What is a smile like?

Listen to Steinbeck in East of Eden: She leaned against the dining-room wall and smiled at her girls, and her smile frightened them even more, for it was like the frame for a scream.

And this from Bleak House: She was handsome; and if she had ever smiled, would have been (I used to think) like an angel - but she never smiled.

Steinbeck again: She smiled to herself - delicate like a steel trap.

And for a more updated view, turn to Thomas McGuane in his Gallatin Canyon collection: They looked like two sticks in their bathing suits, no butts but the same superior smiles.

Featured Simile

“After that I lived like a young rajah in all the capitals of Europe – Paris, Venice, Rome – collecting jewels, chiefly rubies, hunting big game, painting a little, things for myself only, and trying to forget something very sad that had happened to be long ago.”
-- Great Gatsby, The - Fitzgerald, F. Scott - 1925