Part 10
The leaves of time drop stealthily
The leaves syllabled her name in cautious whispers
The lights winked
The little incident seemed to throb with significance
The lofty grace of a prince
The loud and urgent pageantry of the day
The low hills on the horizon wore a haze of living blue
The machinations of a relentless mountebank [mountebank = flamboyant charlatan]
The machinations of an unscrupulous enemy
The magical lights of the horizon
The majestic solemnity of the moment yielded to the persuasive warmth of day
The marvelous beauty of her womanhood
The maximum of attainable and communicable truth
The melancholy day weeps in monotonous despair
The melodies of birds and bees
The memory of the night grew fantastic and remote
The meticulous observation of facts
The mind freezes at the thought
The mind was filled with a formless dread
The mocking echoes of long-departed youth
The moment marked an epoch
The moon is waning below the horizon
The more's the pity
The morning beckons
The morning droned along peacefully
The most servile acquiescence
The multiplicity of odors competing for your attention
The murmur of soft winds in the tree-tops
The murmur of the surf boomed in melancholy mockery
The murmuring of summer seas
The music and mystery of the sea
The music of her delicious voice
The music of her presence was singing a swift melody in his blood
The music of unforgotten years sounded again in his soul
The mute melancholy landscape
The mystery obsessed him
The naked fact of death
The nameless and inexpressible fascination of midnight music
The narrow glen was full of the brooding power of one universal spirit
The nascent spirit of chivalry
The night was drowned in stars
The old ruddy conviction deserted me
The onrush and vividness of life
The opulent sunset
The orange pomp of the setting sun
The oscillations of human genius
The outpourings of a tenderness reawakened by remorse
The pageantry of sea and sky
The palest abstractions of thought
The palpitating silence lengthened
The panorama of life was unrolled before him
The paraphernalia of power and prosperity
The parting crimson glory of the ripening summer sun
The past slowly drifted out of his thought
The pendulous eyelids of old age
The penetrating odors assailed his memory as something unforgettable
The pent-up intolerance of years of repression
The perfume of the mounting sea saturated the night with wild fragrance
The piquancy of the pageant of life [piquancy = tart spiciness]
The pith and sinew of mature manhood
The plenitude of her piquant ways [piquant = engagingly stimulating]
The presage of disaster was in the air
The pressure of accumulated misgivings
The preternatural pomposities of the pulpit
The pristine freshness of spring
The pull of soul on body
The pulse of the rebounding sea
The purging sunlight of clear poetry
The purple vaulted night
The question drummed in head and heart day and night
The question irresistibly emerged
The quick pulse of gain
The radiant serenity of the sky
The radiant stars brooded over the stainless fields, white with freshly fallen snow
The restlessness of offended vanity
The retreating splendor of autumn
The rising storm of words
The river ran darkly, mysteriously by
The river sang with its lips to the pebbles
The roar of the traffic rose to thunder
The romantic ardor of a generous mind
The room had caught a solemn and awful quietude
The rosy-hued sky went widening off into the distance
The rosy twilight of boyhood
The royal arrogance of youth
The sadness in him deepened inexplicably
The scars of rancor and remorse
The scent of roses stole in with every breath of air
The sea heaved silvery, far into the night
The sea slept under a haze of golden winter sun
The sea-sweep enfolds you, satisfying eye and mind
The sea-wind buffeted their faces
The secret and subduing charm of the woods
The see-saw of a wavering courage
The sentimental tourist will be tempted to tarry
The shadows of the night seemed to retreat
The shadows rested quietly under the breezeless sky
The shafts of ridicule
The sheer weight of unbearable loneliness
The shiver of the dusk passed fragrantly down the valley
The silence grew stolid
The silence was uncomfortable and ominous
The silent day perfumed with the hidden flowers
The silver silence of the night
The sinking sun made mellow gold of all the air
The sky grew brighter with the imminent day
The sky grew ensaffroned with the indescribable hue that heralds day
The sky put on the panoply of evening
The sky was a relentless, changeless blue
The sky was dull and brooding
The sky was heavily sprinkled with stars
The sky was turning to the pearly gray of dawn
The smiling incarnation of loveliness
The song of hurrying rivers
The sound of the sea waxed
The spacious leisure of the forest
The spell of a deathless dream was upon them
The star-strewn spaces of the night
The stars looked down in their silent splendor
The stars seemed attentive
The steadfast mind kept its hope
The steady thunder of the sea accented the silence
The still voice of the poet
The stillness of a forced composure
The stillness of the star-hung night
The strangest thought shimmered through her
The stream forgot to smile
The streams laughed to themselves
The strident discord seemed to mock his mood
The stunning crash of the ocean saluted her
The subtle emanation of other influences seemed to arrest and chill him
The sudden rush of the awakened mind
The summit of human attainment
The sun blazed torridly
The sun goes down in flame on the far horizon
The sun lay golden-soft over the huddled hills
The sunlight spread at a gallop along the hillside
The sunset was rushing to its height through every possible phase of violence and splendor
The suspicion of secret malevolence
The swelling tide of memory
The swing of the pendulum through an arch of centuries
The tempered daylight of an olive garden
The tender grace of a day that is fled
The tension of struggling tears which strove for an outlet
The thought leaped
The timely effusion of tearful sentiment
The tone betrayed a curious irritation
The torture of his love and terror crushed him
The trees rustled and whispered to the streams
The tumult in her heart subsided
The tumult in her mind found sudden speech
The tumult of pride and pleasure
The tune of moving feet in the lamplit city
The tyranny of nipping winds and early frosts
The unmasked batteries of her glorious gray eyes
The vacant fields looked blankly irresponsive
The vast and shadowy stream of time
The vast cathedral of the world
The vast unexplored land of dreams
The velvet of the cloudless sky grew darker, and the stars more luminous
The veneer of a spurious civilization
The very pulsation and throbbing of his intellect
The very silence of the place appeared a source of peril
The vision fled him
The vivifying touch of humor
The web of lies is rent in pieces
The wheel of her thought turned in the same desolate groove
The whispering rumble of the ocean
The white seething surf fell exhausted along the shore
The whole exquisite night was his
The whole sea of foliage is shaken and broken up with little momentary shiverings and shadows
The wide horizon forever flames with summer
The wild whirl of nameless regret and passionate sorrow
The wild winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay
The wind charged furiously through it, panting towards the downs
The wind piped drearily
The wind was in high frolic with the rain
The winnowed tastes of the ages
The woods were silent with adoration
The youth of the soul
The zenith turned shell pink
Their ephemeral but enchanting beauty had expired forever [ephemeral = markedly short-lived]
Their eyes met glancingly
Their troth had been plighted
There was a kind of exhilaration in this subtle baiting
There was a mild triumph in her tone
There was a mournful and dim haze around the moon
There was a strange massing and curving of the clouds
There was a thrill in the air
There was a time I might have trod the sunlit heights
There was no glint of hope anywhere
There was no menace in the night's silvern calmness
There was something so kindly in its easy candor
There was spendthrift grandeur
These qualities were raised to the white heat of enthusiasm
They became increasingly turbid and phantasmagorical [phantasmagorical = fantastic imagery]
They escaped the baffled eye
They sit heavy on the soul
They were vastly dissimilar
This exquisite conjunction and balance
This little independent thread of inquiry ran through the texture of his mind and died away
This shadowy and chilling sentiment unaccountably creeps over me
Thought shook through her in poignant pictures
Thoughts came thronging in panic haste
Thrilled by fresh and indescribable odors
Thrilled with a sense of strange adventure
Through a cycle of many ages
Through endless and labyrinthine sentences
Thrilled to the depths of her being
Time had passed unseen
Tinsel glitter of empty titles
Tired with a dull listless fatigue
To all intents and purposes
To speak with entire candor
To stay his tottering constancy
To the scourging he submitted with a good grace
Tossed disdainfully off from young and ardent lips
Touched every moment with shifting and enchanting beauty
Touched with a bewildering and elusive beauty
Transcendental contempt for money
Transformed with an overmastering passion
Trouble gathered on his brow
Turning the world topsy-turvey
Twilight creeps upon the darkening mind
U
Unapproachable grandeur and simplicity
Unaware of her bitter taunt
Under the vivifying touch of genius
Unearthly in its malignant glee
Unfathomed depths and impossibilities
Unforced and unstudied depth of feeling
Unspoiled by praise or blame
Unspoken messages from some vaster world
Unstable moral equilibrium of boyhood
Until sleep overtakes us at a stride
Untouched by the ruthless spirit of improvement
Upon the mountain-tops of meditation
Urbanely plastic and versatile
Uttering grandiose puerilities [puerilities = childishness, silly]
V
Vain allurements of folly and fashion
Variously ramified and delicately minute channels of expression
Varnished over with a cold repellent cynicism
Vast sweep of mellow distances
Veiled by some equivocation
Vibrant with the surge of human passions
Vicissitudes of wind and weather [vicissitudes = sudden or unexpected changes]
Vigor and richness of resource
Visible and palpable pains and penalties
Voices that charm the ear and echo with a subtle resonance in the soul
Volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions
W
Wantonly and detestably unkind
Waylay Destiny and bid him stand and deliver
Wayward and strangely playful responses
Wearing the white flower of a blameless life
What sorry and pitiful quibbling
When a pleasant countryside tunes the spirit to a serene harmony of mood
When music is allied to words
When the frame and the mind alike seem unstrung and listless
When the profane voices are hushed
When the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze
Whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes
Whistled life away in perfect contentment
Wholly alien to his spirit
With a vanquished and weary sigh
Womanly fickleness and caprice
Words and acts easily wrenched from their true significance
Worn to shreds by anxiety
Wrapped in a sudden intensity of reflection
Wrapped in an inaccessible mood
Wrapped in scudding rain
Wrapt in his odorous and many-colored robe
Wrapt in inward contemplation
Wrought of an emotion infectious and splendidly dangerous
Wrought out of intense and tragic experience
Y
Yielding to a wave of pity
Your mind enthroned in the seventh circle of content
SECTION VIII
STRIKING SIMILES
A
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
Alone, 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 lip
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 novellete [novellete = short novel]
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
B
Babbling like a child
Balmy in manner as a bland southern morning
Be like the granite of thy rock-ribbed land
Beauteous she looks as a water-lily
Beautiful as the dawn, dominant as the sun
Beauty maddens the soul like wine
Beheld great Babel, wrathful, beautiful, burn like a blood-red cloud upon the plain
Beneath a sky as fair as summer flowers
Bent like a wand of willow
Black as a foam-swept rock
Black his hair as the wintry night
Blithe as a bird [blithe = carefree and lighthearted]
Bounded by the narrow fences of life
Bowed like a mountain
Breaking his oath and resolution like a twist of rotten silk
Breathed like a sea at rest
Bright as a diamond in the sun
Bright as a fallen fragment of the sky
Bright as the coming forth of the morning, in the cloud of an early shower
Bright as the sunbeams