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

Charlotte Brontë

Calm as glass.

Cold like a corpse.

Companionless as a prisoner in his dungeon.

Cunning as a witch.

Dark as a Spaniard.

Dimm’d … like a vague remnant of some by-past scene.

Distinct as vice from virtue.

Elude the grasp like an essence.

Her sunken grey eyes, like reflections from the aspect of an angel.

Feeble as the wing of a chicken in the pip.

Impersonal as Shakespeare.

Irrevocable as death.

Noiseless as a bright mist rolls down a hill.

Pale as a white stone.

Pliant as a reed.

Pout like a disappointed child.

Powerless as stubble exposed to the draught of a furnace.

As reviving as a friend’s visit.

Shadowy, like half-comprehended notions that float dim through children’s brains.

Shine like jet.

Shivered in my heart like a suffering child in a cold cradle.

Shrink, as if I had been wandering among volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver.

Silent as a church.

Silent as an Indian.

Sloped, as if leaning on the air.

Still as a mouse.

Still as a prostrate column.

Straight as poplars.

Swept … like sullying cloud from pure blue sky.

Tough as an India-rubber ball.

Vacant like air.

Vain as the passing gale.

Vainly spent, as dews on the sea.

Wanderings as wild as those of the March-spirit.

Warm as red sky’s passing blush.

Wild as one whom demons seize.

Youth like genius gives its best at first.