Lighthouses

She is like a revolving light-house—pitch darkness alternating with a dazzling brilliancy. – Henry James, “Washington Square,” 1880 [Doctor Sloper. —tεᖇ&#55

At the foot of the lighthouse it is dark. – Japanese proverb, quoted in Eastern Proverbs and Emblems Illustrating Old Truths

Presently a light breeze sprang up, rolling the fog before it, and then dying away, leaving the lighthouse enshrouded…. The two great fog-bells of the lighthouse were therefore set agoing, and they rang out their slow deep-toned peal all that day and all that night… – R.M. Ballantyne, The Lighthouse: Being the Story of a Great Fight Between Man an

The lighthouse does great service to humanity; yet it is the slave of those who trim the lamps. – Alice Wellington Rollins (1847–1897)

It was as if she lived only on clear, salty air, and when the day came for her to pass away, she would probably do exactly that. Just take a step to one side. Dissolve into a north-westerly wind as it whirled around the lighthouse at North Point, then out across the sea. – John Ajvide Lindqvist, Harbor, 2008, translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Del

Lobsters were tossed up to the men by friendly fishermen. Beer was handed up as well and kept cold in the freshwater tanks in the lighthouse. If the Coast Guard ship Sassafras was sighted heading in with an inspector on board, the brew was hidden in the rocks… – Elinor DeWire, Lighthouses of the Mid-Atlantic Coast

[W]e have a light upon our house, and it gives hope to all who sail upon the stormy seas. Do ya know what it means to have a light burning atop your home? It is safety, a place of refuge, seen by all as a signal that ye stand for something greater than this world, greater than us all. – James Michael Pratt, The Lighthouse Keeper, 2000 [“This life is a shadowy thing,