[30]
I am aware that some writers have shown pedantic
zeal in making a minute classification of similes, and
have pointed out that there is lesser similitude (such
as that of a monkey to a man or a statue when first
blocked out to its original), a greater similitude (for
which compare the proverb “As like as egg to
egg”), a similitude in things dissimilar (an elephant,
for instance, and an ant both belong to the genus
animal),and dissimilitude in things similar (puppies
and kids, for example, are unlike the parents,1 for
they differ from them in point of age).
1 Verg. Ecl i. 23.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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