ng to us or
because they are more forcible, or for both reasons.

While figurative language is a change from the usual mode of expression,
we are not to think of it as being unnatural. It is, in fact, as natural
as plain language, and nearly every one, from the illiterate to the most
learned, makes use of it, more or less, in his ordinary conversation. This
arises from, the fact that we all enjoy comparisons and substitutions.
When we say that we have been pegging away all day at our work, or that
the wind howls, or that the man has a heart of steel, we are making use of
figures of speech. Figurative language ranges from these very simple
expressions to the beautiful figures of speech found in so much of our
poetry. Written prose contains many beautiful and forcible examples, but
it is in poetry that we find most of them.

+88. Simile.+--A simile is an expressed comparison between objects
belonging to different classes. We must remember, however, that all
resemblances do not constitute similes. If we compare two trees, or two
beehives, or two rivers, our comparison is not a simile. If we compare a
tree to a person, a beehive to a schoolroom, or time to a river, we may
form a good simile, since the things compared do not belong to the same
class. The best similes are those in which the ideas compared have one
strong point of resemblance, and are unlike in all other respects.

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

--Shakespeare.

2. For very young he seemed, tenderly reared;
Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight.

--Matthew Arnold.

3. In the primrose-tinted sky
The wan little moon
Hangs like a jewel dainty and rare.

--Francis C. Rankin.

+89. Metaphor.+--A metaphor differs from a simile in that the comparison
is implied rather than expressed. They are essentially the same as far as
the comparison is concerned, and usually the one kind may be easily
changed to the other. In a simile we say that one object _is like_
another, in a metaphor we say that one object _is_ another.

EXERCISES

Select the metaphors in the following and change them to
similes:--

1. In arms the Austrian phalanx stood,
A living wall, a human wood.

--James Montgomery.

2. The familiar lines
Are footpaths for the thoughts of Italy.

--Longfellow.

3. Life is a leaf of paper white,
Whereon each one of us may write