.	133
Sparkling and roseate as the dewy fingers of Aurora.	134
Spry as the chaff in the stroke of the flail.	135
Stained, like meerschaum, through and through.	136
Stamp themselves upon his consciousness as the signet on soft wax.	137
Steady As if our footsteps had begun To print the golden streets already!	138
Stuck together like a sheet of buns.	139
Streamed o’er his memory like a forest’s flame.	140
Strewed like the leaves that vanish in the soil.	141
Sweet as the breath from an odalisque’s fan.	142
Sweet as the dawn star.	143
Sweet as the first snow-drop, which the sunbeams greet.	144
Swollen as the cheeks of jubilant cherubim.	145
Talking is like playing on the harp; there is as much in laying the hand on the strings to stop a vibration as in twanging them to bring out their music.	146
Writing or printing is like shooting with a rifle; you may hit your reader’s mind or miss it;—but talking is like playing at a mark with the pipe of an engine; if it is within reach, and you have time enough, you can’t help hitting it.	147
There are men of esprit who are excessively exhausting to some people. They are the talkers that have what may be called jerky minds. Their thoughts do not run in the natural order of sequence. They say bright things on all possible subjects, but their zigzags rack you to death. After a jolting half-hour with one of these jerky companions, talking with a dull friend affords great relief. It is like taking the cat in your lap after holding a squirrel.	148
Tapering like a lizard’s tail.	149
Tearful and trembling as a dewy rose The wind has shaken till it fills the air With light and fragrance.	150
Some kinds of thoughts breed in the dark of one’s mind like the blind fishes in the Mammoth cave. We can’t see them and they can’t see us; but sooner or later the daylight gets in and we find that some cold, fishy little negative has been sprawling all over our beliefs, and the brood of blind questions it has given birth to are burrowing round and under and butting their blunt notes against the pillars of faith we thought the whole world might lean on.	151
Memories thrill, Like a breath from the wood, like a breeze from the hill.	152
Trembling as the dewy rose the wind has shaken.	153
True as the dial’s shadow to the beam.	154
Unchanging as the belt Orion wears.	155
Uncoiling,— Like the rattlesnake’s shrill warning the reverberating drum.	156
Unspoken, Like daffodils that die with sheaths unbroken.	157
Vain your feeble cry, As the babe’s wailings to the thundering sky.	158
Vast as Phœbus on his burning wheels.	159
Idly wait Like lovers at the swinging gate.	160
Warm as if the brush Of Titian or Velasquez brought the flush Of life into their features.	161
As the drained fountain, filled with autumn leaves, The field swept naked of its garnered sheaves; So wastes at noon the promise of our dawn, The springs all choking, and the harvest gone.	162
Weigh like the shillings on a dead man’s eyes.	163
Whirl along, like pebbles in a stream.	164
White as sea-bleached shells.	165
White as the sea-gull.	166
Women, with their tongues, Like polar needles, ever on the jar.	167
Writing or printing is like shooting with a rifle; you may hit your reader’s mind, or miss it;—but talking is like playing at a mark with the pipe of an engine; if it is within reach, and you have time enough, you can’t help hitting it.	168

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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