[Writing tips] Examples of metaphors

Isn’t Henry Morton Robinson a writer to wonder at? In a passage published before, we have seen him use chess metaphors in a masterful way.

Here we will look at some shorter metaphors, and one simile, also from his famous novel The Cardinal (yes, I admit it’s his only work I have read). Check how these figures of speech are vivid and effective.

And if you are not sure what is the difference between a simile and a metaphor, you can quickly learn that here.

This was the happiest time of Stephen’s life. The war to end war was over; the jubilant Armistice rocket that filled the sky with sparks of golden hope had not yet come down a dead stick.

Barely ten days had elapsed since the beginning of his pontificate; echos of the solemn coronation chant, ‘Tu es Petrus’, had scarcely subsided when the groans of a distracted world broke in upon the pontiff’s human ear. From every quarter of the globe, chords of misery were rising.

A drench of anguish sapped Stephen’s will. For support he grasped at rebel fantasies — matchwood temptations whirling down the wind of despair.

These thoughts promptly disappeared into the limbo of things that can’t be helped.

The Stromboli‘s prow cut the calm sea like a diamond, and as the lenghtening wake healed the scar — first with foam, then in seamless peace — Stephen felt his own wounds healing, too.