+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
   His word or two, and then comes night.

—­Lowell.

+90.  Personification.+—­Personification is a special form of the metaphor in which life is attributed to inanimate objects or the characteristics of persons are attributed to objects, animals, or even to abstract ideas.

EXERCISES

Explain why the following quotations are examples of personifications:—­

1.  The day is done; and slowly from the scene
   The stooping sun upgathers his spent shafts
   And puts them back into his golden quiver.

—­Longfellow.

2.  Time is a cunning workman and no man can detect his joints.

—­Charles Pierce Burton.

3.  The sun is couched, the seafowl gone to rest,
   And the wild storm hath somewhere found a nest.

—­Wordsworth.

4.  See the mountains kiss high heaven,
     And the waves clasp one another;
   No sister flower would be forgiven
     If it disdained its brother.

—­Shelley.

+91.  Apostrophe.+—­Apostrophe is like personification, but has an additional characteristic.  When we directly address inanimate objects or the absent as if they were present, we call the figure of speech thus formed apostrophe.