be no mixing of images. Some people are determined to use figures,
and they force them into every possible place. The result is that
there is often a confusion of comparisons. The following is bad: "His
name went resounding in golden letters through the corridors of time."
Just how a name could resound "in golden letters" is a difficult
question. Longfellow used the last phrase beautifully:--

"Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of time."

Of the two hundred or more figures of speech which have been named and
defined, only a few need be mentioned here. And the purpose is not
that you shall use them more, but that you may recognize them when you
meet them in literature.

Figures based upon Likeness.

There is a large group of figures of speech based upon likeness. One
thing is so much like another that it is spoken of as like it, or,
more frequently, one is said to be the other. Yet if the things
compared are very much alike, there is no figure. To say that a cat is
like a panther is not considered figurative. It is when in objects
essentially different we detect and name some likeness that we say
there is a figure of speech. There is at first thought no likeness
between hope and a nurse; yet were it not for hope most persons would
die. Thackeray was right when he said that "Hope is the nurse of
life."

The principal figures based upon likeness are metaphor, epithet,
personification, apostrophe, allegory, and simile.

_A metaphor is an implied comparison between things essentially
different, but having some common quality._ Metaphor is by far the
most common figure of speech; indeed, so common is it that figurative
language is often called metaphorical.

"Tombs are the clothes of the dead; a grave is but a plain
suit, and a rich monument is one embroidered."

"Let me choose;
For as I am, I live upon the rack."

"The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep."

Only a little removed from metaphor is epithet. _An epithet is a word,
generally a descriptive adjective or a noun, used, not to give
information, but to impart strength or ornament to diction._ It is
like a shortened metaphor. It is very often found in impassioned prose
or verse. Notice that in each epithet there is a comparison; that the
figure is based on likeness.

"Here are sever'd lips
Pa