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Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases

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As a child in play scatters the heaps of sand that he has piled on the seashore As a cloud that gathers her robe like drifted snow As a flower after a drought drinks in the steady plunging rain As a leaf that beats on a mountain As a lion grieves at the loss of her whelps As a man plowing all day longs for supper and welcomes sunset As a sea disturbed by opposing winds As amusing as a litter of likely young pigs As arbitrary as a cyclone and as killing as a pestilence As austere as a Roman matron As beautiful as the purple flush of dawn As blind as a mole As brief as sunset clouds in heaven As bright as sunlight on a stream As busy as a bee As cattle driven by a gadfly As chimney sweepers come to dust As clear as a whistle As clear as the parts of a tree in the morning sun As close as oak and ivy stand As delicate and as fair as a lily As delightful to the mind as cool well-water to thirsty lip As diamond cuts diamond As direct and unvarying as the course of a homing bird As distinct as night and morning As dry as desert dust As dumb as a fish As easily as the sun shines As easy as a turn of the hand As elastic as a steel spring As extinct as the dodo As faint as the memory of a sound As familiar to him as his alphabet As fatal as the fang of the most venomous snake As fleeting and elusive as our dreams As foam from a ship's swiftness As fresh and invigorating as a sea-breeze As full of eager vigor as a mountain stream As full of spirit as a gray squirrel As gay and busy as a brook As gently as the flower gives forth its perfume As gently as withered leaves float from a tree As graceful as a bough As grave as a judge As great as the first day of creation As high as heaven As I dropped like a bolt from the blue As I dwelt like a sparrow among the spires As if a door were suddenly left ajar into some world unseen before As impossible as to count the stars in illimitable space As in the footsteps of a god As inaccessible to his feet as the clefts and gorges of the clouds As inexorable as the flight of time As innocent as a new laid egg As iridescent as a soap bubble As locusts gather to a stream before a fire As mellow and deep as a psalm As men strip for a race, so must an author strip for the race with time As merry as bees in clover As nimble as water As one who has climbed above the earth's eternal snowline and sees only white peaks and pinnacles As pale as any ghost As patient as the trees As quick as the movement of some wild animal As quiet as a nun breathless with adoration As radiant as the rose As readily and naturally as ducklings take to water As reticent as a well-bred stockbroker As ruthlessly as the hoof of a horse tramples on a rose As shallow streams run dimpling all the way As simple as the intercourse of a child with its mother As sleep falls upon the eyes of a child tired with a long summer day of eager pleasure and delight As some vast river of unfailing source As stars that shoot along the sky As still as a stone As stupid as a sheep As sudden as a dislocated joint slipping back into place As summer winds that creep from flower to flower As supple as a step-ladder As swaggering and sentimental as a penny novellete [novellete = short novel] As swift as thought As the accumulation of snowflakes makes the avalanche As the bubble is extinguished in the ocean As the dew upon the roses warms and melts the morning light As the fair cedar, fallen before the breeze, lies self-embalmed amidst the moldering trees As the light straw flies in dark'ning whirlwinds As the lightning cleaves the night As the loud blast that tears the skies As the slow shadows of the pointed grass mark the eternal periods As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again As though Pharaoh should set the Israelites to make a pin instead of a pyramid As unapproachable as a star As weird as the elfin lights As well try to photograph the other side of the moon At extreme tension, like a drawn bow Away he rushed like a cyclone Awkward as a cart-horse <h4 id="id09293" style="margin-top: 2em">B</h4> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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