"fell upon the cheek with a leaden ray" (Metaphor)
The narrator describes how Lord Ruthven's strange, impenetrable gaze "fell upon the cheek with a leaden ray that weighed upon the skin it could not pass." The comparison of Ruthven's stare with a leaden ray that weighs heavily upon its object helps to characterize the nature of Ruthven's power. Ruthven's gaze is intense. Yet this is not a lively intensity that penetrates what it's looking at so as to perceive its inner workings. Rather, it falls heavily in a way that feels oppressive and deathly, like hard, cold lead on a soft, warm cheek.
The mention of vampires "apparently made their blood freeze" (Metaphor)
Aubrey makes light of the warnings that Ianthe and her family give him about the vampires in the woods. He tries to laugh off their tales, but they respond with terror. They are so afraid at the mention of vampires, and at Aubrey's "daring thus to mock a superior, infernal power," that their fear is evident in their bodies, which become cold and rigid with fear, as if their blood has frozen. The metaphor of frozen blood also evokes the fear-inducing bloodsucking of the vampire.
“his eyes sparkled with more fire than that of the cat..." (Simile)
Ruthven is an avid gambler. Yet even as he beats the majority of his opponents he maintains a poker face. The only time this changes is when Ruthven has the opportunity to utterly ruin the fortunes of someone young or innocent. In these moments, the narrator describes Ruthven's normally "dead" eyes as sparkling with fire to highlight how much pleasure and life he gets from destroying virtue and promoting vice. The narrator also compares Ruthven to a cat, which joyously draws out the death of its prey, indicating that the lord's malicious pleasure is even greater.
"the whole beauty of her form, floating as it were upon the wind” (Metaphor)
Here the narrator, whose expressions are often closely aligned with the feelings and perceptions of Aubrey, uses a metaphor to characterize Ianthe's beauty. In comparison with Miss Aubrey, whose body and mind are "sedate and pensive," Ianthe is so airy, light, and unburdened that it is as if she is floating on the wind.
"hurled from the pinnacle of unsullied virtue, down to the lowest abyss of infamy and degradation" (Metaphor)
The narrator uses the metaphors of a pinnacle and an abyss to highlight the totality of Ruthven's destruction of the women he seduces. Often, Ruthven seeks out the purest and most innocent women. They are at the highest point on the scale of virtue. Yet when he is done with them, he has brought their characters and reputations down so low that they sink to the "lowest abyss of infamy and degradation."
