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While reading Oscar Wilde's, The Picture of Dorian Gray, I came across this:

There was a silence. The evening darkened in the room. Noiselessly and with silver feet the shadows crept in from the garden. The colours faded wearily out of things.

I tried searching for what it meant to move with silver feet but found only discussions of Bush having a silver foot in his mouth. On this site I found mentions of clay feet, but nothing of silver feet.

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    Welcome to English Language and Usage! Perhaps it is a metaphor describing the color of the shadows at that particular hour...
    – Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_
    Commented Jun 25, 2017 at 3:16
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    May be a reference to "quicksilver" ie liquid metal (mercury), implying silence and smooth movement.
    – RaceYouAnytime
    Commented Jun 25, 2017 at 3:55
  • 1
    It's literary criticism. Interpret it how you like.
    – Arm the good guys in America
    Commented Jun 25, 2017 at 4:01
  • 2
    The light areas in the shadow patterns are silvery and move gradually as the moon rises..
    – Greg Lee
    Commented Jun 25, 2017 at 5:03

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Move with silver feet is most likely a reference to quicksilver, which is another name for the liquid metal mercury. So, it's the movement of shadows being described here.

Quicksilver -- ODO

(noun) 1.1 Used in similes and metaphors to describe something that moves or changes very quickly, or that is difficult to hold or contain.

His mood changed like quicksilver
The achievement is palpable: the quicksilver movements of fish, the movement of water and the play of light through it, the interior of a whale's mouth.

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  • Excellent! I appreciate everybody pitching in to clear that up for me. Hopefully I can return the favor.
    – SaucyDave
    Commented Jun 25, 2017 at 11:32
  • @SaucyDave you realize this is no more than speculation at this point. There is no evidence presented here of any connection.
    – Mitch
    Commented Jun 25, 2017 at 12:26
  • How can anything creep very quickly?
    – Greg Lee
    Commented Jun 27, 2017 at 22:33
  • @GregLee maybe they're like ninjas.
    – NVZ ♦
    Commented Jun 28, 2017 at 2:37

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