!" is less effective than to say, "Beware of _the
bottle!_" and is so, clearly because it calls up a less specific image.

Sec. 36. The Simile is in many cases used chiefly with a view to ornament,
but whenever it increases the _force_ of a passage, it does so by being
an economy. Here in an instance: "The illusion that great men and great
events came oftener in early times than now, is partly due to historical
perspective. As in a range of equidistant columns, the furthest off look
the closest; so, the conspicuous objects of the past seem more thickly
clustered the more remote they are."

Sec. 37. To construct by a process of literal explanation, the thought
thus conveyed would take many sentences, and the first elements of the
picture would become faint while the imagination was busy in adding the
others. But by the help of a comparison all effort is saved; the picture
is instantly realized, and its full effect produced.

Sec. 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. That this arrangement is the best,
may be seen in the following passage from the 'Lady of the Lake';

"As wreath of snow, on mountain breast,
Slides from the rock that gave it rest,
Poor Ellen glided from her stay,
And at the monarch's feet she lay."

Inverting these couplets will be found to diminish the effect
considerably. There are cases, however, even where the simile is a
simple one, in which it may with advantage be placed last, as in these
lines from Alexander Smith's 'Life Drama':

"I see the future stretch
All dark and barren as a rainy sea."

The reason for this seems to be, that so abstract an idea as that
attaching to the word "future," does not present itself to the mind
in any definite form, and hence the subsequent arrival at the simile
entails no reconstruction of the thought.

Sec. 39. Such, however, are not the only cases in which this order is the
most forcible. As the advantage of putting the simile before the object
depends on its being carried forward in the mind to assist in forming an
image of the object, it must happen that if, from length or complexity,
it