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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



... what hand had kindled the blaze; it was none of his, for the people were terror-stricken, Turnberry Castle was full of English, and he feared that it was the work of treachery. Nor has that strange beacon ever been accounted for; it is still believed to have been lit by no mortal hand, and the spot where it shone forth is called the Bogle's Brae. Whether meteor or watch-fire, it lit the ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... the shepherd Drives his flock afar; Through the murky mist and cloud, Shines no beacon star. Fast he hurries onward, Never hears the moan Of the pretty ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... at nine o'clock we passed round the Morne Brabant, the south-west point of the island, but it was four o'clock before we reached our anchorage (at a cable's length within the flag beacon at the entrance of Port Louis) in fifteen fathoms mud; we were then visited by the Health Officer, and afterwards by a boat from H.M. Ship Menai, which was at anchor ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... the riddle. But there were other riddles which he could not answer and which he gave over. Why had the horses been left where they would be found so readily? Why that careless beacon smoke where no man could fail ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... in as if I were talking to you. I remember asking you whence AEschylus made his Agamemnon speak of Ulysses as unwilling at first to go on the Trojan Expedition. I see Paley refers it to some Poem called the Cypria quoted by Proclus. I was asking Donne the other Day as to some of the names of the Beacon-places in Clytemnestra's famous Speech: and I then said I believed—but only believed, as an inaccurate Man, not wishing to implicate others—that you, Thompson, had once told me that you thought the Chain of Fires ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald

... attic. The house was noiseless, and dark everywhere except in the sitting-room. There, on the high clock-shelf, the same tall lamp that, nearly seven and a half years before, had burned like a beacon and lighted the coming of the stork, now, turned low, shone upon the faithful biggest brother and ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates

... stop on the round-the-world flight of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan - they left Lae, New Guinea, for Howland Island, but were never seen again; the airstrip is no longer serviceable Note: Earhart Light is a 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 aviatrix ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... bright beacon ahead there was no trouble about keeping on a direct line for the fire. And all the while it seemed to be getting more furious. Indeed, what with the shouts that came to their ears, the bellowing of cattle, and whinnying of horses, ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... horses were slaughtered so that their spirits might be free to serve them in the aerial kingdoms they had gone to inhabit. My pyre should be built on the island facing me; its flames would be seen for miles and miles; the lake would be lighted up by it, and my body would become a sort of beacon-fire—the beacon of the pagan future awaiting old Ireland! Nor would the price of such a funeral be anything too excessive—a few hundred pounds perhaps, the price of a thousand larches and a few barrels of scented ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... but lived, though stripped of power, A watchman on the lonely tower, Thy thrilling trump had roused the land, When fraud or danger were at hand; By thee, as by the beacon-light, Our pilots had kept course aright; As some proud column, though alone, Thy strength had propped the tottering throne: Now is the stately column broke, The beacon-light is quenched in smoke, The trumpet's silver sound is still, The ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... in Brookline, is easily accessible, and offers the best and most complete view that could possibly be desired. One sees Brookline, with its handsome residences and public buildings just below him; Beacon street extends in a straight line towards the north-east, and leads the eye to the Common and the State House. To the north, beyond the Charles, lies the great university city of Massachusetts, with the tower of Memorial Hall overtopping all other buildings, and to the south, and near ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various

... day's events should trouble him; but to tell the truth, he was in a happy exaltation all the rest of the way. Sometimes the star of hope evaded him as he followed the bending path, trees interposing; he only ran the faster to get it into his vision again, and it was his beacon up to the very ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... of Sherpur, where Roberts's small force lay entrenched. But on the evening of December 22nd certain information was received that a grand attack would take place at dawn, and that the signal for the advance would be a beacon which would be kindled on the Asmai heights, just above the ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband

... we breathe a purer and more vivifying air. And it is like ascending to a moral mountain top when we live, if only for a moment, with the dead who, in their lives did honour to mankind, and attain the level of those whose eyes now closed, once glowed like beacon-lights, leading humanity on its eternal march through night-time towards ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet

... in peril of his life—the desire to escape 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

... loomed directly ahead of them, looking in the grey mist of evening like only a darker shadow against the shifting background. "That's our island—see? And there's the light," she added, as a sudden beacon flashed out at them, sending a ruddy light out over the ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler

... leads to a marvellous change in the conditions of men, communities, and nations. The playful act of a Boer lad picking up a shining pebble on the banks of the Orange River served as a beacon to lure persons to search for the most precious and hardest of gems, the diamond, and thereby transformed ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... it. Its science, its philosophy, its literature were equally admired. Its politics excited the wrath and dread of Tories and the exultant delight of Whigs. It was, says Cockburn, a 'pillar of fire,' a far-seen beacon, suddenly lighted in a dark place. Its able advocacy of political principles was as striking as its judicial air of criticism, unprecedented in periodical literature. To appreciate its influence, we must remember, says Sydney Smith, that in those days a number of reforms, now ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... cried the prisoner; "I go with the French to fight against the English! Your honour must excuse me; I could not do it to save my life." [722] This poor fisherman, whether he was a real or an imaginary person, spoke the sense of the nation. The beacon on the ridge overlooking Teignmouth was kindled; the High Tor and Causland made answer; and soon all the hill tops of the West were on re, Messengers were riding hard all night from Deputy Lieutenant to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... from hand to hand, As a beacon springing from hill to hill, The cry draws nearer though distant still, And the watch throws it on from ...
— Poems of West & East • Vita Sackville-West

... in that absorbing element, Which most personifies the soul as leaving The least of matter unconsumed before Its fiery workings:—and the light of this Most royal of funereal pyres shall be[aq] Not a mere pillar formed of cloud and flame, A beacon in the horizon for a day, And then a mount of ashes—but a light[ar] 440 To lesson ages, rebel nations, and Voluptuous princes. Time shall quench full many A people's records, and a hero's acts; Sweep empire after ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... anticipate the maturity of America's buildings. Those serene facades on Beacon Street overlooking Boston Common, where the Autocrat used to walk (and I made an endeavour to follow his identical footsteps, for he was my first real author)—they are as satisfying as anything in Georgian London. ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... occasion of a concert at Malvern, which my wife and her sister organized for the benefit of our church restoration fund, I gave all my men a holiday, and sent them off by train at an early hour; they were to climb the Worcestershire Beacon—the highest point of the Malvern range—in the morning, and attend the concert in the afternoon. It was a lovely day, and the programme was duly carried out. Next morning I found Jarge and another man, who had been detailed for the day's work to sow nitrate of soda ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... powerful, so that they may protect this unhappy people. I trust it may be so: but if God wills otherwise; if the time be not yet arrived; if it be the Almighty's will that the flickering taper shall be extinguished ere it be replaced by a steady beacon, I submit, in the firm and humble assurance that His ways are better than my ways, and that the term of my life is better in His hands than ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher

... head, while the delight of gratified vengeance contended in her eyes with the fire of insanity. Before long the towering flames had surmounted every obstruction, and rose to the evening skies one huge and burning beacon, seen far and wide through the adjacent country; tower after tower crashed down, with blazing roof and rafter. The vanquished, of whom very few remained, scattered and escaped into the neighbouring ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... rolling cloud of smoke Would hang on the sea-limits, faint and far, But through the night the beacon-flame upbroke From some rich island-town begirt with war; And all these things could neither make nor mar The joy of lovers wandering, but they Sped happily, and heedless of the star That hung o'er their glad ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang

... dank Vellum old, And carcants shine like scarlet foam, With hiss of snakes and burning oils As dirges sway both imps and damn'd, A beacon's light that cleft Doom's fold, Peers at the Cyclopean home Of furnace-heat and writhing coils Of immewed depths as cyphers red Proclaim each gyving monster's deed. And woful runes rake this giant gloom, ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque

... And woods again! And I will welcome them, And pour, as erst, the song of heartfelt praise. From yonder line, where fade the farthest hills Which bound the blue lap of the swelling vale, On whose last line, seen like a beacon, hangs Thy tower,[146] benevolent, accomplished Hoare, To where I stand, how wide the interval! Yet instantaneous, to the hurrying eye Displayed; though peeping towers and villages Thick scattered, 'mid the intermingling elms, And towns remotely marked by hovering smoke, And grass-green pastures ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... speed of the rocket took hold against the forces of gravity and it shot into the heavens, its roaring becoming a fading hiss of sound, the brilliant flash of flame from its exploding tubes, a receding beacon of light that gradually faded to a ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw

... curtain of thick rain partly hid the warfare, the lightning still rioting through it like a beacon ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook

... trees, with soft-flowing Avon and gentle Teme watering the verdant meadows through which they pass. All these hills and dales were once the Royal Forest, and afterwards the Royal Chase, of Belvern, covering nearly seven thousand acres in three counties; and from the lonely height of the Beacon no less than ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... the water, false colors are hauled down and true ones run up to the masthead, and many an immortal soul is warned to steer off in time from the pirates, rocks and quicksands of temptation. He's a regular revolving light, is the Captain,—a beacon always burning and saying plainly, 'Here are life-boats, ready to put off in all weathers and bring the shipwrecked into quiet waters.' He comes but seldom now, being laid up in the home dock, tranquilly waiting till his turn comes to go out with the tide and safely ride ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... is now even as Munich was in 1866; after having been the Rome of the Yugoslav movement, the seat of its philosophy and the centre of its politics, the Croat capital has now an atmosphere of sad futility, for Belgrade is the beacon of the Yugoslav world. While comparing Zagreb with Rome one must add that she had also the misfortune to resemble Rome of the decadence—a good deal of outer polish was imparted by the Austrians, at the expense of their victims' ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... on the burning decks. And I saw a sight the like to which I pray that I may never see again. Martin Hall stood at the main shrouds, motionless, volumes of flame around him, his figure clear to be viewed by that awful beacon. ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... west side of the Natural Bridge, where it remained alone for nearly three-fourths of a century—that same indomitable spirit rose high above the treacherous rocks of fear, where it shone on the troubled sea of political injustice, a beacon light to the venturesome mariners, until they were landed safely upon the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... a past age, a beacon to the present, a landmark to the future, he towered above the little things around him. The beautiful poetic appeal to Virginia, with which he concluded, caused a thrill of delighted admiration in the whole assembly. The emphasis, the pathetic intonation, ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... that is just what Mrs. Blythe 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'.' ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston

... and gold seemed fading from the nearer. Below, on the level floor of the valley, lay the rambling old ranch-house, with the cabins nestling around, and the corrals leading out to the soft hay-fields, misty and gray in the twilight. A single light gleamed. It was like a beacon. ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey

... to examine it. The contact light (green) still burned like a false beacon; and lucky it did, for it showed that the switch had been tampered with and exonerated Bartholomew Mullen completely. The attempt of the strikers to spill the silk in the yards had only made the reputation of a new engineer. Thirty minutes later, ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... foremost composers produced a symphony, Dawn, directly inspired by the gospel of Paul Mario; in The Gates painters found fresh subjects for their brushes, and the literature of the world became a mirror reflecting Paul's doctrine. Here was no brilliant spark to dazzle for a moment and die, but a beacon burning ever brighter on which humanity, race by race, fixed a steadfast gaze. Theosophy acclaimed him the new Buddha, and in Judaism a sect arose who saw, in ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... the mate; "but it's narrar, it's narrar; ye can pitch a biscuit ashore as ye go through; and inside o't is the 'Nag's Head,' a sunken bit o' rock, with about five feet water; if ye miss that, ye're aw right!" We were now rapidly approaching the beacon, and could fairly see the rocks and beach in the track of its light. On the other side there were great masses of savage surf, whirling high up in the night, the indications of the three islands on the west of the ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens

... 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 ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... teeth and turned his face to the cliff. A light was shining half-way up it—that must come from the window of Rufus's cottage. He took it as a beacon, and began to stumble through the howling darkness towards it. He knew the cliff-path. He had come down it only that night to make sure that there was no one spying upon them. The cottage had been shut and dark then, ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... on the stairway a footstep was heard And a rap-a-tap loud at the door, And the flickering hope that had been long deferred Blazed up like a beacon once more; And there entered a man with a cynical smile That was fringed with a stubble of red, Who remarked, as he tilted a sorry old tile To the back of ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... there stood, whose summit bore A beacon; grateful object to the sight Of weary mariners. Thither they mount, And see with sighs the herd strew'd o'er the beach; The monster ravaging with gory jaw, And his long shaggy hairs in blood bedy'd. Thence ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... chest standing high, his muscular throat exposed to the light, a glint of teeth showing under the sweeping black mustache. His eyes, nearly closed, seemed to harbor an eager light—as if he had travelled along a dark path and saw at last a beacon on a distant hilltop. A pistol was still clasped in ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge

... to say nothing of the fact that the gale—which is opposed to the current—has churned and lashed the waters into a sheet of blinding foam. They can do nothing, therefore, except make an ineffectual attempt to light a fire, in the hope that its blaze, reflected in the sky, may serve as a beacon to their unfortunate friend in the improbable event of his still being alive and within sight of the island; but this attempt also is frustrated by the wind, which not only renders it impossible for them to kindle a flame but also sweeps away all their materials ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... three small islands, and in the meadow to the right, at some distance from the hills in the background was a single perpendicular rock, which they judged to be no less than eight hundred feet high and four hundred yards at the base, which they called Beacon Rock. A little farther on they found the river a mile in breadth, and double this breadth four miles beyond. After making twenty-nine miles from the foot of the Great Shoot, they halted for the night at a point where the river was two and a half ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various

... 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 ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... in the starlight. After a pull of a long seven miles down the bay, the galley had rounded into the northern end of Gorumna Isle, guided by a high beacon set among the stars. As they drew nearer Brian made out that this beacon was set on the tower of a high pile of masonry black against the sky, lit here and there by cressets, and it was plain that the Bird Daughter kept good watch since they had more than once ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones

... mine have found at last Their apt solution; and from out the Past There seems to shine as 'twere a beacon-fire: And all the land is lit with large desire Of lambent glory; all the quivering sea Is big with waves that wait the Morn's decree As I, thy vassal, wait thy beckoning smile Athwart the splendors of my ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... When they together short discourse had held, They turn'd to me, with salutation kind Beck'ning me; at the which my master smil'd: Nor was this all; but greater honour still They gave me, for they made me of their tribe; And I was sixth amid so learn'd a band. Far as the luminous beacon on we pass'd Speaking of matters, then befitting well To speak, now fitter left untold. At foot Of a magnificent castle we arriv'd, Seven times with lofty walls begirt, and round Defended by a pleasant stream. O'er ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... enlarged the almshouses beyond all that Colonel John Mohune could ever think of, and so established them as to be a haven for ever for all worn-out sailors of that coast. Next, we sought the guidance of the Brethren of the Trinity, and built a lighthouse on the Snout, to be a Channel beacon for sea-going ships, as Maskew's match had been a light for our fishing-boats in the past. Lastly, we beautified the church, turning out the cumbrous seats of oak, and neatly pewing it with deal and baize, that made it most commodious to sit in of the Sabbath. There was also ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... short-lived attempt at colonization was begun on this island - as well as on nearby Howland Island - but was disrupted by World War II and thereafter abandoned. Presently the island is a National Wildlife Refuge run by the US Department of the Interior; a day beacon is situated near the middle of the ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... to believe that Lord Robert had as ardently desired her to wife five years ago as he now desired to be rid of her. Then he obeyed the insistent spur of passion; now he obeyed the remorseless spur of ambition. In reality, then as now, his beacon-light ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... holding of her coat, she would have known. A man who could keep silent under these conditions must indeed be a rock of might and honour; and she felt sure now, with a surging of joy, that the light she had seen shining from it was the beacon of truth. A question trembled on her lips—the question for which she had long been gathering strength. Whatever the outcome of this communion, she felt that there must be absolute ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... 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

... bore the name of "St. Mathieu de fin de terre" (Finistere). In the twelfth century the monastery was converted into a Benedictine abbey, which is a beautiful example of the Early English style. The formidable rocks at its feet are called Les Moines. The monks of St. Mathieu kept a beacon for the safety of mariners on these dangerous shores. The modern lighthouse quite masks the sight of the abbey, and is a great disfigurement to the view, which, in other respects, is most grand; the imposing granite ruins of the ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser

... power is thine, To quicken and inspire! Fabled Prometheus well might dare To steal from heaven such fire. For 'tis a beacon light to guide To rapturous joy and peace, In this our present earthly home, And ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby

... dropped a random thought; 'Twas old, and yet 'twas new; A simple fancy of the brain, But strong in being true. It shone upon a genial mind, And, lo! its light became A lamp of life, a beacon ray, A monitory flame. The thought was small; its issue great; A watch-fire on the hill, It sheds its radiance far adown, And ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... might never notice the absence of the light. And suppose there was a ship away out there, as there nearly always was, with the dangerous rocks and shoals of the outer harbour to pass, with precious lives on board and no guiding beacon ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... the budget itself, and like the budget again, as complicated as it looks simple; and I set it as a warning, a beacon, at the edge of this hole, this gulf, this volcano, called, in the language of ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac

... young officers were a positive assurance to all present that their efforts were unnecessary, that what was merely an accidental bonfire had been taken for a beacon. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... to all lovers of constitutional liberty, as it must necessarily be offensive to the despotic governments of the great continental monarchies, on whose thresholds the altars of freedom, newly lighted, have burnt with so steady and pure a flame. They may serve as beacon-lights to European populations gasping for that political regeneration, the hour of which will assuredly come, and ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... of Engedi to which David fled from the pursuit of Saul. About two miles farther, in a south-eastern direction, is the Mount of Bethulia, near a village of the same name; a position which is thought to agree with that of Beth-haccerem, specified by Jeremiah as a proper place for a beacon, where the children of Benjamin were to sound the ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... at eve had drunk his fill, Where danced the moon on Monan's rill, And deep his midnight lair had made 30 In lone Glenartney's hazel shade; But, when the sun his beacon red Had kindled on Benvoirlich's head, The deep-mouthed bloodhound's heavy bay Resounded up the rocky way, 35 And faint, from farther distance borne, Were heard the clanging hoof ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... 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 quiet ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Look Forward and Back at the Woman's Journal, the Organ of the - Woman's Movement • Agnes E. Ryan

... Why did they not send someone to relieve him? Why could not someone of less feeling and less susceptibility go on the ferry? 'Lift up thine eyes, O Sion, and look around,' they sang in the choir, 'for thy children have come to thee as to a beacon of divine light from north and south, and from east and from ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... been given. The replies of the parties implicated accompany them. A whole generation has passed away since these scenes occurred, and yet the time has not arrived when they can be calmly reviewed with impartiality and free from prejudice. They may serve, however, as beacon-lights for those who are now figuring or may hereafter figure on the great political theatre of our country. Through life, Colonel Burr committed an error, if he did not display a weakness, in permitting his reputation to be assailed, without contradiction, in cases ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... no beacon, neither,' says Cherokee, 'on the rocky wreck-sown shores of sport; an' not that I ever resorts to onderhand an' doobious deals myse'f; still, I'm cap'ble of p'intin' out the dangers. Scientists of my sort, no matter how troo an' faithful to the p'int of honour, is bound to savey all kyard dooplicities ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... then raising his head, with a faint smile, he said, "Maltravers, you are a false soothsayer. At this moment my paths, crooked though they be, have led me far towards the summit of my proudest hopes; the straight path would have left me at the foot of the mountain. You yourself are a beacon against the course you advise. Let us contrast each other. You took the straight path, I the crooked. You, my superior in fortune; you, infinitely above me in genius; you, born to command and never to crouch: how do we stand now, each ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... near which we had encamped on the 3rd of November last I could judge better of 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

... 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, and declaimed it, drunk, ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... harshly judged. She had addressed so many assemblies, and she wanted to hear what other people had to say. Miss Chancellor herself had thought so much on the vital subject; would not she make a few remarks and give them some of her experiences? How did the ladies on Beacon Street feel about the ballot? Perhaps she could speak for them more than for some others. That was a branch of the question on which, it might be, the leaders had not information enough; but they wanted to take in everything, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... fancy I may still be surrounded by them in some sort of way," replied Austin. "It's possibly nothing but imagination after all. However, we shall see. Now this morning I want to go a long ramp into the country—as far as the Beacon, if I can. It's going to be a ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... raised aloft scaling- 1675 ladders towards heaven, mightily erected a solid stone wall beyond man's measure, eager for glory:—[all this did] the heroes with their hands. Then Holy God came to inspect the work of the race of men, the fortress of the warriors, 1680 and that beacon-tower likewise which the sons of Adam began to rear up to the skies; and the steadfast King achieved the prevention of this evil design, when in wrath he distributed different languages among the 1685 inhabitants of earth, so that they no longer had control of their speech. They found then ...
— Genesis A - Translated from the Old English • Anonymous

... say that Paris justifies her fame. Within her walls the human mind has displayed its loftiest development, and the human passions their most insane excesses; her art and her literature have erected beacon-lights for all the ages to come, and have but too frequently fallen into the depths of more than swinish filth; her science of government has ranged from the Code Napoleon to the statutes of Belial himself; her civilization has attained an elegance of refinement ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton

... the shore? —The traitorous wreckers' hands Have quenched the blaze that poured its rays Along the Hatteras sands. —Ha! say not so! I see its glow! Again the shoals display The beacon light that shines by night, The Union Stars ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various

... Wells," he said, "to learn that our friend Julian Orden comes here as the representative of the new Labour Council. His qualifications, amongst others, are that under the pseudonym of 'Paul Fiske' he is the writer of those wonderful articles which have been the beacon light and the inspiration of the Labour Party ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... of National Biography, 63 vols. (Macmillan). English Men of Letters, a volume to each author (Macmillan); briefer series of the same kind are Great Writers (Scribner), Beacon Biographies (Houghton), Westminster Biographies (Small). Allibone, Dictionary of Authors, 5 vols. (Lippincott). Hinchman and Gummere, Lives of Great English Writers (Houghton), offers thirty-eight ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... outside, beyond the last beacon fire on the headland; the winter sun had set long ago and the sea ran high; it was the real sea with real huge breakers. Suddenly the first mate signalled: "Sailing ship ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg

... Ball settled through the dark turbulence undisturbed by the hissing winds. It hovered momentarily in the invisible beacon above the Richardson dome as if both attracted and repelled. It moved horizontally and settled. Suited figures on the surface wrestled with its flexible exit-tube against the storm, fighting to couple it to the lock of the Richardson dome. The exit-tube moved rhythmically ...
— General Max Shorter • Kris Ottman Neville

... was bird-gazing in 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

... reproach and derision to the ancients, to the moderns it has become the symbol of all that is true and good. The scenes of that day, on which the son of man was lifted up have sanctified for all time the instrument on which he suffered; transformed and radiant, it has become a beacon for all mankind. ...
— John Brown: A Retrospect - Read before The Worcester Society of Antiquity, Dec. 2, 1884. • Alfred Roe

... Evan was incumbered by his clothing, and Debby had much the start of him; but, like a second Leander, he hoped to win his Hero, and, lending every muscle to the work, gained rapidly upon the little hat which was his beacon through the foam. Debby heard the deep breathing drawing nearer and nearer, as her pursuer's strong arms cleft the water and sent it rippling past her lips. Something like terror took possession of her; for the strength seemed going out ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... at last to that far-off peak, crowned with the glory of a perfect peace which men call Happiness? There are those who say it never can be reached, and that the halo which rests upon its slopes is no earthly light, but rather, as it were, a promise and a beacon—a glow reflected whence we know not, and lying on this alien earth as the sun's light lies on the dead bosom of the moon. Some declare, again, that they have climbed its topmost pinnacle and tasted of the fresh breath of heaven which sweeps around its heights—ay, and heard the quiring of immortal ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... hungry world.' Let me ask, with all honesty, what is the taste of the hungry world? Is it not a terribly perverted taste, a hungering for the black sins of death? I contend that it is the work of a good paper to be a beacon light, even though it shines from a lofty light-house. It may thereby shine out farther and wider. Away with the doctrine of devils that would pervert the truth and ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris

... make these next four years the best four years in America's history, so that on its 200th birthday America will be as young and as vital as when it began, and as bright a beacon of hope for all ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... are all sailors. We want true charts. The false chart is our ruin. The false beacon on the headland is kindled by the fiends. It leads to death—a wreck-strewn sea, dashing white up the black cliffs, and bubbling cries, rising above the tempest's roar and the surges' boom, as, one by one, the swimmers sink ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... 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

... there innumerable barrows or burial mounds constructed by this early race on the hills above the Vale, but on Beacon Hill, the slight eminence just to the west of Pickering Castle, at Cawthorne and also at Cropton, there are evidences of what may be their fortifications, while the plough is continually bringing to light more relics of the period. A fine collection of these have ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home

... Germany, if it comes, Theodor Wolff and his father-in-law, Mosse, will play leading parts. The great newspaper, the Tageblatt, which Mosse owns and Wolff edits, has throughout the war been a beacon light at once of reason and of patriotism. And other great newspapers will take the ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard

... described by Josephus to be very high and steep; e.g., vi. 40: [Greek: ten ano polin perikremnon] [Pg 457] [Greek: ousan]. The sight afforded by the towers in this steep height is, by him, compared with that of the beacon at Alexandria from the sea (B. J. vi. c. 6: "It resembled in shape the lighthouse as seen by people sailing up to Alexandria"). Compare the similar representation of Tacitus, Lib. 5. Histor. c. 11 (Reland ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

... the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which will not die, should we all perish in battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and ...
— Anthem • Ayn Rand

... switch shanty about twelve o'clock to eat my lunch. The old switchman lends me his night key. I put my lunch in on the bench when I come on duty, and he always leaves the stove full of splinters to warm up the coffee quick. When I let myself in at midnight, the lantern here was right as a beacon—I particularly noticed it." ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman

... should hardly be told of in a book; but in writing of the States, I should not do justice to my own convictions of the country if I did not say how pleasantly social intercourse there will ripen into friendship, and how full of love that friendship may become. I became enamored of Boston at last. Beacon Street was very pleasant to me, and the view over Boston Common was dear to my eyes. Even the State House, with its great yellow- painted dome, became sightly, and the sunset over the western waters that encompass the city beats all other ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... Convent and his Rule Of prayer and work, and counted work as prayer; The pen became a clarion, and his school Flamed like a beacon in the midnight air." ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... strong guards, lest the peasants, in order to save their crops, should repair the breaches. He was directed to flood the whole country at all risks rather than to allow Alkmaar to fall. The prince directed the citizens to kindle four great beacon fires as soon as it should prove necessary to resort to extreme measures, and solemnly promised that as soon as the signal was given an inundation should be created which would sweep the whole Spanish army ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty

... and more definite. It was broken but unwavering, and black shadows began to take form as part of this phenomenon. Then he remembered the giant peak of Fernando Noronha, that mis-shapen mass which thrusts its amazing beacon a thousand feet into the air. The rising moon was gilding El Pico long ere its rays would illumine the lower land—that was all—yet he hailed the sight as a token of deliverance. It was not by idle chance that that which he had taken for a cloud should be transmuted ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... was a very quiet and timid Smiles who sat beside Donald in his coupe at four that afternoon, as he drove to the richly sombre home on Beacon Street, where had dwelt many generations of Thayers. He, too, although he attempted to be ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson

... point, however, my driver reassured me. 'Nay, oo'be to home, theer's a light i' yon winder,' he said, pointing with his whip where a faint streak of yellow shone like a beacon into the surrounding gloom. The moon was struggling through the clouds, and I could dimly discern the outline of the quaint gabled front of the house, with its mullioned windows, and masses of clinging ivy. Dismounting at the old stone porch, I seized the knocker and ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... was organized in 1876. It holds annual meetings. It publishes its proceedings in volumes, of which those now in print may be purchased of the A.L.A. Publishing section, 10-1/2 Beacon st., Boston, or of the secretary. It seeks in every practicable way to develop and strengthen the public library as an essential part of the American educational system. It therefore strives by ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana

... the great strife for Freedom rose, Here scouted oft her friends and foes, Alternate, through the changeful war, And beacon-fires flashed bright and far; And here, when Freedom's strife was won, Fell, in sad ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... Connecticut, and subsequently Rhode Island, was yet visible on one hand, and a small portion of New York on the other; but as darkness came to close the scene, even that means of communication was soon virtually cut off. The light on Montauk, for hours, was the sole beacon for these bold mariners, who rounded it about midnight, fairly meeting the long, rolling swell of the broad Atlantic. Then the craft might be said to be at sea for ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... small hours of morning, dark, save for the glimmer of stars, here and there in a cloudy sky. Father Urquhart himself went up to the roof of the mill, to say his orisons, having with him certain faggots of pitch-wood, for lighting the beacon-fires if need were; and, as it chanced, braziers to this end stood ready on the roof, as is custom ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... the air on tireless wings, or skim close to the water, intent upon their ceaseless search for food. Far out the lighthouse stands anchored to the rocks, the waves dashing against it, as if to tear it from its firm foundation. But it defies them all, and sends the cheery beacon light over the waters, to guide the stately ships between the portals of the ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson

... conflicts, the feeble thriving, Are lore of the past. Now the giant peaks May sleep and sleep. Their watch is ended. The beacon towers may crumble and fall. So well have my people defended— So well have they prospered through striving— Today her triumph New England speaks In the ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... "the pomp that shuts the day"; while the nearer valleys and narrow plains were mysterious, yet soft, under the deep shadows they cast. Pianosa lay nearly opposite, distant some twenty miles, rising out of the water like a beacon; Elba was visible to the northeast, a gloomy confused pile of mountain at that hour; and Ghita once or twice thought she could trace on the coast of the main the dim outline of her own hill, Monte Argentaro; though the distance, some ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... hint the awful home of Zeus, whose shroud The thunder is—'twixt Ida and the main Behold gray Ilios, Priam's fee, the plain About her like a carpet; from whose height The watchman, ten years watching, every night Counteth the beacon fires and sees no less Their number as the years wax and duress Of hunger thins the townsmen day by day— More than the Greeks kill plague and famine slay. Here in their wind-swept city, ten long years Beset and in this tenth in blood and tears And havocry to fall, old Priam's sons Guard still ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett

... superintendence of Mr. Bruce, and a committee of the Glasgow Archaeological Society. To be brief, the larger features were akin to those of Dumbuck, without the central "well," or hole, supposed by Dr. Munro to have held the pole of a beacon- cairn. The wooden piles, as at Dumbuck, had been fashioned by "sharp metal tools." {37} This is Mr. Bruce's own opinion. This evidence of the use of metal tools is a great point of Dr. Munro, against such speculative minds as deem Dumbuck and Langbank "neolithic," that is, of a date ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang

... towns, getting built; churches everywhere rising; grass growing, and peaceable cows, where formerly had been quagmire and snakes, and for the Order a happy time. On the 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 (as ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... oral lesson! It goes forward, goes back, starts afresh, walks around the obstacle and varies the methods of attack until, at long last, light is shed upon the darkness. This incomparable beacon of the master's word was what I lacked; and I went under, without hope of succor, in that treacherous pool of the rule ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... bards of old, Sages and hermits of the solemn wood, Did in thy beams behold A beauteous type of that unchanging good, That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray The voyager of time ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... unfolded, descending like lightening by the inspiration of the spirit and illuminating the darkened soul, to these mysteries no man perhaps was ever a more sudden or a more combustible kind of convert than myself. I beamed with gospel light; it shone through me. I was the beacon of this latter age: a comet, sent to warn the wicked. I mean, I was all this in my own imagination, which swelled and mounted to the ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft



Words linked to "Beacon" :   beacon fire, visual signal, radio station, radar beacon, Beacon Hill, Tower of Pharos, beam, conduct, signal fire, take, lighthouse, tower, radio beacon, signal light, beacon light



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