Now does he feel his title
Hang loose upon him like a giant’s robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a goodly apple rotten at the heart.
The course of a great statesman resembles that of navigable rivers, avoiding immovable obstacles with noble bends of concession, seeking the broad levels of opinion on which men soonest settle and longest dwell, following and marking the most imperceptible slopes of national tendency, yet always aiming at direct advances, always recruited from sources nearer heaven, and sometimes bursting open paths of progress and fruitful human commerce through what seem the eternal barriers of both.
A Metaphor is a condensed Simile. The comparison is implied, but not expressed at length; thus:—
But look, the morn in russet mantle clad