The part of this excerpt from William Dean Howells's "Editha" that uses figurative language is: The air was thick with the war feeling, like the electricity of a storm which has not yet burst.
In this excerpt from the text, we see an extensive use of Metaphor in the sentence. Metaphor refers to a form of comparison where one thing is said to be another. Metaphor is not to be understood on the surface.
The reader ought to study the things being compared to identify the similarity between them.
In the text above, the description of the air as thick and the storm as possessing electricity, all demonstrate metaphor.
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