[76]
This type
of simile has, however, sadly degenerated in the
hands of some of our declaimers owing to the license
of the schools. For they adopt false comparisons,
and even then do not apply them as they should
to the subjects to which they wish them to provide
a parallel. Both these faults are exemplified in
two similes which were on the lips of everyone
[p. 255]
when I was a young man, “Even the sources of
mighty rivers are navigable,” and “The generous
tree bears fruit while it is yet a sapling.”
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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