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Beacon   Listen
noun
Beacon  n.  
1.
A signal fire to notify of the approach of an enemy, or to give any notice, commonly of warning. "No flaming beacons cast their blaze afar."
2.
A signal, such as that from a lighthouse, or a conspicuous mark erected on an eminence near the shore, or moored in shoal water, as a guide to mariners.
3.
A high hill near the shore. (Prov. Eng.)
4.
That which gives notice of danger. "Modest doubt is called The beacon of the wise."
5.
(Navigation) A radio transmitter which emits a characteristic signal indication its location, so that vehicles may determine their exact location by locating the beacon with a radio compass; also called radio beacon.
6.
(fig.) That which provides guidance or inspiration; the Constitution has been a beacon for civil rights activists.
Beacon fire, a signal fire.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Beacon" Quotes from Famous Books



... of Peace Congresses and bloodless arbitrations when they lighted the beacon-fires, flaming out to the gudeman and his sons ploughing or sowing in the Lang Dykes the news that their "ancient enemies of England ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... the rise of the water than I could at any point below. I think the flood of this spring has been about 12 feet higher than it was at that time; the river is here about 11/2 miles wide; it's general width from the beacon rock which may be esteemed the head of tide water, to the marshey islands is from one to 2 miles tho in many places it is still wider. it is only in the fall of the year when the river is low that the tides are persceptable ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... mean, was he born in Beacon Street, no, he was not. Dreadful as it may seem to you, I know nothing of either his father or his mother. But you will learn when you are a little wiser, that genius in order to be recognized and admired is not obliged to ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant

... faint airs, leaving a long glassy swell to score the placid surface of the Bay and set a pearly fringe on the distant shore. The tide moves steadily in flood, broadening in ruffling eddies at the shoals of the Bar. On a near beacon a tide gauge shows the water, and when sail is furled and the yards in harbour trim we have naught to do but reckon our wages, and watch the rising water lapping, inch by inch, on the figured board. From seaward there is little to be seen of the countryside. The land about is low to the coast, ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone

... seen Barbara since that night and she had sent no message. No beacon light in the window across the way said "come." The sword that had lain, keen-edged and cruel, between Constance and her lover, had, by a single swift stroke, changed everything between her daughter and ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed

... as fast as they could go, though travelling among the fallen branches and slanting trees was difficult in the dark. Now and then they lost their beacon, but the brightening glow shone out again and when it was visible Blake watched it with surprise. It was low, and he thought hardly large enough for a fire, besides which it had a curious irregular flicker. Drawing nearer, they dipped into a hollow where they could ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss

... glory brighter far Than all that earth has given; A beacon, like the index-star, That points the way to heaven: It is a life well spent—its close The cloudless sundown ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... that which stands on the right side of the way from Adrianople to Stamboul, and which is called by the Turks Mourad Tepehsi, or the tomb of Mourad. Which mounds seem to have been originally intended as places of sepulture, but in many instances were afterwards used as strongholds, bonhills or beacon-heights, or as places on which adoration was paid ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... carry me across the bay, and, securing my canoe, I leaped upon the rock, on which the beacon was blazing, but not a sign of a human being could I see. I was about to shout, for as the fire had evidently been recently piled up, I knew the stranger could not be far off; but, before I could do so, I saw a slight figure passing along the chain of rocks toward the spot on which ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... got from Joe a relation of what had befallen him since the night he stole away. He arrived in Bristowe footsore and ragged, and there came nigh to starving before he found employment. One shipmaster swore his hair was too red: it would serve for a beacon to French privateers; another, that he was too bandy: his legs would never grip the rigging if he essayed to go aloft. But at length he obtained a berth on a tobacco ship trading to Virginia, and suffered great torture both from the sea and from the ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... I recognised Mount Juson, a conical hill where the beacon which he had erected while I was engaged at the theodolite, still stood. Mr. Cunningham had requested that I would give to the hill the maiden name of his mother, which I accordingly did. This appeared to me at the time rather a singular request, and now it seemed ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... west coast of Kintyre they sailed until, out across the sea, they saw the light of a beacon fire shoot up upon the heights of Gigha. Outward then they steered until they came nigh upon the rocky shores of that island; and passing many little islets, they sailed between Gigha and the brownie-haunted island of Cara, just as the day ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton

... on quickly down the hill towards the river. I knew not how near the Danes might be, but I thought little of them, until suddenly through the dusk I saw a red point of fire flicker and broaden out into flame on a hilltop eastward, where I knew a beacon fire was piled against need. And then from every point along the Stour valley beacon after beacon flashed out in answer, until all the countryside was full of them; and I hurried on more swiftly ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler

... enigmatic being? He is no longer the same man. He came, dressed quite simply, but just as any gentleman would for a morning walk. He put forth all his eloquence, and flashed wit, like rays from a beacon, all through the lesson. Like a man roused from lethargy, he revealed to me a new world of thoughts. He told me the story of some poor devil of a valet who gave up his life for a single glance ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac

... Swift's "Brook Farm"; G. P. Putnam's Sons for their kindness in allowing quotations from their work, "Historic Towns of New England"; Small, Maynard & Co., for the use of the anecdote credited to their Beacon Biography of Samuel F. B. Morse; Little, Brown & Co., for their marked courtesy in the extension of quotation privileges, and Mr. Samuel T. Pickard, Whittier's literary executor, for the new Whittier material ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... eve returned I near that shore divine, Where once but watch-fires burned I see thy beacon shine, And know the land hath learned Desire ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt

... generally at home after five o'clock. The established custom whereby the ladies who live in Beacon Street all receive their friends on Monday afternoon did not seem to her satisfactory. She was willing to conform to the practice, but she reserved the right of seeing people on other ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford

... the north, and Crowborough Beacon and Wych Cross in the south, is some of the finest open country in Sussex, where one may walk for hours and meet no human creature. Here are silent desolate woods—the Five Hundred Acre Wood, under ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... from that imperious sibyl, Sea, Thou mayest learn if thou wilt hearken well, When God's white star-fires beacon home the ships; The solemn secrets of infinity, Unto the inner sense translatable, Hang trembling ...
— From The Lips of the Sea • Clinton Scollard

... absorbed much of it, and, possibly, what we now regard as the most vital part of it. We have but to explore our own experiences to discover some person whose standards have been effective in luring us out of ourselves and causing us to yearn toward higher levels; who has been the beacon light toward which our feet have been stumbling; who has been the pattern by which we have sought to shape our lives; and for whom we feel a sense of gratitude that cannot be quenched. The influence of that person has been a liberal education in the vital things that the books do not ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... The Beacon head of Newcastle was once an island; and the drifted sand forming the hills on which the town is built has since been ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... the action of the helm, the head sails being thrown aback, fell off rapidly on her heel, and soon gathering headway, barely cleared the dark and rugged cliffs of St. Agnes in the north, which now, as well as the powerful beacon light by which they were surmounted, broke through the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... it was haunted. Grim stories were told of the death of a woman who had come there with a man, and had not lived to go away with him. The roof of the adjoining stable had fallen in, the bars of the corral were missing. The house was dark but for a feeble light that glimmered in one window, the beacon that had been lighted, night after night, against Jim's coming. It added a further note of apprehension, peering through the dark, still valley like a wakeful, anxious eye, keeping a long and unrewarded vigil. Judith ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... abundant supply of excellent water. On this island there is a city having the same name, Momabza, standing in lat. 4 deg.S. which is handsomely built on a rocky hill washed by the sea. The entrance of the haven has a mark or beacon, and on the very bar there is a little low fort, almost level with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... day beacon near the middle of the west coast that was partially destroyed during World War II, but has since been rebuilt in memory of famed ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... before; and he put in not only bins, but barrels—chancing a faulty perspective in the hoops. All these things formed a repellent background of chill gray-blue, but they brought out the Squash. It shone. Yes, it shone like a beacon-light calling the weary and sophisticate town-dwellers back to the peace and simplicity of country life. And it was inclosed by four neatly mortised lengths of fencing, lichened and silvered by a half-century, it may be, of weather taken as it was sent. Furthermore, ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... the husk of a thought that has gone. What is wanted is reasoned consideration, not unreasoned condemnation. For churchmen and statesmen alike, opportunism helps in situations which are small, but never in those which are large; there clarity of principle alone stands forth as a beacon to light the path. ...
— Love—Marriage—Birth Control - Being a Speech delivered at the Church Congress at - Birmingham, October, 1921 • Bertrand Dawson

... five minutes he was able to steer by the glow of the sunset in the sky; but by the end of this time the glow had faded to a tender grey, and the night descended upon them almost with the rapidity of a falling curtain. The western sky no longer afforded a beacon to steer by, and Leslie found himself obliged to turn round and steer backwards, as it were, by the brig. But in the fast gathering gloom she soon became too indefinite an object to be reliable, Leslie was therefore ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... on the rocking sea, I had a friend, oh that blessed word, we had been parted for years, And I wandered one day to find him, my heart had no cloudy fears. That day stands out in bold relief upon Memory's wreck-strewn shore, Like a beacon light in the lighthouse, undimned by the rush and roar. 'Twas a day in the early June, the clover was red in the field, And the zephyrs garnered the kisses, the gentle violets yield. Birds sang, and the sunshine flickered out and about through the cloud, What had a day like that to do with a pall, ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins

... Inspiration has ever left to human Reason the filling up of its outlines, the careful connexion of its more isolated truths. The two are, as the lightning of Heaven, brilliant, penetrating, far-flashing, abrupt,—compared with the feebler but continuous illumination of some earthly beacon[584]." ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... 'please come and consecrate.' 'Expect me the day after,' telegraphed the Bishop. He thought about a bonfire as he rode along on that Saint Stephen's Day. 'The kopje above the Mission!' he reflected. 'A magnificent place for a beacon-fire.' ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps

... farmhouse at Falla, with lighted candles at every window, stood out as a beacon to the Ruffluck folk, so that they were able to find their way to Boerje's hut; there they met some of their neighbours, bearing torches they had prepared on Christmas Eve. Each torch-bearer led a small group of people most of whom followed in silence; ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof

... before, under the superintendence of Jeromio, with strict orders to move about off Shelness Point, and the strand at Leysdown, and to be ready, on a particular signal, to heave-to and cast anchor nearly opposite the Gull's Nest. Three times had Dalton lighted his beacon on the top of the ruined tower, and three times extinguished it: the signal was at length answered, although not according to his directions, which were light for light. The Buccaneer was, however, satisfied; descended by the private stair to the shore, and ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... so harassed by vexatious proceedings, that I believe my mind has somewhat suffered. However, glory to God, the Society's shop is open at Madrid, though we are not allowed to advertise and though it be but a small taper burning amongst Egyptian darkness. I hope it will serve as a watch-light and beacon to some. ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... over the east harbor of Alexandria to Pharos island, just off the end of which, and connected with it by a narrow mole, is the famous lighthouse, a gigantic square tower of white marble diminishing in size storey by storey to the top, on which stands a cresset beacon. The island is joined to the main land by the Heptastadium, a great mole or causeway five miles long bounding the harbor ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw

... together on this Sunday night, as I said,—all except Mr. Breynton, who had been for several days in Boston, settling his brother's affairs, and making arrangements to sell the house for Joy; it was her house now, that handsome place in Beacon Street, and that seemed so strange,—strange ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... instinct in the direction of the sheep or cattle business; you have the gift of universal optimism; Lurella Blood has the genius of good society. Give that girl a winter among nice people in Boston, and you would never know that she was not born on Beacon Hill." ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells

... while it never enslaved nor constrained the mind, showed it the road followed by past ages, and established the communion of a whole nation in its light. Many a German spirit—like birds strayed in the night—came winging towards the distant beacon. But who is there in France can dream of the power of the sympathy which drives so many generous hearts from the neighboring nation towards France! So many hands stretched out: hands that are not responsible for the aims of the politicians!... And you see no more of us, our brothers ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... resembles a magnified cinder. The handle is the Ilheu Baixo, to the south; and the blade is the tract of yellow sandy lowlands—the sole specimen of its sort in the Madeiras—connecting the extremities. Three tall cones at once disclose vulcanism; the Pico de Facho, or Beacon Peak (1,660 feet), the Pico de Anna Ferreira (910 feet), and the sugarloaf Pico de Castello (1,447 feet). The latter rises immediately north of the single town, and its head still shows in white points the ruins of the fort which more than ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... stillness of it—the loneliness—the eternal peace. On his rugged face an answering light was kindled, the glory of a spiritual passion, the flame of immortal things alive in his soul. More akin to him seemed that beacon fire of the sky—more nearly his real pathway home appeared that distant road and gateway to the Infinite—than the flickering, near house-taper in the valley below. Once before, on the most memorable day of his life, David had beheld a winter sunset like that; but ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen

... "That beacon-fire," whispered Edwin to Wallace, "shall light me to honor! To-night, by your agreement, I shall call you brother, or lie dead on the summit of ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... is Woman's need; To be a beacon when the air is dense, A bower of peace, a lifelong recompense— This is the ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux

... along, and our eyes are still dazzled with his splendour—our minds are still filled with admiration of his genius, his enterprise, his undaunted and noble spirit. We are to turn from those loftier efforts of human intellect and perseverance, which mark, now and then, a human being, as a beacon in the midst of his fellow men, to the more common, though it is true, the bold and spirited adventures which attend the fortunes of many in the career of life. The story of these adventures is indeed full of interest, but it is an interest less in degree; and we can no more venture to compare ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... there were beacon fires on the Blackdown hills, and a great one on the camp at Neroche which crowns and guards the hills in that direction. And so presently through the dusk one rode into Norton with word of the greatest battle that Wessex had fought ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... more ready to obey than to command;" suave, gracious, politic, patient, deferential, with his fine aristocratic air, and an undaunted courage that blazed out in battle, when "he never moved from his post, but remained a beacon of refuge to his followers." At his coming Waterford was taken, as Wexford and Ossory had been before. Before the prudent Norman went farther the marriage contract was carried out, and the beginning of a strife which lasted for seven hundred years was celebrated in this first ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green

... soil so poor that grass withers and dies out, and how they stand erect where every other living thing bows to the bleak winds and blizzards of the prairies, is one of the mysteries of plant life. What a splendid bonfire we made of their boughs that night, flaring as a beacon out over the ocean of prairie ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... whole, this Teutsch Ritterdom, for the first century and more, was a grand phenomenon; and flamed like a bright blessed beacon through the night of things, in those Northern Countries. For above a century, we perceive, it was the rallying place of all brave men who had a career to seek on terms other than vulgar. The noble soul, aiming beyond money, and sensible to more than hunger in this world, had a beacon burning ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle

... shining pathway she was full of expectancy, her eyes dancing, her heart as buoyant as her step. Not a vestige of confusion or uncertainty vexed her mind. She knew Ivory for her true mate, and if the way to him took her through dark places it was lighted by a steadfast beacon of love. ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin

... they had passed through the old rickety gate, which swung at the entrance of the place. "Up across the fell," said George; "the day is fine, and I want to get away from my uncle for a time." She turned round, therefore, outside the hill of firs, and led the way back to the beacon wood through which she and Alice had walked across to Haweswater upon a memorable occasion. They had reached the top of the beacon hill, and were out upon the Fell, before George had begun his story. Kate was half beside herself with curiosity, ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... make an arrangement with someone, in a village some seven or eight miles beyond the hills, to keep a boy on watch night and day; so that, directly a body of Catholic troops were seen coming along, he should start at full speed to some place a quarter of a mile away, and there set light to a beacon piled in readiness. ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... present code, the ball was larger and "livelier," and the pitcher was compelled to deliver it with a full toss, no approach to a throw being allowed. The popularity of the game spread rapidly, resulting in the organization of many famous clubs, such as the Beacon and Lowell of Boston, the Red Stockings of Cincinnati, the Forest City of Cleveland and the Maple Leaf of Guelph, but owing to the sharp rivalry between the foremost teams, semi-professionalism soon crept in, although in those days a man who played ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... upon her mind, and led to a state of despondency, although her letters would scarcely give the idea of a tragedy being imminent. She writes to Shelley and Mary that Mrs. Godwin—mamma she calls her—tells her that she is the laughing-stock of Mary and Shelley, and the constant "beacon of their satire." She shows much affection for little William, as well as for his parents; but there is certainly no word in these letters showing more than sisterly and friendly feeling; no word showing jealousy or envy. Claire afterwards ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti

... from danger. Oh, for sufficient strength to creep onwards! If he could but hold out a little, shelter and warmth, and—above all—safety would be his! So once again, wearily, painfully, and slowly, he plowed his way through the drifts toward the beacon that ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett

... and a few seconds after the idea had first taken hold of him he was making his way up a rather steep hillside, covered with rocks and bushes, toward the light. At last he reached a place where he could get a good look at the shining beacon. He hardly knew what he had expected to see, but somehow he felt a sort ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton

... is a great deal of what is called fashionable society in New York." There is wisdom in solid chunks. It is highly important that such facts as these should be stated seriously in State street and be conned in Beacon street. "Our Own," be it remembered, is speaking of the "Tone of Society," and he proceeds to remark, with great pertinence, that in our unfortunate city, "There is a coarse, rude, uncivil way of doing business, so general as to attract ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various

... maturer tone and determined manner, and nodded assent. More than that, a faint fire came into her handsome eyes; the two girls kindled their own at that flaming beacon, and sat with flushed checks and suspended, indignant breath. They were Western Americans, and not over ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... answered Policeman Rat-it-all with painful lucidity, "where they shut people up. Sometimes there's an execution. But not often; not very often; once in a while, as you might say. There's a monument, too,—upon a hill they call the Beacon. I'm very fond of Bodmin. It's the County Town, you know; and with these little things going on, in one way and another, why, that enlarges ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... big beacon, old chap!" Then the Tiger struck a light, and for the first time realised that he was talking to an officer. "Oh, I beg your pardon, I thought that you ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... the serious minded youth of America, Great Britain, and all countries where Jack London's work has been translated—youth considering life with a purpose—"Martin Eden" is the beacon. Passing years only augment the number of messages that find their way to me from near and far, attesting the worth to thoughtful boys and girls, young men and women, of the author's own formative struggle in life and letters as partially outlined ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... the lantern with the thought of extinguishing it. But he changed his mind. There was no window that the light might become a beacon. He would close the door and ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum

... friends of the Woman's Journal who used to visit its office on Beacon Street, and remember the tiny room with its staff of two or three workers, the pictures of the office staff on the accompanying pages will come as a surprise. This is the 1916 staff, however, and the movement has grown most encouragingly in every branch since ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Look Forward and Back at the Woman's Journal, the Organ of the - Woman's Movement • Agnes E. Ryan

... Romer Beacon Captain May saw the pilot-boat coming out from behind the Hook, and knew the despatches had been sent. When his ship was off the Hospital Islands he saw the revenue-cutter steaming down through the Narrows towards them, trailing a black cloud behind her, and evidently ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe

... endowed with those qualities of resolution and independence which he lacked. That Coleridge so often only shows the way, and so seldom guides our steps along it to the end, is no just ground of complaint. It would be as unreasonable to complain of a beacon-light that it is not a steam-tug, and forget in the incompleteness of its separate services the glory of their number. It is a more reasonable objection that the light itself is too often liable to obscuration,—that it stands erected upon a rock too often enshrouded by the mists ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill

... wife of a modest tailor, and lived on Pinckney street, back of Beacon Hill. She was married in 1881, and it was not until May 16, 1884, that her first child was born. A little more than a month later, on June 29, she had her first trance experience. Says she: "I remember the date distinctly, because it was two days after my first birthday following ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus

... the narrow road leading to Chantebled, where the lamp shone out like a beacon. When Mathieu had bolted the front door they groped their way upstairs. The ground floor of their little house comprised a dining-room and a drawing-room on the right hand of the hall, and a kitchen and a store place on the left. Upstairs there were ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... The beacon had been lighted on the mountain top, and had gleamed by her river sides! The sturdy hunter from the West, and the dashing horseman from the East; the merchant at his till, and the farmer, with hard hand on the plough-handle—all ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... "Everything," replied the beacon, stoutly; "you pore over them day in and day out; they keep you in this room here, when you should be out among the people. Not making pastoral visits, I don't mean that, but going around among them, ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... driver having noted that the men had brought up a plentiful supply of wood sufficient to keep up the beast-scaring beacon, subsided heavily in the full light of the fire and ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn

... the lady he desired to fascinate, but Miss Sanford was still looking at the photographs and would not return his glance. Go he had to, and it was plain to him that in striving to belittle Ray he had damaged his own cause. It made him bitterer still as he strode through the darkness down to the beacon-lights of the store. Gleason drank more and talked more before he went to bed than was good for him; but no seed is so easily sown as ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... Boston, there were sometimes a hundred robins at once about the Common and Garden, in the time of the vernal migration. By day they were scattered over the lawns; but at sunset they gathered habitually in two or three contiguous trees, not far from the Frog Pond and the Beacon Street Mall (I wonder whether the same trees are still in use for the same purpose), where, after much noise and some singing, they retired to rest,—if going to sleep in a leafless treetop ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... discourses He at once blinded the eyes of His enemies, and furnished materials for profitable meditation to His genuine disciples. The parables, like the light of prophecy, are, to this very day, a beacon to the Church, ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... is, a torch to set others aflame. He has heard her talk to clubs and societies about her work, and he says that she is so convincing that before the summer is over she'll have me blazing like a house afire, the biggest beacon in the bunch. But I don't think much of Orphant Annie as a prophet. It is just one of his ways of always saying the gobelins'll git you. I know they'll never get me to the extent of making me 'speak in meetin'.' Now you know just what it is I have gone into, and can picture the daily life quite ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston

... I saw before me the dark band of a stone jetty running some miles off from the shore into the sea, and at the end of it a fixed beacon whose gleam showed against the translucent sky (and its broken reflection in the pale sea) as a candle shows when one pulls the curtains of one's room and lets in the beginnings ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc

... I crushed you, Percy? I'd raise once more The beacon-light on the rocky shore. Percy, my love is so true and deep, That though kingdoms should wail and worlds should weep, I'd fling the brand in the hissing sea, The brand that must burn unquenchably. Your rose is mine; when ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... the ancients say that Athene took them up to the sky. All night long Perseus and Andromeda shine as a beacon for wandering sailors, but all day long they feast with the gods, on the still blue peaks in ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... nerve.—Wounded at Beacon Hill. A bayonet entered over upper quarter of fibula, and passed between the bones of leg into the calf. An aneurismal varix of the calf vessels developed, also incomplete peroneal paralysis. The scar was raised from the nerve (Major Simpson, R.A.M.C.) six weeks later, and at the end of a fortnight ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins

... that night, The noise of bells went sweeping by; I marked the lofty beacon light Stream from the church tower, red and high— A lurid mark and dread to see; And awsome bells they were to mee, That in the ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow

... Farron's, and Phillips, coming out with a bundle of kindling-wood for the little beacon fire, chuckled ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... "Wait for the Beacon Hill to blow over!" said Snac, in answer. "I've no more expectations as the one 'll blow over than th' other. He'll do what he says he'll do. That's the pattern he's made in. I've got no more hopes of turnin' the governor than I should have if I was to go and tell a hox to be a ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray

... adaptation, and it is yet rarer to find one who can persist in the systematic pursuit of such an end. Few lives are shaped, few characters formed, by the contemplation of definite consequences seen from a distance and made the goal of continuous effort or the beacon of a constantly avoided danger: such control by foresight, such vivid picturing and practical logic are the distinction of exceptionally strong natures; but society is chiefly made up of human beings whose daily acts are all performed either in unreflecting obedience ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot

... hardly whispered, let alone talked, and he was going now where it would shout. Wanted to know what was the use of being a nob if a fellow wasn't the nobbiest sort of a nob. Said he'd bought a house on Beacon Hill, in Boston, and that if I'd prick up my ears occasionally I'd hear something drop into the Back Bay. Handed me his new card four times and explained that it was the rawest sort of dog to carry a brace of names in your ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer

... and exercises an inevitable and silent propaganda. As far as lies in its power, it tends to transform the universe and humanity into its own image. Thus we have all a cure of souls. Every man is the center of perpetual radiation like a luminous body; he is, as it were, a beacon which entices a ship upon the rocks if it does not guide it into port. Every man is a priest, even involuntarily; his conduct is an unspoken sermon, which is forever preaching to others; but there are priests ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... a few hundred feet, the light-house being constructed on a rocky island that was nearly in the centre of the cluster, most probably to protect it from the ravages of the waves. The fact, however, proved, as Mulford did not fail to suggest to his companion, that the beacon had been erected less to guide vessels into the haven, than to warn mariners at a distance, of the ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... he had laid down for the guidance of nations were as intense as his eloquent words suggested, he would have spurned the offer of a sequence of high-sounding phrases in lieu of a resettlement of the world. And his appeal to the peoples would most probably have been heard. The beacon once lighted in Paris would have been answered in almost every capital of the world. One promise he kept religiously: he did not return to Washington without a paper covenant. Is it more? Is it merely a paradox to assert that as war was ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... whole hull was a mass of flame. I felt sick at heart as I saw the noble ship thus for ever lost to the use of man. The fire was still raging when, overcome with fatigue and sickness, I sunk on the deck. As the Mary sailed away from her, she was seen like a beacon blazing fiercely in mid-ocean. Long those on deck gazed till the speck of bright light was on a sudden lost to view, and the glow in the sky overhead disappeared. It was when her charred fragments ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... distinction; station, no dignity; beauty, no charm; age, no reverence; without it every treasure impoverishes, every grace deforms, every dignity degrades, and all the arts, the decorations and accomplishments of life stand, like the beacon-blaze upon a rock, warning the world that its approach is dangerous; that ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... Beacon Hill was a lovely spot in summer in old Boston days. Below it was the Common, with great trees and winding ways. It commanded a view of the wide harbor and far blue sea. It looked over a curve of the ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth

... others by night. Six post-riders were appointed, who should keep their horses saddled and bridled, ready to speed into the country to give the alarm if a landing should be attempted. Sentinels were stationed in the church belfries to ring the bells, and beacon-fires were made ready for lighting on the ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy

... idea about every few minutes, but so far as the book is concerned we need mention only one of them. That one is—local autonomy for Beacon House. This may be recommended as a game to be played en famille. Establish a High Court, call in a legal member, and get a constitution. The rest will be very hilarious. The legal member of the Beacon House menage is an Irish ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West

... out the portent is explained away, do not reflect that the same reasoning which explains away heavenly portents would also put an end to the meaning of the conventional signals used by mankind. The ringing of bells, the blaze of beacon fires, and the shadows on a dial are all of them produced by natural causes, but have a further meaning. But perhaps all this ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... pleasure in laying before my readers a volume the aim of which is to lighten the cares of to-day and heighten the hopes of to-morrow. Every human aspiration which is not an ignis fatuus or fool's beacon is built on the realities of to-day. Every young person evincing talents in any direction hears predictions which are alone built on what he is doing at present. He takes this hope and redoubles his efforts. He usually succeeds—therefore, the ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... 54 and 55 degrees of latitude.] The 15 being almost in 52 degrees of latitude, and not finding our ships, nor (according to their promise) any kinde of marke, token, or beacon, which we willed them to set vp, and they protested to do so vpon euery head land, Island or cape, within twenty leagues euery way off from their fishing place, which our captaine appointed to be betweene 54 and 55 degrees: This 15 I say we shaped our ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... burning the ground as I came past; the smell of burning wood followed me, and the thin wreaths of blue smoke, curling up the hillside, looked faint but ominous in the morning sunshine like a warning beacon, indeed, of the approach ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland

... amethyst, and {p.023} violet, and pearl gray. The sun-forsaken ranges below fell away to dark neutral tints. But the fires upon the crest burned on, deepening from gold to burnished copper, a colossal beacon flaming high against the sunset purple of the eastern skies. Finally, even this great light paled to a ghostly white, as the supporting foundation of mountain ridges dropped into the darkness of the long northern twilight, ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams

... Hudson City, N. J., over forty years ago, when there were not as many houses in that town as there are now. I was born in old Dutch Row, now called Beacon Avenue, in a two-story frame house. In those days there was an Irish Row and a Dutch Row. The Irish lived by themselves, ...
— Dave Ranney • Dave Ranney

... suffusion of vague hues deceived the eye; the shadows of clouds were confounded with the articulations of the mountain; and the isle and its unsubstantial canopy rose and shimmered before us like a single mass. There was no beacon, no smoke of towns to be expected, no plying pilot. Somewhere, in that pale phantasmagoria of cliff and cloud, our haven lay concealed; and somewhere to the east of it—the only sea-mark given—a certain headland, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... overt acts, and the overt acts of a treasonable character lacked connection with the prior consultations: as, for instance, they said, the consultation to seize the Castle was treasonable, but it was not followed by an overt act,—and the overt act of the tar-barrel signal on the beacon-pole was treasonable, but it could not be traced to a prior consultation so as to evidence the intent. So these acute crown officials went on in their deliberations, and came to the conclusion, which Bernard ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... once wrote, "have shouted the slogan of the Elliotts in the debatable land." If Stevenson's Homeric account of the Four Black Elliotts in "Weir of Hermiston" is historically veracious, we might fancy that one of their descendants would feel his activities somewhat cramped on Beacon Street, Boston. The Elliotts were a wild lot, and some of them did not escape the hangman. Their family tree appears to have been the gallows. But Stevenson tells us they were noted for their prayers, and at least one of them wrote poetry, ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... at the inner ends. (13) Buoys on the same side of a channel, estuary or tideway may be distinguished from each other by names, numbers or letters, and where necessary by a staff surmounted with the appropriate beacon. (14) Buoys intended for moorings (fig. 6) may be of shape and colour according to the discretion of the authority within whose jurisdiction they are laid, but for marking submarine telegraph cables the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... show you sometimes how to look up and find the light, as you showed me the Sunrise beacon on the night of the storm out on West Bluff, you may be glad you heard me. See that glow on the dome! You would have missed that down in ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter

... Albania! where Iskander rose; Theme of the young, and beacon of the wise, And he his namesake, whose oft-baffled foes, Shrunk from his deeds of chivalrous emprise: Land of Albania! let me bend mine eyes On thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men! The cross descends, thy minarets arise, And the pale crescent sparkles in the glen, ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... in the world and its old notions; the growing dissatisfaction of certain English emigrants at customary tyrannies and new intended ones had taken form and shape, embodied itself into principles, and vindicated them; blazed up an alarming beacon in the world's eyes as the Sacred Right of Rebellion; fought battles; asserted independence and maintained it at much cost of bloodshed; made governments after its own new-fangled fashion; impressed a most unwilling idea ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... grieved that he came to the chamber door and said to him, Sir, hold your peace; ere twelve o'clock you shall know what for a man Mr. Cameron was: God shall punish that blasphemous mouth of yours in such a manner, that you shall be set up for a beacon to all such railing Rabshakehs. Robert Brown, knowing Mr. Peden, hastened to his horse, being persuaded that his word would not fall to the ground; and fearing also that some mischief might befal him in the said Hugh's ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... of some guns it was reported to contain. That afternoon, therefore, he moved a Naval 12-pr., the 7th Field battery, a half-battalion 2nd West Surrey, 2nd battalion West Yorkshire, Durban Light Infantry, and seven companies of the 2nd battalion East Surrey regiment, to a height called Beacon Hill, which lay between Estcourt and the enemy's position, about 3,000 yards distant from the latter. Colonel W. Kitchener was entrusted with the command of this force and directed to seize Brynbella by a night ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... of thy sprinkling," replied De Bracy; "but this damsel hath wept enough to extinguish a beacon-light. Never was such wringing of hands and such overflowing of eyes, since the days of St Niobe, of whom Prior Aymer told us. [30] A water-fiend hath ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... containing a choice knot of the old, respectable, true-blue, Boston-aristocracy families. Two or three of them had winter houses in Beacon Street, and went there, after Christmas, to enjoy the lectures, concerts, and select gayeties of the modern Athens; others, like the Fergusons and Seymours, were in intimate relationship with ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... 'the meneester and Beacon Shortcoats, and my auld auntie, and the lave of them, aye ca'ed me a vessel of destruction. That was the best name they had for puir Tam. So what odds culd it mak, if I took up with the Prophet, and I was ower lang leggit to row in a galley? Forbye, here they say that a man who prays and gies ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the rear of the patrol car where the sloping ramp stood open to the lighted dispensary. He snatched at one of the autolitters and triggered its tiny drive motor. A homing beacon in his helmet guided the litter as it rolled down the ramp, turned by itself and rolled across the pavement a foot behind him. It stopped when he stopped and Ben touched another switch, cutting the ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael

... launched head-foremost into that vortex of temptation and iniquity, the world of Paris, like a ship without a chart or a compass. A precious race I ran in consequence, for a time; and if I had not been so fortunate as to meet you, Marie, whose bright eyes brought me out, like a blessed beacon, safe from that perilous ocean, I know not but I should have suffered shipwreck, both in fortune, which is a trifle, and in character, which is every thing. No, no; if that is all in which you doubt, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... the short turf and creeping cinque-foil. Far below, whence you could faintly catch the altercation of the pebbles on the beach under the importunities of the tide, I saw an oily sea heaving like shot silk in the moonlight, the lonely beacon was winking across the waste of waters, strange signals were flashing from the pier, and merchantmen were coming up Channel plaintively protesting their neutrality with such a garish display of coloured lights as to suggest a midnight regatta of all the neutral nations. A troop train was ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... gives the law, never having had a seat in our assemblies, allowed themselves to be subjugated by the illusions of eloquence, and with so much the more facility, because there existed in the assembly no fixed notion, no paramount will, that might serve it as a beacon ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... our banner! Let it wave From every plain and crag! Its beacon light our fathers gave,— All ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... in the socket, and shrunken the eyeballs shone, As withdrawn from a vision of deeds it were shame to see. "Now, now, grim henchman, what is't with thee?" Brake Maclean, and his wrath rose red as a beacon the wind hath upblown. ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... 23rd of July, 1839, and on the 26th of the same month left London with her to visit my married sister in her new home at Penrith, where Mr. Tilley had established himself as Post Office surveyor of the northern district. His home was a pretty house situated between the town and the well-known beacon on the hill ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... self-righteous, censorious little sects which raise each its own ladder to the Throne of Grace at Newlyn, the Luke Gospelers was the most bitter, most self-righteous, most censorious. And of all those burning lights which reflected the primitive savagery of the Pentateuch from that fold, Gray Michael's beacon flamed the fiercest and most bloody red. There was not a Gospeler, including the pastor of the flock, but feared the austere ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... Tom patiently, "we've got about five minutes before those crawlers will be aboard. How long will it take you to make a signal beacon that'll send ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell

... of Nature, and think of the panoramic scenes that have passed before those now impassive eyes. In our friend's boyhood there was no practical mode of swift communication of news. In great emergencies, to be sure, some patriot hand might flash the beacon-light from a lofty tower; but news crept slowly over our hand-breath nation, and it was months after a presidential election before the result was generally known. He lived to see the telegraph flashing swiftly about the globe, annihilating ...
— The New Minister's Great Opportunity - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin

... never shrunk from the idea of martyrdom for herself and Theobald, nor would she avoid it for her boy, if his life was required of her in her Redeemer's service. Oh, no! If God told her to offer up her first-born, as He had told Abraham, she would take him up to Pigbury Beacon and plunge the—no, that she could not do, but it would be unnecessary—some one else might do that. It was not for nothing that Ernest had been baptised in water from the Jordan. It had not been her doing, nor yet Theobald's. They had not sought it. When water from the ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... so after starting from Gravesend, we passed a bright red beacon, which Mr Mackay told me was the light marking the Mucking Flat; and, later on yet, glided by the one on Chapman Head, getting abreast of the light at the head of Southend Pier on our left at ten o'clock, or "four bells" ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... afternoon they sighted a group of islands of which the largest at once attracted their attention. A prominent feature of Rattlesnake Island, as outlined on the map, was a big dead pine, situated like a beacon, at the summit of the peak into which ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner

... slopes of the mainland, with the spires and roofs of St. Pierre in the distance. A mile or so to the left of St. Pierre a lighthouse stood out in the water, gleaming white against the dark land behind it. It was only visible by day, however, for it was no longer used as a beacon. The changing of the channel and the building of the breakwater in the harbor of St. Pierre had made it necessary to have the light there and the old one was abandoned. It now stood silent and lonely, gradually falling into decay under the buffeting of wind and waves. Looking ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey



Words linked to "Beacon" :   shine, beacon light, visual signal, take, Beacon Hill, pharos, signal fire, direct, beacon fire, radar beacon, conduct, Tower of Pharos, tower, guide, lead, radio beacon, radio station, beam



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