Beacon

“ Pleasant it is to seat oneself below one of these noble beacons, those friendly fires, those true and welcoming homes of the storm tried mariner. Even the most modern of them is a venerable thing to all who, for one moment, reflect how many lives the most modern of them has already saved. With even the most modern, many a touching memory, many a wild and beautiful, and no less authentic story is connected. Two generations, merely, are enough to make your beacon already ancient, linked with old memories, consecrated, honorable, hallowed. ”

“ Because we are so arranging it that only the person who has actually plucked the Black Leaf, and has it in his or her hand, can set a light to the first beacon. Each beacon is being specially guarded ... well, I will admit that we have called in the aid of Old Nancy to help us in the guarding of them. So you may rest assured that none of the Pumpkin’s friends will be able to touch the beacons.... ”

“ Here we have a horizon line so high that, when the sun is behind us in the early morning, the depth of the blue is as refreshing to the eye as the green vales seen from a mountain top, while the prodigious distance at which we can descry a white sail is a delicious marvel. We spend the early mornings on one or another of those high downs, being careful then and throughout the day never to be long out of sight of the Beacon, lest we should miss the approach of the pilchards. ”

“ While upon the top of the beacon the writer was reminded by the landing-master that the sea was running high, and that it would be necessary to set off while the rock afforded anything like shelter to the boats, which by this time had been made fast by a long line to the beacon, and rode with much agitation, each requiring two men with boat-hooks to keep them from striking each other, or from ranging up against the beacon. But even under these circumstances the greatest confidence was felt by every one, from the security afforded by this temporary erection. ”

“ I’ll take yes for granted. You’ll find Beacon Rock just the place for a month’s billing and cooing. Eastward, the multitudinous sea; westward, the hardy New England landscape; and all around you, the sweetest air it will ever be your luck to breathe. Look here.”
Mr. Flint opened a drawer of his desk and extracted a pile of photographs.
“Here’s Beacon Rock taken from every available point of view. Here are some glimpses of the interior,” he said.
Divided between delight and gratitude, Arthur could only stammer forth broken phrases. ”

“ The story given by Clytæmnestra about the beacons is absurd. Why has the arrangement existed for only one year of the ten? Why make an arrangement which would depend so entirely on the weather? How could the beacon on Mount Athos have been seen from Eubœa (a hundred miles away) when a tempest was raging on the intervening sea? ”

“ All of us have! We all have a Beacon light we’re steering our course by. Well, jest as long as it’s been fair weather an’ you had your Beacon plain in sight you sailed along all serene, but jest the minute the fog shut in you lost your grip on the steering gear. Miss Cynthy, I reckon the Keeper of the Beacon expects you to believe that He is there and the Beacon is shining jest as bright as ever, and when the fog lifts the rays will be all the brighter to guide you in the right course. ”

“ The only felicitous instance is that of the Arnish Beacon on the north coast of Scotland; it consists of a cone of cast-iron plates, surmounted with a lantern containing a glass prism. The prism is illuminated by a light directed upon it from Stornaway Lighthouse; and so perfect is the deception that the fishermen long refused to believe there was not a real light on the beacon.
THE ARNISH BEACON.
Nearly a thousand buoys are posted about the coast of England and in the channels of her principal rivers. Scotland and Ireland have about two hundred each. ”

“ The operations at this time were entirely directed to the erection of the beacon, in which every man felt an equal interest, as at this critical period the slightest casualty to any of the boats at the rock might have been fatal to himself individually, while it was perhaps peculiar to the writer more immediately to feel for the safety of the whole. Each log or upright beam of the beacon was to be fixed to the rock by two strong and massive bats or stanchions of iron. ”

“ This was the earliest type of beacon ever built—by Earth, no less. Considering its location on one of the Proxima Centauri planets, it might very well be the first beacon.”
I looked at the blueprints he handed me and felt my eyes glaze with horror. “It’s a monstrosity! It looks more like a distillery than a beacon—must be at least a few hundred meters high. I’m a repairman, not an archeologist. This pile of junk is over 2000 years old. ”

“ But by degrees the water began to rise, and with slowly-swelling waves it gained upon those engaged in work on the lower portions of the sites of the beacon and lighthouse. From the run of the sea upon the rock, the forge-fire was more quickly extinguished than usual; and the volumes of smoke having ceased, the men at work could examine every object around. ”

“ I was quite sure the next was the field beacon at Bellefonte, but I didn’t dare go out far enough to find it.
I knew I couldn’t sit there and circle all night. The snow was not abating. I had to do something. Finally I pulled off the beacon in a climbing spiral, headed off blind in what I thought was the direction of the next beacon—what I hoped it was!—and hoped to see it under me through the snow if I flew over it, and if not, to keep on going, blind, until I flew out of the mountains, the snow, or both. ”

“ We climbed in opaque blackness, flying by instruments.
We emerged into an open space where the clouds were broken. The lights reappeared. The stars became visible.
The clouds spread out under us to the horizon in all directions. They were lit a dim silver by the stars. They softly undulated like a mystic, limitless sea beneath us.
Now and then we saw a break in the clouds and caught the flash of a beacon through it or saw the lights of a town. We caught glimpses of dim breakers rolling in on the beach far down under the clouds. ”

“ How anxiously must the seaman who has been prevented by unfavourable skies from ascertaining his exact position, and has been trusting to the log and the compass to work his reckoning, scan the horizon for the first glimpse of the hospitable light beacon, which seems to say that the country he is approaching has been watching for his coming, and welcomes him to its shores. ”

“ Beacons were erected along the coast, and all through the country, to give the signal for every one to repair to the post where his peculiar duty called him, and men of every description fit to serve held themselves in readiness on the shortest summons. ”

“ The primitive mode of signalling events by beacon had this serious drawback, that, should any one beacon by accident or set purpose be set alight, needless alarm was forthwith spread throughout the land, and no amount of care in watching the various collections of piled-up wood and other inflammable material could, experience proved, prevent mischievous or designing persons from sometimes surreptitiously lighting them ”

“ Airplane pilots have ventured opinions that on a clear night it could be seen for 40 miles. It is certain that there is an extensive area of illumination, and on dark nights, when there are gusty, northerly winds and the nocturnal travelers seem to fly at lower altitudes, many of them are attracted to the Monument as to a lighthouse beacon. ”

“ You will naturally attribute this to an effect of the beacon; you may think that it is very hot and people are afraid of getting burnt. But if you wait for daylight you will see the hill, and you will find that the beacon merely marks the top of the hill and does not influence the people with lanterns in any way. ”

“ It is, therefore, extremely desirable, that experience should not be lost upon us; but that her beacons should serve as a polar star, by which to steer our course with safety, through the dangerous and perplexing labyrinths of life. ”

“ As commerce increased, and flowed into fresh channels, men very naturally multiplied on every coast the landmarks which played the same useful part by day as did the pharoses by night. If we may believe Coulier, we owe to the Etruscans the invention of that system of beacons which, neglected for many centuries, has been resuscitated of late years, and developed according to fixed principles. ”

“ All planes flying parallel to the earth were careful to avoid those red beacons which marked ascension routes, and the shafts of green light down which descending planes dropped to the earth or into lower levels of travel. ”

“ Numerous beacons on the islands and islets form an easy guide for vessels at night seeking refuge from the Atlantic gales, and once inside the chain they are certain of finding plenty of good anchoring grounds. ”

“ The Beacons formerly lighted up on the hills to give notice of the approach of an enemy. These signals would still be used in case of alarm, if the Telegraph now substituted could not be distinguished on account of fog or darkness. ”

“ These, if ever, are the brave, free days of destroyed landmarks, while the ingenious minds are busy inventing the forms of the new beacons which, it is consoling to think, will be set up presently in the old places. ”

“ Compare (and of course with the pencil) the beaks of birds: the beak of the seagull with that of the swallow, or with that of the parrot. In the last-mentioned bird the beak seems to predominate and form the greater part of the skull. Sketch the curious square shape of the parrot's upper and lower beak, together with the wrinkled skin, and the sharp cunning little eye.
Birds' feet and legs exhibit astonishing variations of form. What, for instance, could be more dissimilar than a stork's leg and an owl's, the duck's web and the swallow's claw, the eagle's talon and the sparrows? ”

“ Robert Ingersoll Aitken, Sculptor
Robert Ingersoll Aitken has added to the cosmical meaning of the Court of the Universe his four elements - monumental, horizontal compositions of pronounced decorative effect. Air is the one of finest poetic feeling. She holds the star to her ear and listens to the music of the spheres. The eagle, the symbol of the air, is used with finely balanced effect. On her back are fastened wings, and man, puny man, is aiming, by attaching wings to himself, to overcome her - a subtle suggestion of airships. ”

“ With a formidable beak, he has not the talons of a true eagle of the sea. A pseudo-eagle, and superior to the true in his daring as in his powers of flight, he has not, however, his strength, his invincible grasp. ”

“ This crest is just the shape of a tea-cosy, so that it looks as if some one had put a little tea-cosy made of the most splendid blood-red, fiery, crimson-sunset feathers right over the bird's head and covered it quite up. You see no beak at all, and it does look so funny to see a bird without a beak—almost as funny as it would to see a beak without a bird. ”

“ I do not think it is distinctly enough felt by us that the beak of a bird is not only its mouth, but its hand, or rather its two hands. For, as its arms and hands are turned into wings, all it has to depend upon, in economical and practical life, is its beak. ”

“ Upon one huge crag of rock sat quite a shapely eagle, and from another drooped a huge flag in snowy folds, and beneath it, rising as if to grasp it, reached up a Titanic hand; then came a tall palm tree, next a broom of stone big enough for a giant; a lion's head looking over a jutting crag, and yew trees by the path side, besides many other objects, some most wonderfully natural in appearance, and others requiring the exercise of a lively imagination to see the representation. ”

“ Is it strange that his wings quivered with the joy of voyaging as surely as the sails of a boat tighten in the tugging winds?
What would you give to see this miracle—a bobolink flying through the night? For it has been seen; there being men who go and watch, when their calendars tell them 't is time for birds to take their southward flight. Their eyes are too feeble to see such sights unaided; so they look through a telescope toward the full round moon, and then they can see the birds that pass between them and the light. ”

“ The beak in one bird which I possessed was almost completely buried when the oesophagus was fully expanded. The males, especially when excited, pout more than the females, and they glory in exercising this power. If a bird will not, to use the technical expression, "play," the fancier, as I have witnessed, by taking the beak into his mouth, blows him up like a balloon; and the bird, then puffed up with wind and pride, struts about, retaining his magnificent size as long as he can. Pouters often take flight with their crops inflated. ”

“ The strong beak and claw, the gaze that can see so far, and the mighty spread of wings that can lift it till it is an invisible speck in the blue vault, go along with the instinct of paternity: and the fledglings in the nest look up at the fierce beak and bright eyes, and know no terror. ”

“ The beak is opened more widely than would seem to be necessary for the production of the sound, as if to show this coloration, even though, for the moment, there may be no other bird there to see it. If, however, the rosy inward complexion were in any way an attraction, it would be natural for a bird, wanting its mate, to associate the wish with the action of opening the beak, just as a lonely dove in a cage will coo and bow as to a partner. ”