A footnote to Column 69, PCW Plus 78, March 1993
Just to give the flavour of the book and silence unbelievers, here are a few scanned pages from Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases by Grenville Kleiser (1917), being the entire "A" section of his list of "Striking Similes" (pp225-232).
- A blind rage like a fire swept over him
- A book that rends and tears like a broken saw
- A breath of melancholy made itself felt like a chill and sudden gust from some unknown sea
- A cloud in the west like a pall creeps upward
- A cloud like a flag from the sky
- A cluster of stars hangs like fruit in the tree
- A confused mass of impressions, like an old rubbish-heap
- A cry as of a sea-bird in the wind
- A dead leaf might as reasonably demand to return to the tree
- A drowsy murmur floats into the air like thistledown
- A face as imperturbable as fate
- A face as pale as wax
- A face tempered like steel
- A fatigued, faded, lusterless air, as of a caged creature
- A few pens parched by long disuse
- A figure like a carving on a spire
- A fluttering as of blind bewildered moths
- A giant galleon overhead, looked like some misty monster of the deep
- A glacial pang of pain like the stab of a dagger of ice frozen from a poisoned well
- A glance that flitted like a bird
- A great moon like a red lamp in the sycamore
- A grim face like a carved mask
- A hand icily cold and clammy as death
- A heart from which noble sentiments sprang like sparks from an anvil
- A jeweler that glittered like his shop
- A lady that lean'd on his arm like a queen in a fable of old fairy days
- A life, a Presence, like the air
- A life as common and brown and bare as the box of earth in the window there
- A light wind outside the lattice swayed a branch of roses to and fro, shaking out their perfume as from a swung censer
- A lightning-phrase, as if shot from the quiver of infallible wisdom
- A list of our unread books torments some of us like a list of murders
- A little breeze ran through the corn like a swift serpent
- A little weed-clogged ship, gray as a ghost
- A long slit of daylight like a pointing finger
- A memory like a well-ordered cupboard
- A mighty wind, like a leviathan, plowed the brine
- A mind very like a bookcase
- A mystery, soft, soothing and gentle, like the whisper of a child murmuring its happiness in its sleep
- A name which sounds even now like the call of a trumpet
- A note of despairing appeal which fell like a cold hand upon one's living soul
- A purpose as the steady flame
- A question deep almost as the mystery of life
- A quibbling mouth that snapped at verbal errors like a lizard catching flies
- A radiant look came over her face, like a sudden burst of sunshine on a cloudy day
- A reputation that swelled like a sponge
- A ruby like a drop of blood
- A shadow of melancholy touched her lithe fancies, as a cloud dims the waving of golden grain
- A silver moon, like a new-stamped coin, rode triumphant in the sky
- A slow thought that crept like a cold worm through all his brain
- A smile flashed over her face, like sunshine over a flower
- A soft and purple mist like a vaporous amethyst
- A soft haze, like a fairy dream, is floating over wood and stream
- A soul as white as heaven
- A sound like the throb of a bell
- A stooping girl as pale as a pearl
- A sudden sense of fear ran through her nerves like the chill of an icy wind
- A sweet voice caroling like a gold-caged nightingale
- A thin shrill voice like the cry of an expiring mouse
- A thing of as frail enchantment as the gleam of stars upon snow
- A vague thought, as elusive as the smell of a primrose
- A vanishing loveliness as tender as the flush of the rose leaf and as ethereal as the light of a solitary star
- A voice as low as the sea
- A voice soft and sweet as a tune that one knows
- A white bird floats there, like a drifting leaf
- Against a sky as clear as sapphire
- Age, like winter weather
- Agile as a leopard
- Agitated like a storm-tossed ship
- Air like wine
- All around them like a forest swept the deep and empurpled masses of her tangled hair
- All like an icicle it seemed, so tapering and cold
- All my life broke up, like some great river's ice at touch of spring
- All silent as the sheeted dead
- All sounds were lost in the whistle of air humming by like the flight of a million arrows
- All that's beautiful drifts away like the waters
- All the world lay stretched before him like the open palm of his hand
- All unconscious as a flower
- A.lone, like a storm-tossed wreck, on this night of the glad New Year
- An anxiety hung like a dark impenetrable cloud
- An ardent face out-looking like a star
- An ecstasy which suddenly overwhelms your mind like an unexpected and exquisite thought
- An envious wind crept by like an unwelcome thought
- An ideal as sublime and comprehensive as the horizon
- An immortal spirit dwelt in that frail body, like a bird in an outworn cage
- An impudent trick as hackneyed as conjuring rabbits out of a hat
- An indefinable resemblance to a goat
- An isle of Paradise, fair as a gem
- An old nodding negress whose sable head shined in the sun like a polished cocoanut
- An omnibus across the bridge crawls like a yellow butterfly
- An undefined sadness seemed to have fallen about her like a cloud
- An unknown world, wild as primeval chaos
- An unpleasing strain, like the vibration of a rope drawn out too fast
- And a pinnace like a flutter'd bird came flying from afar
- And a tear like silver, glistened in the corner of her eye
- And all our thoughts ran into tears like sunshine into rain
- And at first the road comes moving toward me, like a bride waving palms
- And Dusk, with breast as of a dove, brooded
- And eyes as bright as the day
- And fell as cold as a lump of clay
- And her cheek was like a rose
- And here were forests ancient as the hills
- And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond, as clear as elemental diamond, or serene morning air
- And melting like the stars in June
- And night, as welcome as a friend
- And silence like a poultice comes to heal the blows of sound
- And spangled o'er with twinkling points, like stars
- And the smile she softly uses fills the silence like a speech
- As a child in play scatters the heaps of sand that he has piled on the seashore
- As a cloud that gathers her robe like drifted snow
- As a flower after a drought drinks in the steady plunging rain
- As a leaf that beats on a mountain
- As a lion grieves at the loss of her whelps
- As a man plowing all day longs for supper and welcomes sunset
- As a sea disturbed by opposing winds
- As amusing as a litter of likely young pigs
- As arbitrary as a cyclone and as killing as a pestilence
- As austere as a Roman matron
- As beautiful as the purple flush of dawn
- As blind as a mole
- As brief as sunset clouds in heaven
- As bright as sunlight on a stream
- As busy as a bee
- As cattle driven by a gadfly
- As chimney sweepers come to dust
- As clear as a whistle
- As clear as the parts of a tree in the morning sun
- As close as oak and ivy stand
- As delicate and as fair as a lily
- As delightful to the mind as cool well-water to thirsty lips
- As diamond cuts diamond
- As direct and unvarying as the course of a homing bird
- As distinct as night and morning
- As dry as desert dust
- As dumb as a fish
- As easily as the sun shines
- As easy as a turn of the hand
- As elastic as a steel spring
- As extinct as the dodo
- As faint as the memory of a sound
- As familiar to him as his alphabet
- As fatal as the fang of the most venomous snake
- As fleeting and elusive as our dreams
- As foam from a ship's swiftness
- As fresh and invigorating as a sea-breeze
- As full of eager vigor as a mountain stream
- As full of spirit as a gray squirrel
- As gay and busy as a brook
- As gently as the flower gives forth its perfume
- As gently as withered leaves float from a tree
- As graceful as a bough
- As grave as a judge
- As great as the first day of creation
- As high as heaven
- As I dropped like a bolt from the blue
- As I dwelt like a sparrow among the spires
- As if a door were suddenly left ajar into some world unseen before
- As impossible as to count the stars in illimitable space
- As in the footsteps of a god
- As inaccessible to his feet as the clefts and gorges of the clouds
- As inexorable as the flight of time
- As innocent as a new laid egg
- As iridescent as a soap bubble
- As locusts gather to a stream before a fire
- As mellow and deep as a psalm
- As men strip for a race, so must an author strip for the race with time
- As merry as bees in clover
- As nimble as water
- As one who has climbed above the earth's eternal snowline and sees only white peaks and pinnacles
- As pale as any ghost
- As patient as the trees
- As quick as the movement of some wild animal
- As quiet as a nun breathless with adoration
- As radiant as the rose
- As readily and naturally as ducklings take to water
- As reticent as a well-bred stockbroker
- As ruthlessly as the hoof of a horse tramples on a rose
- As shallow streams run dimpling all the way
- As simple as the intercourse of a child with its mother
- As sleep falls upon the eyes of a child tired with a long summer day of eager pleasure and delight
- As some vast river of unfailing source
- As stars that shoot along the sky
- As still as a stone
- As stupid as a sheep
- As sudden as a dislocated joint slipping back into place
- As summer winds that creep from flower to flower
- As supple as a step-ladder
- As swaggering and sentimental as a penny novelette
- As swift as thought
- As the accumulation of snowflakes makes the avalanche
- As the bubble is extinguished in the ocean
- As the dew upon the roses warms and melts the morning light
- As the fair cedar, fallen before the breeze, lies self-embalmed amidst the moldering trees
- As the light straw flies in dark'ning whirlwinds
- As the lightning cleaves the night
- As the loud blast that tears the skies
- As the slow shadows of the pointed grass mark the eternal periods
- As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance
- As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again
- As though Pharaoh should set the Israelites to make a pin instead of a pyramid
- As unapproachable as a star
- As weird as the elfin lights
- As well try to photograph the other side of the moon
- At extreme tension, like a drawn bow
- Away he rushed like a cyclone
- Awkward as a cart-horse