Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.

Ambrose Bierce

Beautiful as fire.

Blushing like the skies to crimson burning,
When Aurora Borealis fires her premises by night.

Blushes, like the flushes upon high
When Aurora Borealis lights her circumpolar palace.

As boldly as a brigadier
Tricked out with marks and signs all o’er
Of rank, brigade, division, corps,
To show by every means he can
An officer is not a man.

Deteriorate like a fish in the sun.

As different as paths of storm.

Extinguished like a taper’s flame.

Familiar as the simple lore
That two policemen and two thieves make four.

Firm as the heart of a mountain.

Glittered in the gloom
Like a gilt epitaph within a tomb.

Christmas greetings are like pots of ore;
The hollower they are they sing the more.

Luminous as jelly.

Pitiless as night.

Saucy as sin.

The living seemed as silent as the slain.

Snored like an organ.

Streaming like feathers of a shuttlecock.

As stubborn as the will of kings.

Sweet as the look of a lover saluting the eyes of a maid.

As tranquil and unmoved as Fate.

Wasted, like a sermon for the dead.

Woven like winter serpents in a pit.

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