"Beckon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... felon awaiting the carrying out of the sentence. There was only one lively member of the group. That was little Minnie. She was barely three, but a great chatterbox. Like all children, she dearly loved a "secret," and one of her favourite tricks was to beckon to some one, laying her pinky finger on her pinker lips, and then when they stooped she would whisper in their ear, "Don't tell." That was all. It was her Idea of ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the empire by only a narrow isthmus, Egypt loomed on the horizon, and appeared to beckon to her rival. Her natural fertility, the industry of her inhabitants, the stores of gold and perfumes which she received from the heart of Ethiopia, were well known by the passage to and fro of her caravans, and the recollection of her treasures must have frequently ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... that solitary, desolate peak to call them; nothing, for that matter, to beckon Garry, except the hot desert days, the cool breath of evening and the glory of nights when the stars hung low over all the miles of sand and sagebrush that reached far out to the rippling sand-dunes shimmering in the distance. Nothing, that is, but the "feel" of the desert—and ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... horse, trembling with fear, up to the dead team as they lay in the bright sunlight, and saw Scott take hold of the protruding boot, peer above it into the wagon itself and, without turning his head, beckon Hawk ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... brother, God bless you both. Good-bye, Mother. He will be a better son than I have been to you." Then, the reckless spirit of the man surviving to the last, Sir Jasper laughed faintly, as he seemed to beckon some invisible shape, and died saying gaily, "Now, Father Abbot, lead ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... backbone of the camping season, high schools and grammar schools would presently beckon their reluctant conscripts back to town and city, until, in the pungent chill of autumn, old Uncle Jeb, alone among the boarded-up cabins, would smoke his pipe in solitude and get ready for ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... knows them, and laughs aloud for joy as they pass. The rooks above the pasture know them, and wheel round and tumble in their play. The brown leaves on the oak trees know them, and flutter faintly, and beckon as they pass. And in the chattering of the dry leaves there is a meaning, and a cry of weary things which long ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... Endymion, answering his sister's beckon, entered, Mrs. Ferrars rushed forward with a sort of laugh, and cried out, "Oh! I am so happy to see you again, my child. I feel ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... for a short time he once more mounted his wheel and headed back toward Columbia. There were short-cuts that he knew from former usage, by means of which several miles might be saved. Something seemed to beckon him along this course, though he hardly understood why he should want to shorten his run when he was out for ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... George could not restrain a laugh at the chap's appearance. The former continued to beckon ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... large and bare and empty. At one end there was a kind of dais on which was placed a few chairs. The young man walked up to this and turned to beckon Juliet, for whom he placed a chair. She still lingered at the door ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... Nan—and yet proudly. "If I loved anybody, I'd let him walk over me. That's what Charlotte would say. Can't you hear her? It isn't for my sake. It's for his. Do you think I'd bamboozle him and half beckon and half persuade, the way women do, and trap him into the great enchantment? It is an enchantment. You know it is. But I'd rather he'd keep his grip on things—on himself—and walk away from me, if that's where it took him. I'd rather he'd walk straight off to somebody ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... wind beat upon him, and the rain Drenched him and seemed to scourge him as with flails. He gave himself to God; composed with prayer His spirit to meet death; when overhead The swaying oak-limbs seemed to beckon him To seek the branches' shelter and support. His prayer till death was that the Lord would bless His daughters, and distinguish them above All children of the earth. For me his suit Hath well prevailed, thank God! A happy wife, A ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... main-line embankment where Darby could see him, and where he could see all the parts of his problem at once. Then his hands went up to beckon the slacking signals. At the lifting of his finger there was a growling of gears and a backward racing of machinery, a groan of relaxing strains, and a cry of "All gone!" and the 195 stood upright, ready to be hauled out when the temporary track should be extended ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... not appear in the village, report having it that he was cutting his farms on Thousand Acre Hill. When Jethro was farming,—so it was said,—he would not stop to talk politics even with the President of the United States were that dignitary to lean over his pasture fence and beckon to him. On a sultry Friday morning, when William Wetherell was seated at Jonah Winch's desk in the cool recesses of the store slowly and painfully going over certain troublesome accounts which seemed hopeless, he was thrown into a panic by the sight of one staring ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... were the first persons whom she saw when the door was opened. The medical man (a surgeon living in the street) followed. The horror and the beauty of her face as she looked up at him absorbed the surgeon's attention for the moment, to the exclusion of everything else. She had to beckon to him, she had to point to the senseless man, before she could claim his attention for his patient and divert it ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... History hardly recalls a baser figure than that of Simon Fraser (Lord Lovat). He is remembered chiefly as the desperate shuffler and paltry traitor who tried to blow hot and cold, to fawn on Hanover with one hand and to beckon the Stuarts with the other. But his whole career was of a piece with its paltry ending. His youth and manhood were characterized by a kind of savage lawlessness, like that of a Calabrian chieftain brigand or the brave of a Sioux band. He was cruel, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... Life with a striking allegory. The young Mortal enters the Hall of the Firmament. The Gods are sitting there, and he is alone with them. They pour on him gifts and blessings, and beckon him to their thrones. But between him and them suddenly appear snow-storms of illusions. He imagines himself in a vast crowd, whose behests he fancies he must obey. The mad crowd drives hither and thither, and sways this way and that. What is he that he should resist? He lets ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... on the game to leave, even for refreshments. Now and then I saw him beckon to an attendant, who brought him a stiff drink of whiskey. For a moment his play seemed a little better, then he would drop back into his hopeless losing. For some reason or other his ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... night on the carriage. He mentioned you by name. He is quite commonly dressed, but he's a gallant gentleman, and exactly like our Signor Carlo. My dearest lady, he'll be company for you while I am absent. May I beckon him ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hours either; those are very large canoes. However, there is no time to be lost. While I watch them for a few minutes till I make them more clearly out, do you run up to the house and beckon your father to come down to me; and then, William, get all the muskets ready, and bring the casks of powder, and of made-up cartridges, from the old house into the stockade. Call Juno, and she will help you. We shall have time enough to do everything. After you have ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... eventuality not a little during the days of his enforced idleness. This morning the thought was so strong in him that it amounted almost to a plan. Maybe there was a face in these calculations, a face illumined by clear, dark eyes, which seemed to strain over the brink of the future and beckon him on. Blood might stand between them, and differences almost irreconcilable, ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... modify his towering hopes and rose-colored visions, but to little purpose. Young, buoyant, in splendid health, with a surplus of warm blood tingling in every vein, how could he take a prudent, distrustful view of the world? It seemed to beckon him smilingly into any path of success he might choose. Had not many won the victory? and who ever felt braver and more determined than he, with the needs of the dear ones at home added to his own incentives and ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... knew. Emmy Lou had heard him, too, out on the bench, glibly tell Miss Clara about the mat, and a bat, and a black rat. To-day he stood forth with confidence and told about a fat hen. Emmy Lou was glad to have the little boy beckon her. ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... conceiv'd to scope. This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks, With one man beckon'd from the rest below, Bowing his head against the steepy mount To climb his happiness, would be well express'd In ...
— The Life of Timon of Athens • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... away; the dusky rafters part to admit the infinite, infinite longin's to do and dare, infinite resolves to emulate those deeds of valor and heroism. How the calm blue eyes look down into the boy's impassioned soul, how the shadowy hands beckon him upward, up the rocky heights of noble endeavor, noble deeds! How the inspiration of this life, these deeds of might and valor, nerve the young heart for future strivings for freedom and ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... while the days ran by; Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie My life within this band. But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they, By noon, most cunningly did steal away, And ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... monster with the deadly sting! Who passes mountains, breaks through fenced walls And firm embattled spears, and with his filth Taints all the world!" Thus me my guide address'd, And beckon'd him, that he should come to shore, Near to the stony causeway's utmost edge. Forthwith that image vile of fraud appear'd, His head and upper part expos'd on land, But laid not on the shore his bestial train. His face the ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... creatures had toiled on, but they had become very weak, still the elder ones had carried the youngest. Once Bill had fallen, but had got up; Nancy had taken Mary from him, and they had gone on. It was near the evening when Troloo, who kept ahead, was seen to move on fast and beckon to the rest. Mr Harlow followed him fast. He stopped and pointed to a bank overhung by trees. There lay the three children. Were they alive? Mr Harlow's heart sunk within him. He leaped from his horse ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... where the hedge-rows are, That beckon with white looks an endless way; Where, through the fair wet silverness of May, A lamb shines out as sudden as a star, Among the cloudy sheep; and green, and pale, The may-trees reach and glimmer, near or far, And the red may-trees wear ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody
... stopped still forever early on their life's journey. It is the voices that are hushed that call most distinctly, the footsteps that stop that are most carefully traced. It is the children who have gone that stand and beckon! ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... was looking up and down the road. It was part of the regulation that Ransom should separate from Verena before reaching the house, and they had just paused to exchange their last words (which every day promoted the situation more than any others), when Doctor Prance began to beckon to them with much animation. They hurried forward, Verena pressing her hand to her heart, for she had instantly guessed that something terrible had happened to Olive—she had given out, fainted away, perhaps fallen dead, with the cruelty of ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... she might like him again all right. Then, Romer talks too slowly for her. Her mind works quicker than his, and one can only deal with him by racing on in front, and turning round to beckon. With Mrs. Wyburn there are only two things that are any use—dash and volubility. It's difficult to keep the thing going when she's ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... beside the little black pool, where the moon glinted in mysterious, wavering, symbols to beckon the gaze upward, and, making a cup of her hand, drank eagerly. There was a sound near-by, as if some wood creature were stirring; she thought she heard a fox barking in the distance. Yet she was really conscious only of the wonder of time, the ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... And the wild car the exulting Panthers bore, Announced the Presence of the Rapture-Bringer— Bounded the Satyr and blithe Fawn before; And Maenads, as the frenzy stung the soul, Hymn'd, in their madding dance, the glorious wine— As ever beckon'd to the lusty bowl The ruddy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... wondrous beautiful. A fascination stole over the senses of young Wolfgang. He stared at the lovely apparition with fixed eyes and distended jaws. She looked at him with ineffable archness. She lifted one beautifully rounded alabaster arm, and made a sign as if to beckon him towards her. Did Wolfgang—the young and lusty Wolfgang—follow? Ask the iron whether it follows the magnet?—ask the pointer whether it pursues the partridge through the stubble?—ask the youth whether the lollipop-shop does not attract him? Wolfgang DID follow. ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not search to-morrow; but she took toward it one of those steps of vague intention, at the end of which we beckon to possibilities. She wrote to Stephen and asked him to come to see her then. She had not spoken to him since the night of the Viceroy's party, when she put her Bohemian head out of the ticca-gharry to wish him good-night, and he ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... and Caesar's State, Empire and Faith:—while Fancy's favourite child, The myriad-minded, moving up sedate Beckon'd his countryman, and inly smiled:— Then that august Theophany paled from view, To higher stars drawn ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... inhabitants of two or three houses only, were generally placed together, to the number of fifteen or twenty, consisting of men, women, and children. These little companies sat upon the ground, not advancing towards us, but inviting us to them, by a kind of beckon, moving one hand towards the breast. We made them several little presents; and in our walk round the bay found two small streams of fresh water. This convenience, and the friendly behaviour of the people, determined me to stay ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... go southeast, where the dim woods seemed now to beckon him like a living mother. Never had the thought of the mountains and the lonely forest been so grateful to this scout before. If only he ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... the White Mountains in their company for a few weeks during the heat of summer was a fixed one. He grew to love Asquam, with its hills and lakes, almost better than any other place for this sojourn. It was there he loved to beckon his friends to join him. "Do come, if possible," he would write. "The years speed on; it will soon be too late. I long to look on your ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... chest, all must be strong. And then a man must be dressed in the latest fashion, so as to show off his looks to advantage. Yes, all the women take to me. Whether I call to them, or whether I beckon them, they with one accord, five at a time, ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... my hour of freedom come! Time, I invoke thee! favouring gales Awaiting on the shore I roam And beckon to the passing sails. Upon the highway of the sea When shall I wing my passage free On waves by tempests curdled o'er! 'Tis time to quit this weary shore So uncongenial to my mind, To dream upon the sunny strand Of ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... sunny being, she comprehended nothing of care. Life was abounding in her. She knew not the disease of reflection; she felt not the perplexities of life. To sing and to laugh—to leap the stream and beckon him to leap after her, as he used in the old lover-days, when she would conceal herself from him in the folds of a water-lily—to tantalize and enchant him with a thousand coquetries—this was her idea of how they should live; and when he gently refused to join her ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... early days of his career no one strove more whole heartedly. Destiny smiled upon him and the White House seemed to beckon. He was not unaware of the opportunity nor was there anyone more eager to grasp it. But he discovered that he could not stir the enthusiasm that begets political power. The secret, which enabled many other men, many of whom he despised, to ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... you." Why, even Dodd himself, who was one of the greatest humbugs who ever lived, would not have had the face to say that he approved of his wife telling the truth in such a case. Would you have had Flora Macdonald beckon the officers, saying, "This way, gentlemen! You will find the young chevalier asleep in that cavern." Or don't you prefer her to be splendide mendax, and ready at all risks to save him? If ever I lead a rebellion, and my women betray me, may I be hanged but I will not forgive them: ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... blood. The night came on dark and dismal, and a flood of bitter, wretched thoughts swept over me, crushing me to the earth. Before me in the distance appeared the head-light of an engine. It seemed to look at me like a demon's eye, and beckon me on to destruction. I heard voices which whispered in my ears—"now is the time." A shudder crept over me. Should I end my miserable existence? I knew that a train of cars was coming. I could lie down on the track, and no one would ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... a long time to wart. The office clock pointed to half-past three before I caught the clerk's eye, and saw him beckon me up to the counter. I had thrown back my veil, for here I was perfectly safe from recognition. At the other end of the counter, in the compartment devoted to curates, doctors' assistants, and others, there stood a young man in earnest consultation with another clerk. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... stay, gazing intently at her charming figure and her pale but beautiful face. Frequently he would creep closer to her, creep so near that his lips would almost touch her face; but then he would throw back his head again, and if at such times the slave-girl half awoke from her slumbers, he would beckon to her to go to sleep again—nobody ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... night, when the young man would be coming upstairs to his room after his turn at the theatre was over, the major would appear at the door of his study and beckon archly to him. Going in, Hargraves would find a little table set with a decanter, sugar bowl, fruit, and a big bunch of ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... consists in the players trying to change places without being caught; but they are bound to call "Puss, puss," first, and to beckon to the one they wish to change with. Directly they leave their corners, the player in the center tries to get ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... it is not alone that my country is fair, And my home and my friends are inviting me there; While they beckon me onward, my heart is still here, With my sweet lovely daughter, and bonny boy dear: And oh! what's the joy that a home can impart, Removed from the dear ones who cling to ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... black eyes sadly on me? Why ever rings thy sweet voice in my ear? Why looks thy pale face from the drifting foam— Dashed by the wild sea on this distant shore— Or from the white clouds does it beckon me? ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... is a bright phantom realm, where fancied pleasures beckon from distant shores; but when we launch our barks to reach them, they vanish, and beckon again from still more distant shores. And so, poor fallen man pursues the ghosts of paradise as the deluded dog chases the shadows of flying birds in ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... which is akin to the artistic temperament, may very easily degenerate into mere pliability. Never fight, always negotiate for a remnant of the profits, becomes the rule of life. At each stage in the career the primroses will beckon more attractively towards the bonfire, and the uphill path of contest look more stony and unattractive. In this process the intellect may remain unimpaired, but the ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... and the Southern Cross, invisible to northern eyes, seems still to beckon us onward. But we have reached the most distant point of our journey, and henceforth we shall be homeward bound, taking China and Japan as we go. Java is not so hot as we expected. An island like Cuba, six hundred miles long and only two hundred broad, has sea-breezes enough ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... pool. Women in gaudy-colored dresses, their bared breasts and brawny arms contrasting curiously with their wicked faces, hang lasciviously over "half-doors," taunt the dreamy policeman on his round, and beckon the unwary stranger into their dens. Piles of filth one might imagine had been thrown up by the devil or the street commissioners and in which you might bury a dozen fat aldermen without missing one; little shops where unwholesome food is sold; corner shops ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... a close; he ended it in a cloudy burst of rhetoric which he feared would please the nervous, elderly ladies—who sometimes blamed him for a want of emotionality—and knew must grieve the judicious. While the choir was singing the closing hymn, he contrived to beckon the sexton to the pulpit, and described and located Lemuel to him as well as he could without actually pointing him out; he said that he wished to see that young man after church, and asked the sexton to bring ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... You'll see them stop and hover over the place where your father and your brother have been drowned; you'll see them come on till they reach the sand, you'll see them dig in it with their naked feet and beckon awfully to the raging sea to give up its dead. Open the door, Gabriel—or, though it should be the death of me, I will get ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... gone some paces unheeded. He came back and stood between us and the great machine. I avoided seeing him, because I guessed somehow that his idea was to beckon us onward. He walked away in the direction he wished us to go, and turned and came back, and flicked our faces ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... out. Some of the old houses of the ex-king's friends and attendants still remain in a fair state of preservation. The elegant residence of Joseph Bonaparte, or the Count de Surveilliers, which was always open to American visitors of all classes, was torn down by Mr. Hairy Beckon, an Englishman in the diplomatic service of the British government, who purchased this property some years after the Count returned to Europe, and erected a more elaborate mansion near the old site. The old citizens ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... maid and another; so I had the luck to be in it along wid 'em, and see all, from first to last. And first, I must tell you, my young Lord Colambre remembered and noticed me the minute he lit at our inn, and condescended to beckon me out of the yard to him, and axed me—' Friend Larry,' says he, 'did you keep your promise?'—'My oath again the whiskey, is it?' says I. 'My lord, I surely did,' said I; which was true, as all the country knows I never tasted a drop since. 'And I'm ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... steamer was loading in the Roads, and he was abusing the tyrannical institutions of the German empire, and soaking himself in beer all day long and day after day in De Jongh's back-shop, till De Jongh, who charged a guilder for every bottle without as much as the quiver of an eyelid, would beckon me aside, and, with his little leathery face all puckered up, declare confidentially, "Business is business, but this man, captain, he make me very ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... will be done," Sweet little cherub, to me but loaned, Now safe at home, far beyond the sun. Soon the dark river I too shall cross, And hopefully climb up that golden stair, And all this world's riches will be but dross, If those tiny fingers beckon me there. ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... Peter senior. His commercial genius had spread them across the sky to beckon the public to his great new department store on Sixth Avenue. Just as at the beginning of the gesture you saw only the tips of the fingers, so Peter Rolls, Sr., had begun with a tiny flicker, the first groping of his inspiration ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... long since I played it—there is a parlour game entitled "Puss in the Corner." You beckon another player to you with your finger. "Puss, puss!" you cry. Thereupon he has to leave his chair—his "base," as the military man would term it—and try to get to you without ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... some ugly nightmare, that for the moment changes peace and rest to horror and affright, and then passes again to the dim and ghostly Dreamland, whose frontier crowds our daily life on every hand, and whence forever peep and beckon the mysteries that perplex ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... beautiful those far-off white sails look," said Lillian—"how they gleam in the sunshine. See, that one looks like a mysterious hand raised to beckon us away." ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... not come back for a hundred years; the time will fly in this place like a hundred hours, but that is a long time for temptation and sin. Every evening when I leave you I must say, "Come with me," and I must beckon to you, but stay behind. Do not come with me, for with every step you take your longing will grow stronger. You will reach the hall where grows the Tree of Knowledge; I sleep beneath its fragrant drooping branches. You will bend over me and I must smile, but if you press a kiss upon ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... our hearts, wrinkled our brows, or made our spirits look sadly from out our eyes; no, everything was bright, and tipped with the golden light of the morning of life. All the world lay before us, and the unknown and untried future seemed to beckon us onward, and we were only too eager to follow and see what it ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce
... Beckon he must have dug a hole and pulled it in after him. But we've got to find out what's the matter with the pipe line. There's only a few days' supply of water in the reservoir. Rustle out some grub, and we'll ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... other. About the best poetry, and not only the best, there floats an atmosphere of infinite suggestion. The poet speaks to us of one thing, but in this one thing there seems to lurk the secret of all. He said what he meant, but his meaning seems to beckon away beyond itself, or rather to expand into something boundless which is only focussed in it; something also which, we feel, would satisfy not only the imagination, but the whole of us; that something within us, ...
— Poetry for Poetry's Sake - An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on June 5, 1901 • A. C. Bradley
... shall do better things, Lisaveta—this is a promise. While I am writing, the sea's roar is coming up to me, and I close my eyes. I am looking into an unborn and shapeless world that longs to be called to life and order, I am looking into a throng of phantoms of human forms which beckon me to conjure them and set them free: some of them tragic, some of them ridiculous, and some that are both at once—and to these I am very devoted. But my deepest and most secret love belongs to the blond and blue-eyed, the bright-spirited ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... man for whom it was intended, and but for my fears concerning Madonna Paola, I could have laughed outright at their clumsy assurance. The man who rode on Madonna's right turned in his saddle and put up his hand as if to beckon Stefano. I was regaling him with one of the choicest of Messer Sacchetti's paradoxes, gurgling, myself, at the humour of the thing I told. I paid no heed to the sign. I continued to expound my quip, as though we had the night before us in which to make its elusive humour clear. But out of the ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... some years before, that when he had lain a good while in the grave, God would call aloud, "Jack!" and he would start, and say, "Yes, me Jack." Then he would rise, and see multitudes standing together, and God sitting on a cloud with a very large book in his hand—he called it "Bible book"—and would beckon him to stand before him while he opened the book, and looked at the top of the pages, till he came to the name of John B——. In that page he told me, God had written all his "bads," every sin he had ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... have I brought my soul to wreck! (The storm increases; she breaks forth wildly.) They come! I have bewitched them hither! No, no! I will not go with you! I will not ride without Sigurd! It avails not—they see me; they laugh and beckon to me; they spur their horses! (Rushes out to the edge of the cliff at the back.) They are upon me;—and no shelter no hiding- place! Ay, mayhap at the ...
— The Vikings of Helgeland - The Prose Dramas Of Henrik Ibsen, Vol. III. • Henrik Ibsen
... me, or would have been had I sought access; for I walked sternly by its pleasant door that afternoon, though I remember now how the very roses that o'erhung the porch, the benched and shaded porch, that lovely lingering place, seemed to beckon me in. It was a breathless summer day, and the vine curled in the open window,—even now those lowly rooms make a brighter image of heaven to me than the jewelled walls that of old grew in the ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... one fell: the second Wheeled round him, twice, and was off for new luck; There in the dark her white wing beckon'd:— Drop me a ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... did not meet again till late in the evening. Lady Ruth's rooms were crowded for it was the beginning of the political season, and her parties were always popular. Nevertheless, she found time to beckon Wingrave to her before they had been ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... apt copyist, was able to set her mouth at exactly the right angle, and in consequence her approving teacher would frequently beckon her on to ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... through our dreams at night, they fly with us in our wheelings and circlings by day. We hunger to inquire of each other, to compare notes and assure ourselves that it was all really true, as one by one the scents and sounds and names of long-forgotten places come gradually back and beckon to us." ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... immortality Of thought, and freshness ever self-renew'd. For Time and Grief abode too long with Life, And like all other friends i' the world, at last They grew aweary of her fellowship: So Time and Grief did beckon unto Death, And Death drew nigh and beat the doors of Life; But thou didst sit alone in the inner house, A wakeful port'ress and didst parle with Death, 'This is a charmed dwelling which I hold'; So Death gave back, and would no further come. Yet is my life nor in the present ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... scarcely above the level of the banister-rail. At the first landing she stopped and beckoned us forward encouragingly towards the open door of the dead-room. My aunt went in and the old woman, seeing that I hesitated to enter, began to beckon to me again ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... things began to stir on the table: little invisible things. The life with which he had endued these sheets of paper began to beckon imperiously. So he sharpened a score of pencils, and after fiddling about and rewriting the last page he had written the previous night, he plunged into work. It was hot and dry. There were mysterious rustlings that made ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... anything else. When death is at hand most of us do not think much of such things because then we realise how small they are. Indeed I was wondering whether within a few minutes or hours I should or should not see Natalie again, and if this were the end to which she had seemed to beckon me in ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... began to realize what day it was, they brought a feeling of vague disappointment. Surely this day, which meant so much in her life, might have dawned fair! The glimpse of a leaden sky colored her thoughts for a moment, as she lay still in the drowsy relaxation of half-awakening, when dreams beckon from dolce far niente land, and the whispering voice of slumber mingles with the more stirring call of the brain to be up and doing. The recollection that Donald was far away, and could not be with her to witness her triumph, brought a sense ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... Death, oh thou graver of countenance knighted austerely, Yea, on the pitiful clay, such poor flesh in its fear Of God and the soul and the singing of stars that may teach us Wisdom at last,—oh thou ultimate searcher and seer, Beckon—I follow. At last on my lips set thy finger; Thou ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... sea? Is not the neighbourhood of heaven good? Not grand thy temple of encircling rocks? Not fair the forest hanging o'er thy bed? Hasten not so to the cerulean sea; Youth, thou art here, Strong as a god, Free as a god, Though yonder beckon treacherous calms below, The wavering lustre of the silent sea, Now softly silvered by the swimming moon, Now rosy golden in the western beam; Youth, what is silken rest, And what the smiling of the friendly moon, Or gold or purple of the evening ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... general, or a conquering hero, by his talents and his great deeds; to subdue the world and its prejudices; to bridge over with laurels and trophies the gulf which separated him from the princess. Was he not already on the way? Did not the future beckon to him with glorious promise? Must not he, who at eighteen years of age had attained that for which many not less endowed had given their whole lives in vain—he, the flattered cavalier, the scholar, and the officer of the king's guard—be ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... secessionist, and proceeded to the Station House. By this time it was quite dark, and she was alone. Alighting she asked the driver to give her whatever aid she might need, and to come to her should he even see her beckon from a window, and he ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... invitation of the prairie to the discouraged and weary ones of the older lands, whose dreams have failed, whose plans have gone wrong, and who are ready to fall out of the race. The blue skies and green slopes beckon to them to come out and begin again. The prairie, with its peace and silence, calls to the troubled nations of Middle Europe, whose people are caught in the cruel tangle of war. When it is all over ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... crisp, pure, and exhilarating. The fir trees and shrubs gave out a delicious perfume, and their waving tops seemed to beckon us on. The sky was deep blue, with here and there a feathery cloud gliding lazily over its surface. The bright sunlight made our hearts bound and filled our bodies with vigour, and as we stood there on the edge of the unknown and silent world we had come so far to see, our hopes were high, ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... save the few Mantineans who vainly clung to their champion, and the Laconians themselves, had begun to pin their hopes on the beautiful son of Conon. There was a steely glint in the Spartan athlete's eye that made the president of the games beckon to the master-herald. ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... could increase the population of a state or a group of states, or he could shrivel the prosperity of a section of the country by his whim. For by changing a freight rate he could make wheat grow, where grass had nourished. By changing the rate again, he could beckon back the wilderness. And yet, how small was his power; here beside him, cherished as the apple of his eye, was his daughter, a slip of a girl, with blue eyes and fair hair, whose heart was growing toward the light, as the hearts of young things grow, and he, with all of his power, could ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... they falter and follow, Wander, and beckon the roving tide, Wheel and float with the veering swallow, Lift you a voice from the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... of gliding spirits, gibbering phantoms, bloody hands, which, dimly seen by twilight, seemed to beckon him forward like errant-knight on sad adventure bound. More than once he started from his sleep, so lively was the influence of these visions on his imagination; and he always awaked under the impression that some one stood by his bedside. The chillness of his ankles, the weight ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... and Tris were of one mind, what could Denas do but be of the same mind? After all, the great anxiety was the weather. The restless way in which Tris queried of the winds and watched the clouds almost made John angry. "You do be enough to beckon a storm, Tris," he cried. "Let be! Let be!" Yet for all that John himself walked oftener to his door than was his custom, and looked seaward and windward in a furtive kind of way, very amusing to the women, who ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... sad, for, ere it comes loved souls will have gone from earth and from their tender bosom, but not from their memories; and will seem to beckon them now across the cold valley to ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... against the distance to God, as there is difference in the distance to the sun from the slates and from the cellar. Let us live near God, and so aspiration will come in the place of satisfaction, and the unattained will gleam before us, and beckon us not in vain, and the man that sees what an infinite stretch there is before him will be delivered from the temptations of self-conceit, and will say, 'Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfected, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... that a certain species of insect must necessarily perambulate the beds in a young civilization. One night, after traveling over prairies all day, eating nothing but what our larder provided, we saw a light in a cottage in the distance which seemed to beckon to us. Arriving, we asked the usual question,—if we could get a night's lodging,—to which the response was inevitably a hearty, hospitable "Yes." One survey of the premises showed me what to look for in the way of midnight companionship, so I said to the Governor, "I will resign in your favor ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton |
