I love Mark Twain. I was doing an internet search to figure out what other people had used to complete the phrase "dart like a ____," and one of the first results took me to a page out of a Dictionary of Similies from 1916. This page contained many of the usual suspects, such as:
| Darted like an eagle. —Aneurin |
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| Darted … like an arrow aflame. —Joseph Conrad |
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Darted like a skimming bird. —Joseph Conrad |
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And others that made me smile, like:
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Darting like glittering elves at play. Darted away like a bird that has been fluttering around its nest before it takes a distant flight. |
And still others that rely on a familiarity with things that might be just a tad out of date:
| Darts on like a greyhound whelp after a leveret. —Walter Savage Landor |
Shakespeare even weighs in, timeless as he usually is:
| Their influence darts Like subtle poison through the bloodless veins of desolate society. —William Shakespeare |
But the medal goes to Twain's simile, listed last, and a welcome relief from all of these romantic, flowery, natural images and--as one is wont to get from Twain--straight to the point:
| Darted away like a telegram. —Mark Twain |