We all like to read well-written prose that has been enlivened with a liberal sprinkling of metaphors and similes. A couple of years ago I bought the book i never metaphor i didn’t like and was surprised to find its author Dr. Mardy Grothe attended UND when I did. I suppose our paths crossed on campus numerous times but I don’t remember him. At any rate he wrote this worthwhile compilation of figurative language including metaphors, similes, and analogies.
I related to this one by H. L. Mencken: “I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.” Curt Simmons was credited with this one from the sports world: “Trying to sneak a fastball past Henry Aaron was like trying to sneak the sun past a rooster.” Dwight Eisenhower said this: “Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.”
Many figures of speech deal with old age and death. This one, Thomas Hobbes’ last words, is easy to understand: “I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.” The early president John Quincy Adams spoke from his familiar horse and buggy days: “Old minds are like horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.” But these old proverbs from various sources are my favorites: “There’s many a good tune played on an old fiddle,” “The older the fiddle, the sweeter the tune,” “The oldest trees often bear the sweetest fruit,” “The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”
Good novels usually equal the use of good metaphors, in fact the whole story can act as one. My recent re-reading of To Kill A Mockingbird yielded this: the mockingbird represents innocence while guns represent false strength. The Bible contains many, such as - “Ye are the salt of the earth,” “The Lord God is a sun and shield,” “The harvest is the end of the age,” “I am the light of the world.”
The point of it all is that good metaphors spark the imagination. I know I am a rank beginner in their use, but I try to improve. I suppose I can talk in terms of flights of geese pulling a blanket of winter clouds over us as they fly south. Maybe not!
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One hundred years ago this article made the Sheldon news: The ice harvest has begun and every day several loads of congealed moisture are hauled into Sheldon. Most of the ice is being taken from Beaver Dam, on the Maple River, in the vicinity of the S. P. Benson farm. It is clear and of good quality and is about 15” thick. In all probability every ice house in Sheldon will be filled before the first of the year.
