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Beckon   Listen
verb
Beckon  v. t.  (past & past part. beckoned; pres. part. beckoning)  To make a significant sign to; hence, to summon, as by a motion of the hand. "His distant friends, he beckons near." "It beckons you to go away with it."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Beckon" Quotes from Famous Books



... proud," said Nan—and yet proudly. "If I loved anybody, I'd let him walk over me. That's what Charlotte would say. Can't you hear her? It isn't for my sake. It's for his. Do you think I'd bamboozle him and half beckon and half persuade, the way women do, and trap him into the great enchantment? It is an enchantment. You know it is. But I'd rather he'd keep his grip on things—on himself—and walk away from me, if that's where it took him. I'd rather he'd walk straight off ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... not have easily shaken off, even had he tried. The promise, in his case, was fulfilled—"Train up a child in the way he should go, and he will not depart from it when he is old;" and though no mother's voice of warning was heard in that wild region of the earth, and no guardian's hand was there to beckon back the straggler from the paths of rectitude, yet he was not "let alone;" the arm of the Lord was around him, and His voice whispered, in tones that could not be misunderstood, "Remember the Sabbath-day, to ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne

... listen on my bended knees for hours to the whispering voice of the waves. It seems to me like the voice of my little child; and some day I shall follow her into the dark, cold waves, and be at rest with my darling whose tiny hands beckon me down to death in the cold, watery depths whose waves are glinted by the golden light of ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey

... rheumatism and poverty, and sends them with their grub-stakes out questing into the hills. He saw them, with picks, and gold pans wandering happily during the wonderful Alaskan summer and fall, and when the frost paints the green above timber-line with russet and gold and the Northern Lights beckon them back to the settlements, he saw them arrive, tired, penniless, perhaps, but satisfied, and already planning the next trip ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... this man cry out in the heated strife, he began to heed. He spake: "Dietrich's voice hath reached mine ears, I ween our champions have bereft him of some friend to-day. I see him on the table, he doth beckon with his hand. Ye friends and kinsmen from Burgundian land, give over the strife. Let's hear and see what here hath fortuned to the knight ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown

... I were you, when ladies at the play, Sir, Beckon and nod, a melodrama through, I would not turn abstractedly away, Sir, If I ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... the confines of the empire by only a narrow isthmus, Egypt loomed on the horizon, and appeared to beckon to her rival. Her natural fertility, the industry of her inhabitants, the stores of gold and perfumes which she received from the heart of Ethiopia, were well known by the passage to and fro of her caravans, and the recollection of her treasures ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... blur of woods beyond which the sun went down each night. This, in the little boy's mind, was the highway to the glad free Life of Evil. Many days he looked to that western wood when the sky was a gush of colour behind its furred edge, perceiving all manner of allurements to beckon him, hearing them plead, feeling them tug. Daily his spirit quickened within him to their solicitations, leaping out and beyond him in some magic way to bring back veritable meanings and values of ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson

... into the green wood, aware of the mysterious life in the branches; and then lay down to watch the insect life among the grass—a beetle pursuing its little or great destiny. But he was too exalted to remain lying down; the wood seemed to beckon him, and he asked if the madness of the woods had overtaken him. Further on he came upon a chorus of finches singing in some hawthorn-trees, and in Derrinrush he stopped to listen to the silence that had suddenly fallen. A shadow floated by; ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... and tried to think what else he could do. Nothing occurred to him until one day he discovered that he could push his feet around in time to music, so he became a dancing instructor and could clean up $1,000 per day if the bartenders didn't beckon too hard. ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart

... coming, Mother, coming On the way our fathers came! For their spirits rise to beckon At the whisper of your name; And we come that you may knight us By your ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... country of the Dahcotah,—let it be new to those who fly at the beckon of gain—who would speculate in the blood of their fellow-creatures, who for gold would, aye do, sell their own souls,—it is an old country to me. What say the boundless prairies? how many generations have roamed over them? when did the buffalo first ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman

... some places breathe an ineffable sense of blessedness, of unearthly promise. We feel as though some hushed and happy secret were about to be whispered to us out of the air, some wonderful piece of good fortune on the edge of happening. Some hand seems to beckon us, some voice to call, to mysterious paradises of inconceivable green freshness and supernaturally beautiful flowers, fairy fastnesses of fragrance and hidden castles of the dew. In such hours the Well at the World's End seems no mere ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... the main-line embankment where Darby could see him, and where he could see all the parts of his problem at once. Then his hands went up to beckon the slacking signals. At the lifting of his finger there was a growling of gears and a backward racing of machinery, a groan of relaxing strains, and a cry of "All gone!" and the 195 stood upright, ready to be hauled out when ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... feet—the highest nobles in the land, the richest gentlemen, counts, foreign barons, all the flower of our knighthood. All loved me, and any one of them would have counted my love the greatest boon. I had but to beckon, and the best of them, the handsomest, the first in beauty and birth would have become my husband. And to none of them didst thou incline my heart, O bitter fate; but thou didst turn it against the noblest heroes of our land, and towards a stranger, ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... all last night on the carriage. He mentioned you by name. He is quite commonly dressed, but he's a gallant gentleman, and exactly like our Signor Carlo. My dearest lady, he'll be company for you while I am absent. May I beckon him to come into ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... The disreputable houses are full of noise and light; there is dancing and shouting and fighting. On the ground floors, in the low rooms, women in filmy attire sit on the benches that line the white-washed walls lighted by an oil lamp; others, in the doorway, beckon to you, and their animated faces stand out in relief on the background of the lighted resort, from which issues the sound of clinking glasses and coarse caresses. You can hear the kisses which fall on the opulent shoulders of the women and the ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert

... are brought us by the angels, and among the dearest to God's heart are his flame-winged Possibilities that hover on the borderline between today and tomorrow, Time and Eternity. They alone may not enter time unless we beckon them. The starry heaven is the heaven of the body; the crystal sphere, of the intellect; and the empyrean, of the pure soul. We may live in the starry heaven in this life, if God gives us the grace. But it is then a heaven of desire. But the weaving of the angels ...
— The Forgotten Threshold • Arthur Middleton

... do they beckon me, and what have they to show me? Crowds in the blazing street, mirth where the feasters meet, kisses and wine: Many to laugh with me, but never one to know me: A cityful of stranger-hearts and ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke

... "Humph! Beckon I know something about that myself. What I saw to- day shows me that I don't have to worry about you and Miss Briggs. Did you know that Ike Fairweather wrote me a long letter about ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower

... breach of it, and the heart of man is like a city without walls, into which any enemy can march unhindered. So long as God's 'Thou shalt not, lest thou die' rings in the ears, the eyes see little beauty in the sirens that sing and beckon. But once that awful voice is deadened, they charm, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... are not Jews, either. American-born Jews have enough. The poverty-stricken Jews in this country come from Russia, Bulgaria and Roumania; and their children will have money to loan, if not to incinerate, because they possess the virtues that beckon all good ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... own reflection. I cannot say, but there it was, always before him, a face as of a beautiful boy, with tumbled hair and laughing lips, its figure clothed in a fluttering dress of lights and shadows. It also seemed to beckon to him with its hand, and encourage him to run on after it with ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.

... thought—to-morrow, long ere this time, I shall be as immaterial as he. "False Spirit!" I said, "art thou come to close thy walks on earth, and to enjoy thy triumph in the fall of the last descendant of thine enemy?" The spectre seemed to beckon and to smile as he faded from my sight. What do you think of it?—I asked the same question of the priest, who is a good and sensible man; he admitted that the Church allowed that such apparitions were possible, but urged me not to permit my mind to dwell upon it, as imagination plays us such ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... For he feels Fierce claws that pluck his breast, And blindly beckon as he reels Upon his awful quest: For there is that behind his heels Knows ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... gift, he beheld a third part of the vigour of animal life fade away, as the eye, the bright, the unfading, but fatal eye, was placed in his trembling hand, he saw the spark of life quivering like a lamp in the socket. The priest had just time to beckon to him his lovely daughter, when, placing her hand in that of ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... the glaring sun. Each held a luscious cactus fruit gingerly in her fingers, trying to open it without getting the tiny pronged spikes in their fingers. The driver climbed into his place and set the car going once more, headed toward the hills that seemed to beckon them. ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm

... clouds of purple trail In the gold of setting day; More than gleams of wing or sail Beckon from the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... Tippy. "Let's tap on the window and beckon him to come in and warm himself before he starts back ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... All the hill-tops beckon, and beyond the western meadows Something calls me ever, calls me ever, low and clear: A little tree as young as I, the coming summer shadows,— The voice of running waters that I ever ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... bade her not take on so; for perhaps, after all, the old hag had not told the truth, at least concerning the dear, worthy abbess; but two witnesses would be sufficient testimony. Whereupon she bid Wolde watch for Anna Apenborg from the window, and beckon to her to come in if she saw her ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... only a new star, but a moving star. Like a bright fingertip in the heavens, it seemed to beckon them on. The Wise Men were rich and important, and thought nothing of a journey. At once they made ready and set out to see where the star would lead them. For many days they traveled across the desert, and at ...
— The King Nobody Wanted • Norman F. Langford

... upon the silver frame of the picture on the dressing-table. Nothing else was there; all the silver-topped pans and jars and bottles had disappeared; even the companion photograph was no longer to be seen; only the face of her one-time friend smiled and smiled and seemed to beckon from the strangely ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... Attend to him now. And good fortune go with you." She paused to beckon to her her uncle, Jean de Joinville, who was passing—uncle on her mother's side, of the de Joinvilles of Anjou. "Good fortune go with you," she repeated, and then leaned to me so that she could whisper: "And my heart goes with you, Sainte-Maure. Do not be long. I shall ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... most ardent of worshippers at such a shrine must, one would think, desire in their deity a little more sweetness and light. But the beauty of eighteen summers is trained to look on worship as simply her due, and to regard amiability as a mere superfluity. She knows she can summon an adorer by one beckon of her fan, and dismiss him by another. A bow will repay the most finished of pretty speeches, and conversation can be conducted at the least possible expense by the slight trouble of recollecting who was at Lady A.'s ball, and the yet slighter trouble of guessing who is likely ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... Mistress Agnes Anstey. By birth she had been a Harcourt of Ankerwyke, and she was therefore everywhere esteemed fit by birth and breeding to teach the young mind when to bow and when to beckon. She came each morning to the house, and Carew paid her double shillings to see to it that Nick learned such little tricks of cap and cloak as a lady's page need have, the carriage best fitted for his place, and how to come into a room where great folks were. Moreover, how to back out again, ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... arrived ahead of Tracey Miles! Had somehow entered the solarium unnoticed, and had managed to beckon his fiancee to join him there! Prearranged?... And why had Clive Hammond failed to enter and greet his hostess first? Moreover, how had he ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin

... come; thy last glance guideth me! Drawn, too, by webs of shadow, like thine hair; For, Sweet, the mystery Of thy dark hair the deepening dusk hath caught. In early moonlight gleamings, lo, I see Thy white hands beckon to the garden, where Dim day and silvery darkness are inwrought As our two lives, where, joining soul with soul, The tints shall mingle in a fairer whole. Oh! dost thou hear? I call, beloved, I call, My stout heart trembling till thy words return; ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... stood there, gaping blankly. Then the open door of the saloon seemed to beckon an invitation. He made for it, reached it, passed through it. That concluded his efforts in aid of the Seamen's Orphans ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... They beckon me by day, by night, The bodiless elves that round me play! I soar and sail from height to height; No mortal, but a thing of light As free from earthly ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... nothing, and to be absorbed in sudden thought. In a minute or two the King turned and came back towards me; and again, as if he could not restrain his curiosity, looked up so that our eyes met. This time I thought that he would beckon me to him, satisfied with the lengths to which he had already carried his displeasure. But he turned again, with ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... most casual glance and nod, women who volubly protested themselves dying, and single out the face that bore the dull, scorched flush of fever or the yellow or livid stamp of rheumatism, or ague, or liver-trouble, with a beckon of his hand, and the owner of such a face, invariably declaring herself a well woman, would be summarily dealt with, and dosed with tabloid or tincture out of the inexhaustible wallet he carried, slung about his shoulders ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... for this end congregate in certain dwellings, before which signs are hung out. When these males get to be too troublesome, they are punished as prostitutes are, elsewhere. Females stroll about the streets, beckon to the men, stare at them, whistle and cry psh! to them; chuckle them under the chin and do all manner of tricks, without the least sense of shame. These females boast of their victories, as dandies, with us, plume themselves on their intimacy with ladies, whose ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg

... that midnight visit; and then, nerving herself for the effort, she stepped out into the hall and listened. Everything was quiet, and every room was darkened, save by the moon, which, at its full, was pouring a flood of light through the southern window at the end of the hall and seemed to beckon her on. She was standing now at Richard's door, opened wide enough to admit her, and so she made no noise as she stepped cautiously across the threshold and stood within the chamber. The window faced the east, and the inside blinds were opened wide, making ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes

... the trails all unbroken, The far fields that beckon and call; The song of the frost on the runners And the Northern Lights high over all; The trees in the bend of the river, The streams that nobody has spanned; The whisper of gold, the story half told, All this by the Devil ...
— Rhymes of a Roughneck • Pat O'Cotter

... and that his people were following him, and at length he came to where a large caravel was lying moored to the quay, with all her boats in the water alongside her. Here was what he wanted at last, and pausing but an instant to beckon his companions, he sprang from the quay into the vessel's main rigging, and from thence noiselessly made his way to her deck. Less than half a minute later his thirteen companions ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood

... Lenten mass (for as yet Gounod only thought of sacred music as his vocation) was not such as to encourage a residence. Paris, the queen of the world, toward which every French exile ever looks with longing eyes, seemed to beckon him back; so at the age of twenty-five he turned his steps again to his beloved Lutetia. His education was finished; he had completed his Wanderjahre; and he was eager to enter on ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris

... impatient audience, and with this I must agree; for, looking from my tent as I write, I can see the smoke-puff bulging on Bulwana Hill as 'Long Tom' toils through his seventy-second day of bombardment, and the white wisp seems to beckon the relieving army onward. ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... offer him the throne of Theos? Think well before you answer. He is a soldier, a brave and honest man, and he is of the royal race of Tyrnaus, who for many generations have been Kings of Theos. He will not sell you to Russia or beckon the hosts of the Sultan across the mountains. Will you have ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim

... approached from the front, pausing at times to survey what he saw. Hawk watched him lead his unwilling horse, trembling with fear, up to the dead team as they lay in the bright sunlight, and saw Scott take hold of the protruding boot, peer above it into the wagon itself and, without turning his head, beckon Hawk ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman

... too intent on the game to leave, even for refreshments. Now and then I saw him beckon to an attendant, who brought him a stiff drink of whiskey. For a moment his play seemed a little better, then he would drop back into his hopeless losing. For some reason or ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... can, if you can, if you can! Rest you here, maiden, in the sweet sunshine, and follow me, white men; follow me into the dark of the dead to seek for that which the white men love." And once more he vanished down the passage, turning now and again to beckon to them, while they went after him as though drawn against their wish. For now, at the last moment, some superstitious fear spread from him to them, and showed itself in ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... head first, however; for, as he looked before he leaped, he beheld a sight which caused him to stare with all his might for an instant, then turn and beckon, saying in an eager whisper, "Look ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott

... began to stir on the table: little invisible things. The life with which he had endued these sheets of paper began to beckon imperiously. So he sharpened a score of pencils, and after fiddling about and rewriting the last page he had written the previous night, he plunged into work. It was hot and dry. There were mysterious rustlings that made him glance hopefully toward the sea. He was always deceived by these rustlings ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... smile like evening's parting beam, That sparkles o'er the glassy stream, Or lingers on a lucid lake— Whose dimpling wave the zephyrs break. "Far thro' yon skies, where orient day Is shedding his last lingering ray, Bright angels beckon me away;— I go—I go—a last farewell!" And as she spoke around her fell, From heaven, a bright celestial ray, Whose lustre dimm'd the light of day; And 'mid that heavenly blaze unfold Her glittering pinions tipp'd with ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... humbly enough across to Master Gerard's room his daughter did not speak to me, only followed me boldly, and yet, as it seemed to me, somewhat wistfully too, with her sea-green eyes. And as the door was closing upon me I saw her beckon the serving-man. ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... broken souls. And as the ghastly chorus rose and fell, there came also the faces of the lost and unhappy creatures to whom they belonged, and, against that curtain of pale grey light, he saw float past him in the air, an array of white and piteous human countenances that seemed to beckon and gibber at him as though he were already ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... wishing the man would be quiet. Mars, a dull rusty point of light low on the horizon, seemed to beckon. ...
— The Hills of Home • Alfred Coppel

... again must the drums tap, and the goblins stalk over the universe before joy can be purged of the superficial. It was rather paradoxical, and arose from his sorrow. Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him—that is the best account of it that has yet been given. Squalor and tragedy can beckon to all that is great in us, and strengthen the wings of love. They can beckon; it is not certain that they will, for they are not love's servants. But they can beckon, and the knowledge of this incredible ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... where Helen lies, For night and day on me she cries; And, like an angel, to the skies Still seems to beckon me! For me she lived, for me she sigh'd, For me she wish'd to be a bride; For me in life's sweet morn ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... do that. Larry, when you catch sight of Billy on the other side, beckon him in and tell him we may not be back until late this evening, and for him to keep circling the island until he finds us back in camp again. Better take some grub along. We can stand it to eat a cold supper for once. We will have a warm one when we ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge

... poor Whiteface in his wrath, 'thou art a thick-lipped, crooked-legged lubber; that's what you are! Every question is worth an answer; it is a rule that holds good with man and beast; and why not amongst ghosts? Why did you beckon to me yesterday if you did not mean to show? You invited me here, and now that I have come, the tortoise creeps into his hole. You are a cruel, hard-hearted godfather. But never mind—good-night, Dwarf-piper Here's a present for thee. I bear ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... on the pine-stems knows them, and laughs aloud for joy as they pass. The rooks above the pasture know them, and wheel round and tumble in their play. The brown leaves on the oak trees know them, and flutter faintly, and beckon as they pass. And in the chattering of the dry leaves there is a meaning, and a cry of weary ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... still a naughty little spirit of experiment in me which defiles the barbarities of your climate. While as to the convent, it has beckoned so long—let it beckon still! It called first when my fiance died,—God rest his soul,—worn out by the hardships he endured in the war of La Vendee and I put from me forever all thought of marriage. But then my mother, an ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... never a prominent figure at the camp services. Rather than occupy a conspicuous place he would seat himself amongst the privates; and the only share he took in directing the proceedings was to beckon men to the seats that respect had left empty beside him. Those who picture him as an enthusiastic fanatic, invading, like the Puritan dragoons, the pulpits of the chaplains, and leading the devotions of ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... memories. The straight, braided hair, the little touch of white at the throat, the dark, searching eyes. A nurse, a trim upheld figure in blue, stood a little behind the couch out of sight of Aunt Janet's eyes, so that she could frown and beckon to Joan to come forward unseen by the woman on the couch. But Aunt Janet had noticed the slight hesitation, her face broke into the most wistful smile ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson

... did these shades beckon him, that each day mankind and the claims of mankind slipped farther from him. Deep in the forest a call was sounding, and as often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling and luring, he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire and the beaten earth around ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London

... Burney.' She made me a very civil compliment upon hoping my health was recovering; and Lady Spencer then, slightly, and as if unavoidably, said, 'Lady Elizabeth Foster.'" Gibbon said of the latter, that, "No man could withstand her; and that if she chose to beckon the Lord Chancellor from his woolsack, in full sight of the world, he could not resist obedience." Reynolds painted a portrait of her, showing a bright-eyed, smiling lady, with close-curled hair, of girlish appearance. In Samuel Rogers's "Table Talk" are several mentions of the famous Georgiana, ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing

... folded it with softest wool Around, sling-wool, and borrow'd from the sling Which his attendant into battle bore. Then sprang Pisander on the glorious Chief 730 The son of Atreus, but his evil fate Beckon'd him to his death in conflict fierce, Oh Menelaus, mighty Chief! with thee. And now they met, small interval between. Atrides hurl'd his weapon, and it err'd. 735 Pisander with his spear struck full the shield Of glorious Menelaus, but his force Resisted ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... duty is considered done to a perfection which is worthy of all adoration; it really is not very hard work to please this taskmaster. For Pisa, we both like it extremely. The city is full of beauty and repose, and the purple mountains gloriously seem to beckon us on deeper into the vineland. We have rooms close to the Duomo and Leaning Tower, in the great Collegio built by Vasari, three excellent bedrooms and a sitting-room, matted and carpeted, looking comfortable even for England. For the ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon

... right so A tongue cutteth friendship all in two. A jangler* is to God abominable. *prating man Read Solomon, so wise and honourable; Read David in his Psalms, and read Senec'. My son, speak not, but with thine head thou beck,* *beckon, nod Dissimule as thou wert deaf, if that thou hear A jangler speak of perilous mattere. The Fleming saith, and learn *if that thee lest,* **if it please thee* That little jangling causeth muche rest. ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... at her beckon, and remained at the bedside while Madame Zenobie led the Doctor into another room to ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... there burst on my unfolding heart The coloured radiance of leafy June, With choirs of song-birds perfected in art, And nightingales beneath the summer moon— Praise! that this beauty, an unravished bride Doth hold her lover still; Doth hide and beckon, laugh at me, and ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... southern sun than could have been thought possible. The goats ran bleating towards the three as they rode up, for they had not been milked that morning; and the woman's face was set hard as she went to the door of the hut and presently returned to beckon Lady ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue

... make them sad, for, ere it comes loved souls will have gone from earth and from their tender bosom, but not from their memories; and will seem to beckon them now across the cold valley ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade

... moored; but the raft that had grown into being and become a familiar sight at that point no longer occupied it, nor was it anywhere to be seen. Only a flood of turbid waters, fully two feet higher than they had been the evening before, swept over the spot, and seemed to beckon ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe

... awoke, it was near sunset. She looked about her for some sign of the monster's approach; she wondered, then, if her grievous trial had been but a dream. Near by she saw a sheltering forest, whose young trees seemed to beckon as one maid beckons to another; and eager for the protection of the dryads, she ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... Hellgum is spreading! That's why half the parish has gone over to him. No one has ever had such absolute influence over the people, not even Strong Ingmar himself. He separates children from their parents by preaching that those who are of his fold must not live among sinners. Hellgum need only beckon, and brother leaves brother, friend leaves friend, and the lover deserts his betrothed. He has used his power to create strife and dissension in every household. Of course, Big Ingmar would have been pleased ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof

... she might like him again all right. Then, Romer talks too slowly for her. Her mind works quicker than his, and one can only deal with him by racing on in front, and turning round to beckon. With Mrs. Wyburn there are only two things that are any use—dash and volubility. It's difficult to keep the thing going when ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson

... The humblest, in sight of even the greatest, may admire, and hope, and take courage. These great brothers of ours in blood and lineage, who live a universal life, still speak to us from their graves, and beckon us on in the paths which they have trod. Their example is still with us, to guide, to influence, and to direct us. For nobility of character is a perpetual bequest; living from age to age, and constantly tending to reproduce ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... higher levels, to make excursions into the realms that lie beyond his present horizon, and to traverse the region that lies between what he now is and what he may become. It is the dove that goes forth from the ark to make discovery of the new lands that beckon. ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... curled up in the hollows of her arms and she had told them about the Argo, the first ship that ever set forth upon the waters; of how, when her prow broke through the waves, the sailors could see white-faced Nereids dance and beckon, and of how she bore within her hold many heroes dedicated to a great quest. It was the first time Catullus had heard the magic tale of the Golden Fleece and in his mother's harp-like voice it had brought him his first desire for strange lands and the wide, grey spaces of distant ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson

... hour of freedom come! Time, I invoke thee! favouring gales Awaiting on the shore I roam And beckon to the passing sails. Upon the highway of the sea When shall I wing my passage free On waves by tempests curdled o'er! 'Tis time to quit this weary shore So uncongenial to my mind, To dream upon the sunny strand Of Africa, ancestral land,(21) ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... before, that when he had lain a good while in the grave, God would call aloud, "Jack!" and he would start, and say, "Yes, me Jack." Then he would rise, and see multitudes standing together, and God sitting on a cloud with a very large book in his hand—he called it "Bible book"—and would beckon him to stand before him while he opened the book, and looked at the top of the pages, till he came to the name of John B——. In that page he told me, God had written all his "bads," every sin he had ever done: and the page was full. So God would look, and strive to ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth

... everyone, and to have an arrow ready for every mark. If thou art thirsty, here thou will find thy favorite beverage; if thou lovest song and dance, here thou shalt have thy fill. If the beauty of the Princess has kindled thy lust, thou need'st but beckon one of her sire's officers (who, although invisible, always surround her) and they will immediately attend thy behest. There are here fair mansions, fine gardens, full orchards, shady groves fit for every secret intrigue, or to trap birds or a white ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... they sat, both Youth and Years, An hour without a word— The pines that beckon'd up the moon Their arms no longer stirr'd, And through the open windows wide The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... beseech thee, turn aside from this comfortless road leading, thou knowest whither, but not I. Let us turn our backs upon duty and abandon ourselves to the delights and advantages which beckon from every grove and call to us from every shining hill. Let us, if so thou wilt, follow this beautiful path, which, as thou seest, hath a guide-board saying, 'Turn in here all ye who seek the ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce

... old dame would come close to the grating, and lifting up her veil, bestow upon the pensive public a generous view of a very haughty and very wrinkled visage of some seventy years standing, and beckon into the church for the major-domo of the convent (an excellent and profitable situation by the way), or for padre this or that. Some of the holy ladies recognised and spoke ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... some strange and troubled vision, some ugly nightmare, that for the moment changes peace and rest to horror and affright, and then passes again to the dim and ghostly Dreamland, whose frontier crowds our daily life on every hand, and whence forever peep and beckon the mysteries that perplex and ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin

... beauty evermore; Go, from the shivering leaves and lily-flowers, That, white as saints on the eternal shore, Stand wavering, beckoning, in the moony bowers,— Beckon me on where their moist feet are laid In the dark mould, fast by the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... meandering line of a brook through April meadows. Where does the eye pause with the greatest sense of pleasure and restfulness? On the gold of the marsh marigolds edging the water? or on the silver-white plumes of shad-bush that wave and beckon across the marshes, as they stray from moist ground toward the light woods? Could any gay colour whatsoever compete with the snow of May apple orchards?—the fact that the snow is often rose tinged only serving ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... answering by voice, gave a grotesque sort of signal between a wink and a beckon. Mr. Fielding rose muttering an oath, and underwent a whisper. "By the Lord," cried he, seemingly in a furious passion, "and thou hast not got the bill cashed yet, though I told thee twice to have it done last evening? Have I not my debts of honour to discharge, and did I not give the last ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... hour will soon strike, and the grim executioner in the black mask will prepare to take your head off. You will see a hand not clearly visible to the outside world—a very beautiful hand it is too, as I ought to know—that will beckon you to your doom: you will hear a voice whose silvery music will drown all fears, all scruples, all world-sick longings for your woman-hating moods, all memories of your lost Lenore of long ago, and ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... had gone some paces unheeded. He came back and stood between us and the great machine. I avoided seeing him, because I guessed somehow that his idea was to beckon us onward. He walked away in the direction he wished us to go, and turned and came back, and flicked our faces ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells

... Dodd himself, who was one of the greatest humbugs who ever lived, would not have had the face to say that he approved of his wife telling the truth in such a case. Would you have had Flora Macdonald beckon the officers, saying, "This way, gentlemen! You will find the young chevalier asleep in that cavern." Or don't you prefer her to be splendide mendax, and ready at all risks to save him? If ever I lead a rebellion, and my women betray me, may I be hanged but ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... help, I knew. When these had passed, 35 I threw my glove to strike the last, Taking the chance: she did not start, Much less cry out, but stooped apart, One instant rapidly glanced round, And saw me beckon from the ground; 40 A wild bush grows and hides my crypt, She picked my glove up while she stripped A branch off, then rejoined the rest With that; my glove lay in her breast: Then I drew breath; they disappeared: 45 It was for Italy ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... for his body, and he walked too rapidly, with bent knees; his right hand he leant upon a great sapling; upon his head was a very wide hat, the stuff of which I could not see in the darkness. Now and again he would turn and beckon me, and he always went on a little way before. As for me, partly because he beckoned, but more because I felt prescient of a ...
— On Something • H. Belloc

... saw Ruth beckon to him. Then he made his way quickly to the tent, and started in just as Dorothy resumed ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick

... This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks, With one man beckon'd from the rest below, Bowing his head against the steepy mount To climb his happiness, would be well express'd In ...
— The Life of Timon of Athens • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]

... for Christie shivered and sighed as if her own thoughts frightened her. For a moment they sat silent, while the mist trailed its white shroud above them, as if death had paused to beckon a tired child away, but, finding her so gently cradled on a warm, human heart, had relented and passed on, leaving no waif but the broken oar for the river to carry ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... where the hedge-rows are, That beckon with white looks an endless way; Where, through the fair wet silverness of May, A lamb shines out as sudden as a star, Among the cloudy sheep; and green, and pale, The may-trees reach and glimmer, near or far, And the red may-trees wear a shining ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... slippers, that had stopped still forever early on their life's journey. It is the voices that are hushed that call most distinctly, the footsteps that stop that are most carefully traced. It is the children who have gone that stand and beckon! ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss

... narrow staircase before us, her bowed head being scarcely above the level of the banister-rail. At the first landing she stopped and beckoned us forward encouragingly towards the open door of the dead-room. My aunt went in and the old woman, seeing that I hesitated to enter, began to beckon to me again ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... Endymion, answering his sister's beckon, entered, Mrs. Ferrars rushed forward with a sort of laugh, and cried out, "Oh! I am so happy to see you again, my ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... "Lo here! Lo there! Its white scarf flutters in the air!" They climbed anew; the vision fled, To beckon higher overhead. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... him. "Stop!" And he turns, but only to beckon imperturbably and continue evenly on his way. It is evidently the custom of this country to walk through rivers when you meet them! Easy enough for the inhabitants, who are not encumbered with shoes and stockings, but ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... Captives, Kings and meane men; I saw no inequality in their places. Casting mine eye on the other side the Palace, Thousands I saw my selfe had sent to death; At which I sigh'd and sob'd, I griev'd and groan'd. Ingirt with Angels were those glorious Martyrs Whom this ungentle hand untimely ended, And beckon'd to me as if heaven had said, "Beleeve as they and be thou one of them"; At which my heart leapt, for there me thought I saw, As I suppos'd, you two like to the rest: With that I wak'd and resolutely vow'd To prosecute what I in ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... command. There glides the moon her shining way, And shoots my heart through with a silver ray. Upward my heart aspires: A thousand lamps of golden light, Hung high in vaulted azure, charm my sight, And wink and beckon with their amorous fires. O ye fair glories of my heavenly home, Bright sentinels who guard my Father's court, Where all the happy minds resort! When will my Father's chariot come? Must ye for ever walk the ethereal round, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... shriek of steam, and some one must have called to her that she would be late, for she started forward, as though in answer to a summons. She moved waveringly, and at the edge of the wharf she paused. Gannett saw a sailor beckon to her; the bell rang again and she ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton

... to his bedside she found that a great change had taken place during her absence. Her father turned his dim eye towards her as she entered, but had scarcely strength to speak, or beckon her with his hands. ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston



Words linked to "Beckon" :   gesture, summon, appeal, gesticulate, wave, motion, attract



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