The Washington herald., 1916-11-10
Twenty Two Years Work Yields
New Dictionary of 1000 Smiles

Frank Y. wilstach. in giving bis Die
tionary Of Smiles" to the public has con-
ferred a monumental favor upon public
speakers. preachers, and writer's general
ly. In order to understand the magni-
tude of this work. one need but state
that In 1t there are over 1900 similes.
and that the author has spent twenty-five
dligent years In drag-netting the oceans
and small streams OF literature. In the
dictionary there VIII be found SMILES
from over 1900 authors, under upwards
Of 5000 subject headings.
What Senator or member OF Congress
might do. in the way Of q pictorial out
burst Of rhetoric, with one Of these die
tionaries at hand, is appalling to contem-
plate!
A Book that Ii q Necessity for Every
Reader.
A few years ago George Moore voiced
the need Of such a book when he wrote
In "Vale;" 'Tt is hard to find O simile
when one is seeking for one" Now that
this dictionary is published, the surprise
grows that nobody, says Mr.. wilstach.
had thought Of compiling such q work
II Is possible, Of course that the mag
nitude of the undertaking was too great
( for even the most patient literary drudge.
| And yet the task was accomplished by
I a man who has been actively engaged
in pursuit that necessitated his doing
the work on railroad trains. ocean steam
ers. and during the evening hours IN
libraries over the country. In q charm
ingiy written preface the author tells all
about SMILES from the earliest time TO
the present, and more particularly of his
own adventures In the making Of this
surprising book.
| The author informs the reader that he
began with Chaucer and plodded through
the English language to the present hour.
He states that he took practically all
the SMILES to be found in such writers
as Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher,
Ben Jonson, Samuel Butler, Dryden,
Pope, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson. Dickens,
Thackeray, Swinburn. the Rossetto's, the
Brownings-right down to o. Henry,
George AIDE and Irwin S. Cobb. Not only
that. but he drag-netted French. German,
Italian, Russian and other literatures.
| While hundreds Of proverbiAl similes
have been tracked to their original users
the ones which relate to law and gov
ernment will be Of particular interest
to Senators and members Of Congress
One of ths most surprising of these is
that by John P. Curran, the famous Irish
orator in which he denounced a corrupt
I British government
! THE devoted benches Of public Justice
of fortune, who. overwhelmed in the tor
rent of corruption at an early period.
! lay at the bottom, like drowned bodies,
while soundness or sanity remained in
| them, but, at length. becoming buoyant
/ by putrefaction, they rose as they rot
ted, and hoated to the surface of the
polluted stream, where they were drifted
along, the objects OF terror, and con-
| tagion, and abomination."
A Book that Must BE I'm Every Library
and Newspaper once.
| While the Republican party did not pro-
| vide a simile the Democrats were not SO
| fortunate. for we ind the following at
! tributed to Gen. Benjamin r. Butler:
| The Democratic party is Hke a man
riding backward in q carriage 1t never
sees a thing until It has gone by"
Under the heading Of Law there is
vast deal OF interesting matter. Here
We ind Anacharis saying:
| Laws are like cobwebs; the small flies
are caught, the great break through
| Coke: The knowledge of the law is
like a deep we'll. out Of which each man
draweth according TO the strength OF his
| undertaking.
| 8. G. Morton: Law is like q sieve; IL
is very easy TO see through It, but a
man must be considerably reduced before
he can get through it"
! Sir Philip sidney: Laws are not made
like lime-twigs or nets, TO catch every
thing that toucheth them. but rather like
/ seamarks. to avoid the shipwreck OF
! ignorant passengers"
And under Lawsuit" We nnd this from
| Edmund Burke:
| "A lawsuit is like an ill-managed dis
pute. in which the first object is soon out
of sight. and the parties end upon a mat
ter wholly foreign to that on which they
began"
The heading Government supplies
much interesting matter for reflection.
! Carlyle said:
| "A government tumbling and drifting
on the whirlpool and mud-deluges. float
! ing atop in a conspicuous manner, no
whittier, like the carcass OF a drowned
ass"
And Thomas Paine: Government
like dress, is the badge OF lost inno-
cense."
We find. too. Vice-President MarshalTs
famous simile: THE Vice-President OF
the United States IL like q man IN a cata-
lcptic state: he cannot speak; he cannot
move; he suffers no pain, and yet he is