"Crone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was opened by a withered crone, who, to his question whether Mr. Froud was in, answered in an injured tone, "Yes, he was in; he always was;" and, as she spoke, she half-pushed the visitor into a room on the left side of the entrance, and vanished ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... the Custom-house, whence the voice seemed to proceed, he replied very faintly, and in a scarce intelligible voice, "Who is calling me? Who has come to cast my dead body into the sea, for it will soon be all over with me." Then a little shrivelled wrinkled crone came up panting and coughing, hobbling along by the aid of her staff; she approached the wounded youth, and squatting down beside him, she burst out into a most repulsive chuckling and laughing. "You foolish child, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... met my sight, Grinning back to me as my own; I well-nigh fainted with affright At finding me a haggard crone. ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... sure, no need was felt of one in the villages, for most of the nobility knew no more of reading and writing than the peasants. If any one fell ill, he found no help but the secret remedies of some old village crone, for there was not an apothecary in the whole country. If any one needed a coat he could do no better than take needle in hand himself—for many miles there was no tailor, unless one of the trade made a trip through the country on the chances of finding work. If any one wished to ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... "Any old crone's would serve as well for a lullaby," she answered, playfully. "Now go, and be sure you find out whether the countess liked the chocolate ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... vile-smelling compounds that, judged from their outer coating of withered leaves, straw, and dirt, would appear to have been made in a stable and dried on a rubbish heap. The subject of the jotting, busy with his customers, was all unconscious; but an old crone who sat, her feet resting on a tiny charcoal stove, amidst a circle of decadent greens, detecting the Artist's action, became excited, and after eyeing him uneasily for a moment, confided her suspicions as to his ulterior motive to a round-faced young countryman who retailed flowers close ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... Jimmie, to call on an old crone like me, and so promptly. She'll be down in a minute. But you must be on your good behavior, Jim, for they're talking about you, you know. They're bracketing your name ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... here,' returned Roderick, 'what a gem I have got from my tailor, who was just going to cut up this peerless robe into strips. He bought it of an old crone, who must doubtless have worn it on gala days when she went to Lucifer's drawing-room on the Blocksberg. Look at this scarlet bodice, with its gold tassels and fringe, at this cap besmeared with the last fee the hag got from Beelzebub or his imps: it will give me a right ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... up the trees about me Like an enchanted palace, and I wished I knew enough of magic or of Witchcraft To change them into gold. Then suddenly A tree shook down some crimson leaves upon me, Like drops of blood, and in the path before me Stood Tituba the Indian, the old crone. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... preceded the dispersion of the family. Edie had arranged his various bags, and was bound for the renewal of his wandering life, but first advanced with due courtesy to take his leave of the ancient crone. ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... she said, with gayety. "You young men, at least, think every old, toothless gray-haired crone like me ready for the stake, ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... her to the care of the old crone, who, to judge from appearances, was hardly an improvement upon the ungracious attendant she had left at the Chateau des Anges. This hag had evidently the worst possible opinion of her guest, and took no pains ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... You know that I made an appointment with that little girl at the end of the Pont Saint-Michel, and I can only take her to the Falourdel's, the old crone of the bridge, and that I must pay for a chamber. The old witch with a white moustache would not trust me. Jehan! for pity's sake! Have we drunk up the whole of the cure's purse? Have you not ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... farmers and shopkeepers had remained. At intervals, the German batteries, searching round with apparent aimlessness, would drop a score or so of shells about the neighbourhood; but the peasant, with an indifference that was almost animal, would still follow his ox-drawn plough; the old, bent crone, muttering curses, still ply the hoe. The proprietors of the tiny epiceries must have been rapidly making their fortunes, considering the prices that they charged the unfortunate poilu, dreaming of some small luxury out ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... maid hath a fit of the sullens, or doeth her work amiss, or your man breaketh a dish, the witch is in fault, and her shoulders can bear the blame. On this very day of the year—namely, May Day,—the foolish folk hold any aged crone who fetcheth fire to be a witch, and if they catch a hedge-hog among their cattle, they will instantly beat it to death with sticks, concluding it to be an old hag in that form come to dry up the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... by loud laughter and tramping came from the road—a sound of numerous footsteps. Zora listened, leapt to her feet and started to the door. The old crone threw an epithet after her; but she flashed through the lighted doorway and was gone, followed by the oath and shouts from the approaching men. In the hut night fled with wild song and revel, and day dawned again. Out from some fastness ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... jugglery, and related only well-known tales, so that the tire-woman felt wearied and indifferent and, ashamed of having brought the stranger, she stole away unnoticed. Several other maidens followed her example, and, as these withdrew, the old crone twisted her mouth into a smile, and repeated the same hideous confidential wink towards the lady. Hildegardis could not understand what attracted her in the jests and tales of the bronze-coloured woman; but so it was, that in her whole life she had never bestowed ...
— Aslauga's Knight • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... take care!" cried an aged old crone, "Take care what you promise," said she. "At first 'twill be fun, But, in the long run, You'll wish you had let the thing be. Through this stick with an eye I look and espy That for ages and ages you'll sit and you'll sew, And longer ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... shall I tell my cousin when he comes back and asks for her? What possible answer can I make to him?" Then she called an old woman, who was about her and discovered her secret to her saying, "How shall I act seeing that Kut al-Kulub died by such untimely death?" "O my lady," quoth the old crone, "the time of the Caliph's return is near; so do thou send for a carpenter and bid him make thee a figure of wood in the form of a corpse. We will dig a grave for it midmost the palace and there bury it: ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... dislike to my appearance, or was this churlish withdrawal a peculiarity of Sierran hospitality? Or was Mrs. Johnson young and pretty, and hidden under the restricting ban of Johnson's jealousy, or was she a deformed cripple, or even a bedridden crone? From the extension at times came a murmur of voices, but never the accents of adult womanhood. The gathering darkness, relieved only by a dull glow from the smouldering logs in the adobe chimney, added to my loneliness. In the circumstances I ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... manifold." "And a woman thirty of age?"—"One who the hearts of enjoyers can engage." "And in her fortieth year?"—"Fat, fresh and fair doth she appear." "And of the half century?"—"The mother of men and maids in plenty." "And a crone of three score?"—"Men ask of her never more." "And when three score and ten?"—"An old trot and remnant of men." "And one who reacheth four score?"—"Unfit for the world and for the faith forlore." "And one of ninety?"—"Ask not of whoso ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... morning proceedings of red heifers. At other times we hear fearful tales of old women who, like the Jigar Khwar of Persia, feed upon man's liver: they are fond of destroying young children; even adults are not ashamed of defending themselves with talismans. In this country the crone is called Bidaa or Kumayyo, words signifying a witch: the worst is she that destroys her own progeny. No wound is visible in this vampyre's victim: generally he names his witch, and his friends beat her to death unless she heal him: ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... crone, before he could arise to leave her sight, "tell me, I pray thee, what hard thing ye seek. I am old, and have had much wisdom. It may happen that I can help you out of the great trouble into which you ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... in Suffolk are said to have adopted as a remedy for witchcraft. "A woman I knew forty-three years had been employed by my predecessor to take care of his poultry. At the time I came to make her acquaintance she was a bedridden toothless crone, with chin and nose all but meeting. She did not discourage in her neighbours the idea that she knew more than people ought to know, and had more power than others had. Many years before I knew her it happened one spring that the ducks, which were a part of her charge, failed to lay eggs.... ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... the Wife of Bath's tale, not daring, as I have said, to adventure on her prologue, because it is too licentious. There Chaucer introduces an old woman of mean parentage, whom a youthful knight of noble blood was forced to marry, and consequently loathed her. The crone being in bed with him on the wedding night, and finding his aversion, endeavours to win his affection by reason, and speaks a good word for herself, (as who could blame her?) in hope to mollify the sullen bridegroom. She takes her topics from the benefits ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... had sat: Her ugliness distorted thus; whereat The herald cries: "Who will this woman take With smallest dowry? She can cook and bake, And many household duties well perform, Although she does not claim a beauty's charm. Who wants a wife?" The ugly crone with blinks Doth hideous look, till every bidder shrinks. A sorry spectacle, mis-shapen, gross, She is, and bidders now are at a loss How much to ask to take the hag to wife. At last one cries: "Five bilti,[20] ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... He saw tears on Margaret's face; and once he was sure he heard Forsythe's voice in contempt: "Well, he seems to be well occupied for the present! No danger of his waking up for a while!" and then the voices all grew dim and far away again, and only an old crone and the harsh girl's whisper over him; and then Margaret's tears—tears that fell on his heart from far above, and seemed to melt out all his early sins and flood him with their horror. Tears and the consciousness that he ought to be doing something for Margaret ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... usually emphasized by Baconian when speaking of the illiterate clown of Stratford-on-Avon. Equally illiterate must have been the learned Dr. Crown, who, in the various books he published in the latter half of the seventeenth century, spelt his name, indifferently Cron, Croon, Croun, Crone, Croone, Croune. The modern spelling of any particular name Is a pure accident. Before the Elementary Education Act of 1870 a considerable proportion of English people did not spell their names at all. They trusted to the parson and the clerk, who did their ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... the pits of despondency, even as one that yieldeth without further struggle to the waves of tempest at midnight, when he was ware of one standing over him,—a woman, old, wrinkled, a very crone, with but room for the drawing of a thread between her nose and her chin; she was, as is cited of them who betray ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to deal justly with such reprobates. He's just the kind of protector you need in these lurid times, when it seems as if no one could be trusted. To think that that boy Chunk, who has been treated so well, could play us such an infernal trick! His old crone of a grandam must know something about it, and I'll make her tell. Perkins!" and Mr. Baron rushed toward the ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... their hostile intentions, if ever entertained, were immediately removed by a wave of the hand from our conductress, who, leading my companion towards the sibyl, whispered something in her ear. The old crone appeared incredulous. The 'Unknown' uttered one word; but that word had the effect of magic; she prostrated herself at his feet, and in an instant, from an object of suspicion he became one of worship ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... the fire with half-shut eyes, and thinking of nothing for hours together; the goede vrouw on the opposite side would employ herself diligently in spinning yarn or knitting stockings. The young folks would crowd around the hearth, listening with breathless attention to some old crone of a negro who was the oracle of the family, and who, perched like a raven in a corner of the chimney, would croak forth for a long winter afternoon a string of incredible stories about New England witches, grisly ghosts, horses without heads, and hair-breadth ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... to his sulky face. Supposing he set this old woman to teach her, as the other had failed? What could show forth better the flower-like and delicate life his fortunate Duchess led, than the loathsome squalor of this sordid crone? He turned and beckoned the huntsman out of the throng, and, as he was approaching, bent and spoke mysteriously into the Gipsy's ear. The huntsman divined that he was telling of the frowardness and ingratitude of the "new Duchess." And the Gipsy listened submissively. Her mouth tightened, ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... squat down. They crone their wild refrain, praising the one who wins in strife and love. They seize in their right hand the hula gourd, clattering with pebbles inside. They whirl it aloft, they shake, they swing, they strike their palms, they thump the mat; and now ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... gentleman's right. We're a good folk, and there be some among us can see farther than the dwellers in towns." Adele started, and the crone laughed. "Come hither, my lady, and let me look in ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... "it was the time of the war. The neighbors told of some maiden aunt, an old crone like herself, who had left Joe's mother ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... poor Fleda. Aunt Syra was her next neighbour, and opposite to her, at Miss Anastasia's left hand, was the disagreeable countenance and peering eyes of the old crone her mother. Fleda kept her own eyes fixed upon her plate and endeavoured ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... And a crone in a bonnet that's more like a rag From a mist of remembrance steps suddenly out; And her funny old tongue never ceases to wag As she tidies the room where she bustles about; For a man may be strong and a man may be young, But he can't put a drag on ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... for poor Fleda. Aunt Syra was her next neighbour, and opposite to her, at Miss Anastasia's left hand, was the disagreeable countenance and peering eyes of the old crone, her mother. Fleda kept her own eyes fixed upon her plate, and endeavoured to see nothing ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... An old crone with a face like a withered apple followed her, whining for a nickel. The others stared at her with the stolid dignity of their race. She gave the woman the ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... master, forgive your humble slave,' moaned the old crone, Rakaya, grovelling in a corner ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... vestibule with his little suit-case, the portress,—a fat old crone with dusty, frizzled hair whom he had sometimes caught a glimpse of in the depths of ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... knees they fell. "Oh! take us not in your dread realm to dwell," Said Sigismond. "But, phantom! do us tell What thou wouldst have from us—we will obey. Oh, mercy!—'tis for mercy now we pray." "Behold us at your feet, oh, spectre dread!" And no old crone in feebler voice could plead Than ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... flat expanse of charnel, over which the scattered houses of the barriers looked widowed through their mournful windows; and now and then a crippled crone, or a bereaved old pauper, hobbled to the roadway and shook her white ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... mob streamed toward the parish house a wrinkled old crone shrilled at them from across the way and ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... my dear," said the crone, with a mysterious shake of head, "that the divine Catherine Theot, whom the impious now persecute, is really inspired. There can be no doubt that the elect, of whom Dom Gerle and the virtuous Robespierre are destined to be the two grand prophets, will ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... around Richmond. A hard walk up-hill for a quarter of an hour brought him to the brow of the cliff on which stood the forlorn and wind-swept house where John Manning lay. An unkempt and hideous old crone as black as night opened the door for him. He left in the hall his hat and overcoat and a little square box he had brought in his hand; and then he followed the ebony hag up-stairs to Colonel Manning's room. Here at the door she ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... across me, the man who had conducted the horse to the stable entered the apartment, and discovered to me a countenance yet more uninviting than that of the old crone who was performing with such dexterity the office of cook to the party. He was perhaps sixty years old; yet his brow was not much furrowed, and his jet-black hair was only grizzled, not whitened, by the advance of age. All his motions ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... practising them. He then conceded to the impetuous penitent the kiss of peace, in a slight embrace which was like the accolade given by a monarch to new knights.[308] The whole scene is ignoble. We seem to be watching an unclean cauldron, with Theresa's mother, a cringing and babbling crone, standing witch-like over it and infusing suspicion, falsehood, and malice. When minds are thus surcharged, any accident suffices to release the evil creatures that lurk ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... shall hear how he died. It was about two o'clock in the morning that he awoke from an uneasy slumber, and felt his end approaching. The old crone who had been hired as a nurse to watch at night, was fast asleep in her chair. The rushlight had burned low down in the socket, and, through the interstices of its pierced shade, threw a feeble and alternate light and shadow over the room. The mouth of ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... education failed to enable Siner utterly to annihilate his adversary. Jim Pink Staggs, a dapper gentleman of ebony blackness, of pin-stripe flannels and blue serge coat— altogether a gentleman of many parts—sat on one of the bales and indolently watched an old black crone fishing from a ledge of rocks just a little way below the wharf-boat. Around Jim Pink lounged and sprawled black men and youths, stretching on the cotton-bales like cats ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... broken-down crone whose toilet astonished me as much as her person. In spite of her wrinkles, her face was plastered with red and white, and her eyebrows were indebted to India ink for their black appearance. She exposed one-half of her flabby, disgusting bosom, and there could be no doubt ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... beauty she saw she would set before Mubarak; but each semblance as it was considered in the mirror showed exceedingly dark and dull, and the inspector would dismiss the girl. This endured until the crone had brought to him all the damsels in Cairo, and not one was found whose reflection in the mirror showed clear-bright and whose honour was pure and clean, in fact such an one as described by the King of the Jann. Herewith Mubarak, seeing that he had not found ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Walter Scott's romances that this was the proper way to address inferiors, and he prided himself not a little on his jaunty condescension. Imagine then his surprise when the "old crone" suddenly turned on him with ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... full pride of her beauty and maturity. And this boy would condemn her—the most delightful, the most attractive, the most unselfish companion ever desired by a man—to sit in the chimney-corner like an old crone with a distaff, throughout all the years that fate may yet hold in store for her—with no greater interest in life than to watch the fading of her own sweet face in the glass, and to await the intervals during which he would be graciously pleased ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... yesterday," the crone answered. "They warped her out on the afternoon ebb. 'Tis said she sails under a privateer's commission against ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... meaning— For it struck him, the babe just wanted weaning; If one gave her a taste of what life was and sorrow, 430 She, foolish today, would be wiser tomorrow; And who so fit a teacher of trouble As this sordid crone bent well-nigh double? So, glancing at her wolf-skin vesture, (If such it was, for they grow so hirsute 435 That their own fleece serves for natural fur-suit) He was contrasting, 'twas plain from his gesture, The life of the lady so flower-like and delicate ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... of her growing fear and agitation Eva became interested. There was something calming in the monotonous voice of the old crone. ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... not sent word to Josette Soubise that he was coming to see her. He wished to make the experiment of a surprise, although he insisted that Stephen should be with him. At the door in the high white wall of the school-garden, he asked an unveiled crone of a porteress to say merely that two gentlemen ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... know, especially when you're shorn of your strength and have good reason to be grateful. You might think you were rewarding her by marrying her; but you'll find your mistake. Look at Simpson! Could a man have done a girl a worse turn than he did when he married Florrie Crone? They haven't a thought in common except when he's ill and she nurses him; but a man can't be always getting ill in order to keep in touch with his wife. I don't know, of course, what this girl's like; but half of them are adventuresses bent on marrying gentlemen. Is ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... task is late and lone. All goes well at the castle? say!— Not a word speaks the withered crone, Gray as a ghost in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... To this old crone Petronella fled with white face and tearful eyes, as the sound of those terrible blows smote upon her ears with the whistling noise that well betrayed the force with which they were dealt. She quickly made the faithful ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... amiable rheumatic native woman, and a crone who must have lived a century, much shrivelled and tattooed, and nearly childish. She talks to herself in weird tones, stretches her lean limbs by the fire most of the day, and in common with most of the old people has a prejudice against clothes, and ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... mass. A hideous old crone covered with rags knelt beside the Duchesss, who on leaving the church offered her ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France
... through her mind, the room seemed to darken, the air to thicken. The girl's proud young body sank, doubled till she seemed a crone, old and withered and jocose; a sneering laugh came from her drawn lips; her hands, trembling together, hookedly reached towards Kate; the eyes were sunk lidless and gleaming with malice; a voice that was like the croak of a raven sounded forth: "You got ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... silently wiping away the sweat that beaded on his brow and rolled down his face. At distant intervals the shadow of some one entering softly through the door would obscure, for a moment, the band of light, and an aged crone, or a little boy, or some gentle presence that the listening confessor had known only by the voice for many years, would kneel a few moments beside his waiting ear, in prayer for blessing and in review of those slips and errors which prove ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable
... the Thessalian crone replied: "If you asked to change the fate of an individual, though it were to restore an old man, decrepit with age, to vigorous youth, I could comply; but to break the eternal chain of causes and consequences ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... Fraeulein should not remain in the house another night. She wondered that Sir Joseph had not ousted her from the family at the first crash of war. The old crone! She could have posed for one of the Grimms' most vulturine witches. But she had kept a civil tongue in her head till now; the children adored her, and Sir Joseph had influence enough to save her ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... hardly know me. Come, before Bridget walks on crutches. Girls whom you left children have become sage matrons, while you are tarrying there. The blooming Miss W——r (you remember Sally W——r) called upon us yesterday, an aged crone. Folks, whom you knew, die off every year. Formerly, I thought that death was wearing out,—I stood ramparted about with so many healthy friends. The departure of J.W., two springs back corrected my delusion. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... bottom of the women's oomiak with his old grandfather by his side, and a noisy crew of children and dogs around him. Raising himself on his elbow, he brushed the clotted blood and hair from his temples, and endeavoured to recall his scattered faculties. Seeing this, the old crone who had saved his life laid down her paddle and handed him a sealskin cup of water, which he seized and drank with avidity. Fortunately the wound on his forehead, although it had stunned him severely ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... her feet and turned her face to the Great Roof, and gazed long at it, not heeding the crone by her side; and she muttered words of whose signification the other knew not, though she listened intently, and gazed ever at her as ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... it, you know; but it's not till this next Act that I show my full power. [Curtain rises on a drawing-room, furnished with dingy wrecks from the property-room—the home of JASPER, the Villain, who is about to give an evening party. Enter a hooded crone. "Sir JASPER, I have a secret of importance, which can only be revealed to your private ear!" (Shivers of apprehension amongst the audience.) Sir J. "Certainly, go into yonder apartment, and await me there." (Sigh of relief ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... charity, kind gentlemen, charity!" and the old crone stretches forth a long, bony claw. Should you pass on she calls down curses on your head. If you are wise, you go back and fling her a copper to stop the cold streaks that are shooting up your spine. And these old women were the most trying ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... smiled upon us with so airy a welcome soon showed a discontented curve not to be belied by the merry words that issued from them, and when we would have escorted her across the fields to her father's house, she made a mocking curtsy, and wandered away with the ugliest old crone who mouths and mumbles in the meeting-house. Did she do this to mock us or him? If to mock him he had best take care, for beauty scorned is apt to grow dangerous. But perhaps it was to mock us? Well, well, there would be nothing new in that; she ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... door was not fastened—for what, in such a place, was there to steal?—and Colonel John thrust it open with his foot. The interior was dark, the place was almost windowless; but he made out the form of an old crone who, nursing her knees, crouched with a pipe in her mouth beside a handful of peat. Seeing him, the woman tottered to her feet with a cry of alarm, and shaded her bleared eyes from the inrush of daylight. She gabbled shrilly, but ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... we do with this old crone?" Beorn said. "It would never do to risk her giving an alarm, and though she looks feeble she might be able to get down ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... poured it in the ashes when her back was turned. My mother bade them give her some hot porridge and an old cloth gown of her own to take home. I remember the time distinctly. Well, this poor thing couldn't tell between a real sin and an alligator. Bony, withered, aged, this crone might have been one of the highest types of human perfection. She wronged nobody; she had no power to wrong. Nobody wronged her; it was never worth it. She really was at peace with all the world. This obeys the most exalted injunctions. ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... her wretchedness over a book, the execrable old woman railed and stormed, and complained that she was neglected. Yet, when Frances stayed, she was constantly assailed with insolent reproaches. Literary fame was, in the eyes of the German crone, a blemish, a proof that the person who enjoyed it was meanly born, and out of the pale of good society. All her scanty stock of broken English was employed to express the contempt with which she regarded the author of Evelina ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... looked up at her again. But instead of the withered old crone he expected to see, his eyes fell upon the most beautiful wife that could be imagined; for the old woman was a fairy, and had wished to give him a lesson before he knew her as she really was. No longer now was he ashamed ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... fury the woman flew at the girls. Before she could lay hands on them, however, Roy and Jimsy had seized her arms and held them. At this the crone set up a hideous shriek and, as if it had been a signal, two swarthy men, with dark skins and big earrings in their ears, came running ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... dried the child as any crone of a midwife would have done, and dipped a small sponge which had always remained unused in a cut-glass bottle in Doyne's dressing-bag in the hot milk and water of Biggleswade's thermos bottle, and put it ...
— A Christmas Mystery - The Story of Three Wise Men • William J. Locke
... night in Lonesome Cove the ranger of the county entered upon a momentous crisis in his life. What hour it was he could hardly have said, for the primitive household reckoned time by the sun when it shone, by the domestic routine when no better might be. It was late. The old crone in the chimney-corner nodded over her knitting. In the trundle-bed at the farther end of the shadowy room were transverse billows under the quilts, which intimated that the small children were numerous enough for the necessity ...
— 'way Down In Lonesome Cove - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... stopped, after a long drive, Lucia was hurried into a litter, which bore her up a steep hill to a castle, where she was shut up in a room with an old crone. After a while a resounding knock was heard on the door, and the Unnamed ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... got to start a home with? Do you deny you are no better than a tramp? Have you got a hundred dollars in the world? Have you got a roof over your head? Have you got a trade? You'll take her where—to what? Even if you had a home, what then? You would have to get someone to look after her—some old crone, a wench maybe, who'd be as fit to bring up a child as I would be to—" she paused and looked round in helpless quest for a simile, when, in despair, she caught sight of Jean Jacques' watch-chain—"as I would be to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of the woods and slowly approached the white men who stepped forward to meet her, desiring Squanto to assure her of welcome. Coming so close to the little group that Standish muttered, "Sure she is minded to salute us," the poor old crone peered into the face of one after another of the white men, then wofully shook her head and began to mutter in her own tongue with strange gesticulations, but as he heard them Squanto uttered a shrill cry ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... coming in again to him by the second, she had of him another alms, and so on for twelve times in succession; but, whenas she returned for the thirteenth time, he said to her, 'Good woman, thou art very diligent in this thine asking,' and natheless gave her an alms. The old crone, hearing these words, exclaimed, 'O liberality of Nathan, how marvellous art thou! For that, entering in by each of the two-and-thirty gates which his palace hath, and asking of him an alms, never, for all that he showed, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... of morning showed under the edge of the closed window-blind. In the room day was mingling incongruously with night, for the candle looked sickly, and the aged crone's face was of a leaden colour, lighted by the piercing eyes that brooded hungrily on her son— her only son: the dwarf had told ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... picture of an old man in a turban coming out of a bottle in a cloud of smoke, which I remembered from a child's edition of the Arabian Nights. But if he was dim, the lady was dimmer. Sometimes I thought of her as a fat old German crone, sometimes as a harsh-featured woman like a schoolmistress with thin lips and eyeglasses. But I had to fit the East into the picture, so I made her young and gave her a touch of the languid houri in a veil. I was always wanting to pump Blenkiron on the subject, but he shut up ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... character and attitude ascribed to her, no doubt, from the fancied resemblance of a lava flow, which, when in the form of a-a, rolls and tumbles along over the surface of the ground in a manner suggestive of the motions and attitude of a palsied crone.] [Page 201] ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... good-for-little creature. By trade a hurdle-maker, he lived in one of the few remaining mud cottages on the skirts of Hadleigh Upper Wood, and in his hovel he had bred an immense family. His wife had long since died; her mother, a toothless old crone, kept house for him and was supposed to look after the younger children; but generally the Veales and their domestic arrangements were considered as a survival of a barbaric state of society and a disgrace ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... it no trace of such an entry." "Lord Derwentwater's Good-Night" is probably entirely by Surtees. "A friend of Mr. Taylor's" gave him a Tynedale ballad, "Hey, Willy Ridley, winna you stay?" which is also "aut Diabolus aut Robertus." As to "Barthram's Dirge," "from Ann Douglas, a withered crone who weeds my garden," copies with various tentative verses in Surtees' hand have been found. Oddly enough, Sir Walter had once discovered a small sepulchral cross, upset, in Liddesdale, near the "Nine ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... its picturesque points, nor did even that of the rather commonplace hamlet in which I resided at this time wholly want them. There was a decaying cottage a few doors away, that had for its inmate a cross-tempered old crone, who strove hard to set up as a witch, but broke down from sheer want of the necessary capital. She had been one of the underground workers of Niddry in her time; and, being as little intelligent as most of the other collier-women of the neighbourhood, she had not the necessary witch-lore ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... peers am I, And slighted, like that poor old crone, And yet some clinging memories try To rate thy conquests ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... hastened back to the shingle roof for an armful of fuel. Returning, he entered the wigwam and knelt beneath the smoke-hole. And while he arranged the sticks carefully upon a twist of grass, the aged crone hovered, hawk-like, over him, ready with fist or foot for any lack of haste, or failure with the fire. Not until, with flint and steel, he lighted a strip of spongy wood and thrust it under the dry hay, and a flame leaped ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... you sit ever thus over the fire like some old crone?" he growled, voicing at last the irritability that so long had been growing ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... play Beguiles the rustic's closing day, When drawn the evening fire about, Sit aged crone and thoughtless lout; Come, show thy tricks and sportive graces, Thus circled round with merry faces. Backward coiled, and crouching low, With glaring eyeballs watch thy foe. The house wife's, spindle whirling round, Or thread, or straw, ...
— Baby Chatterbox • Anonymous
... still more, the disappearance of the crone, had, however, made an impression; "'Twould be deuced provoking, though, if he should break my neck after all." He turned and gazed at Dolphin with the eye of a veterinary surgeon. "I'll be shot if he is not ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... dame went walking by herself, A very ancient crone; She said, "I wish that all you geese Were starved to skin and bone! Do stop that cackle, cackle, now, ...
— Under the Window - Pictures & Rhymes for Children • Kate Greenaway
... grown; Fun and frolic no more he knows, Robert of Lincoln's a humdrum crone: Off he flies, and we sing as he goes,— "When you can pipe in that merry old strain, Robert of ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... for a day, to this folly her vanity had driven her. And now the opportunities for words were not denied. She had spent the afternoon in the backwaters up by Shiplake; there had been a little dinner afterwards with the old crone who served them so usefully as chaperone—a dependent who had eyes but did not see, ears which, as she herself declared, "would think scorn to listen." Amiable dame, she was in bed by nine o'clock, while Alban ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... Lord happened to come that way, and, being hungry and thirsty, he asked of Gertrude a morsel of bread to eat and a cup of cold water to drink. But no, the wicked old woman refused, and turned our Saviour from the door with revilings and curses. Our Lord stretched forth His hand towards the aged crone, and, as a punishment, she was immediately transformed into a black woodpecker; and ever since that day the wicked old creature has wandered about the world in the shape of a bird, seeking her daily bread from wood to wood and from tree to tree." The red head of the bird is supposed ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... idea of mine, born of after brooding upon the scene. I am inclined to think it must be so, for I was only a child at the time, and would hardly have noticed such a thing. But it seems to my remembrance that as the old crone ceased, another woman in the crowd raised her eyes slowly, and fixed them on a withered, ancient man, who leant upon a stick, and that for a moment, unnoticed by the rest, these two stood looking strangely at ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... thou blindly cling To this old false misshapen thing? Wilt thou refuse the charms of youth For withered breast and grinning tooth! Canst thou this wretched creature prize And look on me with scornful eyes? This aged crone this very hour Before thy face will I devour: Then joyous, from all rivals free. Through Dandak ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... and the wind blew from the place of rains; and upon the one hand of her the sea beat, and upon the other the dead leaves ran. This was the loneliest beach between two seas, and strange things had been done there in the ancient ages. Now the King's daughter was aware of a crone that sat upon the beach. The sea-foam ran to her feet, and the dead leaves swarmed about her back, and the rags blew about her face in the blowing of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Shrunken old crone, Old crone's little dog, Crone here and there, Let us see quickly who ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... gloire? Moi? Ciel! Le pourriez-vous crone? Moi, qui n'ai d'autre objet ni d'autre dieu. . ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... the crone, in Iarnvidir, and there reared up Fenrir's progeny: of all shall be one especially the moon's devourer, in ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... singing, a young girl, whose presence in such a company turned my heart sick, played upon a harp, while to serve the crew with liquor there was a mahogany-faced hag whom the men addressed as "Mother Catch." An old crone, bent and doubled like a bow, yet vigorous in her work, and shuffling with quick steps as she laid down the jugs, or took the uncouth orders so freely given to her, she seemed to have the eye of a hawk; nor ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... most protracted howling contest in which my malamute "Muk" plainly outdid all competitors. How much longer the noise would have kept up it is hard to say—dogs never seem too tired to howl—but when the limit of Indian patience was reached, an aged crone rolled out of the bed into which she had rolled "all standing," seized a staff and went outdoors to lay it impartially upon the backs of all the disturbers of the peace, domestic and foreign, with a screech ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... crone is lost on the same day that the young governor was missing, eh? Very significant. I want you to take a paper for me to the Peakeville Gazette. I will advertise a thousand dollars reward for the discovery of that woman. She knows the fate ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... and, after some flattering language about Janet's good nature, retentive memory, and Covenanting lineage, the old crone proceeded to the following purpose; and, as nearly as we can mind, (for it is a tale o' fifty years,) repeated it ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... whom Wiltrud had borne to her unfaithful husband was hateful to the second wife, who fondled her lord, and flattered him with the hope of the children she would bear him. Then it was arranged that the knight's first-born should be handed over to the care of an old crone who lived in a remote ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... elapsed, when the anxious mother spied an old crone moving about in the court-yard; their eyes happening to meet, Zebah screamed and fell into a swoon. The young heir was instantly hurried away, but not before the old hag had cast a withering glance on the boy's beautiful face; every one was now fully convinced that he had been struck ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... of race destiny which lives so strongly in the children of Israel. Wilhelmine, upon whom no hint of power, of fate, or of belief in the unknown, ever failed to work, listened with growing interest. She questioned the old crone, and succeeded in drawing from her a long and impassioned tirade upon the wrongs of ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... up the path, met a woman named Ma' Chik—a very aged, bent, and feeble crone—and her he stabbed in the breast, killing her on the spot. Thence he went to the compound of a pilgrim named Haji Mih, who was engaged in getting his property out of his house in case the fire spread. Haji Mih asked To' Kaya ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... sir Thomas Jenner, sir Nicholas Butler, sir William Herbert, sir Richard Holloway, sir Richard Heath, sir Roger l'Estrange William Molineux, Thomas Tynde-sly, colonel Townley, colonel Lundy, Robert Brent, Edward Morgan, Philip Burton, Richard Graham, Edward Petre, Obadiah Walker, Matthew Crone, and George lord ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... proclaimed the anguish he endured. A lamp was burning on the floor, and threw a sickly light upon the agonized countenance of the sufferer. He was a middle-aged man, with features naturally harsh, but which now, contracted by pain, had assumed a revolting expression. An old crone, who proved to be his mother, and a young man, who held him down in bed by main force, tended him. He was rambling in a frightful manner; and as his ravings turned upon the most loathly matters, it required some ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... went one day to the old crone, when she was alone, and her stout son was away on a distant job. He told her to remove the charm, which she had laid on his beasts, or he would tie her arms and legs together, and pitch ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... girl, Beautiful, nay more than others beautiful, Not meant for marriage, not for one man meant, You know what she will be; At six years old or seven her life is round her; A company, all ages, old men, young men, Whose vices she must prey on. And the bent crone she will be is there too, Patting her head and chuckling prophecies.— O cherry lips, O wild bird eyes, O gay invulnerable setter-at-nought Of will, of virtue— Thou art as constant a cause as is the sea, As is the sun, as are the winds, as night, Of opportunities not only but events;— The ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... 'story'; 'etiquette' and 'ticket'; 'escheat' and 'cheat'; 'estate' and 'state'; and, older probably than any of these, 'other' and 'or';—or with a dropping of the last syllable, as 'Britany' and 'Britain'; 'crony' and 'crone';—or without losing a syllable, with more or less stress laid on the close: 'regiment' and 'regimen'; 'corpse' and 'corps'; 'bite' and 'bit'; 'sire' and 'sir'; 'land' or 'laund' and 'lawn'; 'suite' and 'suit'; 'swinge' and 'swing'; 'gulph' and 'gulp'; 'launch' and 'lance'; 'wealth' and 'weal'; ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... what kind of a Box the Merry Box has been found. It is odd to know nothing of all this. We had an old woman to do devil- work for you about a month ago, in a Chinaman's house on Apaiang (August 23rd or 24th). You should have seen the crone with a noble masculine face, like that of an old crone [SIC], a body like a man's (naked all but the feathery female girdle), knotting cocoanut leaves and muttering spells: Fanny and I, and the good captain of the EQUATOR, ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... convey to the reader the idea that I was naturally better than other boys, on the contrary, I frequently deserved the rod when I did not get it, but more frequently received a cruel drubbing when I did not deserve it, that, too, at the hands of the old negro crone who was exceedingly violent as well as unjust. This, of course, cultivated in me a hatred against the vile creature which was little short ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... selling and buying; and some days passed by without any such ill case befalling him in the house, as the doorkeeper had mentioned. One day as he sat upon the bench before his door, there came up a grizzled crone, as she were a snake speckled white and black, calling aloud on the name of Allah, magnifying Him inordinately and, at the same time, putting away the stones and other obstacles from the path.[FN225] Seeing the youth ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... it existed for him—the desolate lake and hills, the childish crone and rude hearth—for these he did not long. It was his home, that place; for into it—into the splashing lake and lonely woods, into the contour of the hills, and into the very logs of which the house was built—he had put as much of himself as can be absorbed by outside ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... "What!" screamed the old crone, now furious with rage. "Do you dare tell me that—to my face? Never, impudent huzzy—never, while I have strength and spirit and power to say you no—shall you wed this hated ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... many terms to express the word "woman" which we have not. A traveller in the rural districts speaks of a "kindly old wife who received me," or a "wretched old crone," or a "saucy lassie," or a "neat maid," etc. We should use the word "woman," or "old woman," or "girl," ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... lady, like other comforters of the cabins of the poor, proceeded to rebuke the grumbling old woman for want of order and cleanliness—censured the food which was provided for the patient, and enquired particularly after the wine which she had left to make caudle with. The crone was not so dazzled with Lady Penelope's dignity or bounty as to endure her reprimand with patience. "They that had their bread to won wi' ae arm," she said, for the other hung powerless by her side, "had mair to do than to soop hooses; if her leddyship ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... workhouse, said to be a hundred years of age, was sent for by the Board of Guardians, to decide the point by her personal testimony. One can imagine the half-dozen portly prosperous figures, and the contrast their appearance offered to that of the bent and withered crone. 'Now, Betty,' said the chairman with unctuous patronage, 'you look hale and hearty enough, yet they tell me that you are a hundred years old; is this really true?' 'God Almighty knows, sir,' was her reply, 'but I ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... which she has just taken from a chest that Wardour Street might envy; in another she is energetically cuffing the 'foolish fat scullion,' who has let the spotted Dalmatian coach-dog overturn the cauldron at the fire. Here an old crone, with her spectacles on, is cautiously probing the contents of the said cauldron with a fork; here the mistress of the house is peeling pears; here the plump and soft-hearted cheese-wife is entertaining ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... verdant plain to the cedars tall, Where his men were waiting their leader's call. As she dashed the drops that dimmed her sight, From the dark-fringed lids where they trembled bright, A rustling was heard in the brushwood near, And a crone, whose wild and fantastic gear Betrayed the erring of mind within, Stood in her presence with mocking grin. "Said I not sorrows in dark array, Crowded the future of Morna Grey? Why from the cheek do the roses fly? ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... barbarous words, whereby she could see the answers to questions 'in live images before her eyes, or upon the wall, but the images were not tractable (tangible), which she found by putting to her hand, but could find nothing'. In place of burning this poor crone, Mr. Frazer reasoned with her, 'taught her the danger and vanity of her practice,' and saw her die peacefully ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... cheeked, wrinkled, with nose and chin almost meeting. Bent almost double, they walked about with a crutch, shaking and mumbling as they went. If any one had an ache or a pain it was easily accounted for. For why, they were bewitched! The poor old crone was the witch who had "cast the evil eye" upon them. And sometimes these poor creatures were put to death for their so-called ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... an old crone leaning on a crutch. "He has been confined these fifteen years in the house, which he'll never ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... roystering expeditions, which he afterwards immortalized as Dandie Dinmont's "Liddesdale raids" in Guy Mannering. Thirty miles across country as the crow flies, with no objective point and no errand, a village inn or a shepherd's hut at night, with a crone to sing them an old ballad over the fire, or a group of hardy dalesmen to welcome them with stories and carousal—these were blithe adventurous days such as could not fail to ripen Scott's already ardent nature, and store his memory with genial knowledge. The account ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... father's last illness, he happened to pass the door of the grandmother's hovel while the crone was administering to Tommy a severe punishment with a piece of thick rope: she had been sharp enough to catch him stealing from herself. Clare heard his cries. The door being partly open, he ran in, and gave him ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... as you please; but, singular to say, old Mawsie was found dead in her house the day after he had been seen to take his departure from the glen. It was said she had met her death by premeditated violence; but who could have slain the poor old crone, and for what reason? It was more charitable and more reasonable to believe that she had fallen and died where she was found. So the matter had been allowed to rest. What ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... The old crone led them by side streets into the narrow adobe-lined roads of old-town. They passed through winding alleys and between buildings crumbling with age. Always Manuel watched, his right hand in his coat pocket. ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... sparrow that he sees. A salmon's belly, Helluo, was thy fate; The doctor called, declares all help too late: "Mercy!" cries Helluo, "mercy on my soul! Is there no hope!—Alas!—then bring the jowl." The frugal crone, whom praying priests attend, Still tries to save the hallowed taper's end, Collects her breath, as ebbing life retires, For one puff more, and in that puff expires. "Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke" (Were the last words that poor Narcissa ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... was raised with a sharp snap, and the head-mistress appeared, shouting alternately at the children and the parents; but she was neither heard nor understood, and a Polish crone ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... General Emilio Aguinaldo as he is to-day, standing with Director of Education Frank L. Crone, beside a field of corn raised by Emilio Aguinaldo, Jr., in a school contest, typifies the peace, prosperity, and enlightenment which have been brought about in the ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... person. He was troubled in his soul, and misdoubting his sister, took her apart to reason with her on a day. He told her of his wonder that his dame arrayed her so sweetly, and inquired what this should mean. The crone answered that she knew no more than he, "for we have very little speech one with another. She sees neither kin nor friend; but, now, she seems quite content to ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... again; and its hand of ice Held her heart crushed, as in a vice! "Paul, be not sad! 'T is a holiday; To-morrow put on thy doublet gay! But leave me now for a while alone." Away, with a hop and a jump, went Paul, And, as he whistled along the hall, Entered Jane, the crippled crone. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... however, I confess I began to chafe. 'This is slow work, Elsie!' I said. 'I started out to go round the world; it has taken me eighteen months to travel no further than Italy! At this rate, I shall reach New York a gray-haired old lady, in a nice lace cap, and totter back into London a venerable crone on the ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... amputations, ran down the bark of the oaks and elms, the rind below being coated with a lichenous wash as green as emerald. They were stout-trunked trees, that never rocked their stems in the fiercest gale, responding to it entirely by crooking their limbs. Wrinkled like an old crone's face, and antlered with dead branches that rose above the foliage of their summits, they were nevertheless still green—though yellow had invaded the ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... are grown; Fun and frolic no more he knows; Robert of Lincoln's a humdrum crone; Off he flies, and we sing as he goes:— Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; When you can pipe that merry old strain, Robert of Lincoln, come back again. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... god, for they represented him in pictures as having a bull's head. We know that a man does not turn into a bull, or a bull into a man, the line of demarcation is clearly drawn; but the rustic has no such conviction even to-day. That crone, his aged aunt, may any day come in at the window in the shape of a black cat; why should she not? It is not, then, that a god 'takes upon him the form of a bull,' or is 'incarnate in a bull,' but that the real Bull and the worshipper dressed as ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... And look on poets with a dragon's eye. "Beware! he's vicious: so he gains his end, A selfish laugh, he will not spare a friend: Whate'er he scrawls, the mean malignant rogue Is all alive to get it into vogue: Give him a handle, and your tale is known To every giggling boy and maundering crone." A weighty accusation! now, permit Some few brief words, and I will answer it: First, be it understood, I make no claim To rank with those who bear a poet's name: 'Tis not enough to turn out lines complete, Each with its proper quantum of five feet; Colloquial verse a man may write ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... exclaimed a crone, rising from a grave where she had been sitting, "don't you remember old Betty? They all said in the village you'd be too proud to look on your grandmother's grave; but you're not, I see. Well, that's good—that's good. We had a funeral last week, and the vault ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... present abode, she requested to have the room made a little more comfortable by the exhilarating blaze of a fire. For this indulgence there were the principal requisites in a hearth and spacious chimney. And an aged crone, probably the sole female servant upon the premises, speedily presented herself with a plentiful supply of wood, and the two supporters, or andirons (as they were formerly called), for raising the billets so as to allow the ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... service, with his back to the audience, most followed in their Hebrew books; but one by one many men slipped out, as though they were "on 'Change" and did not care to stay any longer to-day. The women remained, but with a slightly perfunctory air in most cases. One old crone before me seemed touched with the true pathos which belongs to her race and its history. She followed the service intently, swaying her body back and forth in time with the beautiful music, and ever and anon breaking forth ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... hand in hand before the log fire of the great hall, while the bower-maidens of the queen prepared the royal bed in an alcove leading from the chamber. The old crone's warning had struck terror to the queen's heart, and unnerved the courage of the king. While looking anxiously at the burning logs in the fireplace, again they heard the voice of the witch, inarticulate in its frenzy, uttering a wild, wailing scream. ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... as she was bid, stirred the fire, till its ruddy glow brightened every nook of the little white-washed chamber, and made the old crone beside it wince and mutter in her sleep. Having shielded her from its fierce light, she then, with trembling fingers, opened a little penknife which lay upon the table, and cut the twine with which the cover was sewed at the back. The last stitch severed, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... lush field, a witch on her toadstool, her wrinkled fingers quick at the squirting dugs. They lowed about her whom they knew, dewsilky cattle. Silk of the kine and poor old woman, names given her in old times. A wandering crone, lowly form of an immortal serving her conqueror and her gay betrayer, their common cuckquean, a messenger from the secret morning. To serve or to upbraid, whether he could not tell: but scorned to ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... florins have I in the world. You spoke of servants? Aye, one withered crone To carry water, that is all. And she How long? No wretch abandoned, fed with alms, Feels misery like mine: for I have known The sweets of wealth. Through every night I slept, Contentment round my head, and sweet was morning. But hush! she loves me still, and so my failure Is ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... at sixpence is pretty tidy," said a crone to her companion; "but you may get as good in ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... "Folk-Lore," June, 1898 (page 186). An old woman, whose grandson had a bad attack of the fever, fastened upon the foot-board of his bed three horse-shoes, with a hammer laid cross-wise upon them. With the hammer the old crone gave each shoe a smart tap, repeating each time this spell: "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, nail the Devil to this post, one for God and one for Wod and one for Lok. . . . Yon's a sure charm," said she, "that will hold the Old One as fast as t' church tower, when next he comes to shake ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... seemed to take joy and brightness with her. In the cottages of the poor her fair face shone like a sunbeam. She would sit for a quarter of an hour talking to some old woman, and apparently as pleased with the admiration of a toothless crone as if she had been listening to the compliments of a marquis; and when she tripped away, leaving nothing behind her (for her poor salary gave no scope to her benevolence), the old woman would burst out into senile raptures ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... the poor people, but the effort was a hopeless failure. He could not remember the name of the family that wanted a new boat, and was visibly impatient when Sheila would sit down to write out for some aged crone a letter to her grandson in Canada. Now, Ingram, for the mere sake of occupation, had qualified himself during his various visits to Lewis, so that he might have become the home minister of the King of Borva; and Sheila was glad to have one attentive ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... I met a crone 'twixt wood and wood, Who pointed down the piper's road With shaken staff and fearsome glance,— "Ware, ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... decayed, greasy pictures, and, far better than they, penny coloured prints of the Saviour and Infant Baptist, and of the Life and Death of the Religious and the Irreligious Person about 1850, both in high hats and tail-coats. The old custodian crone tells me she is half blind, and envies me my glasses. She points out a bit of fresco: "Questo e Gesu Nazzareno"—as the housekeeper might say, "This is the present Earl"—also points out the marble copy of the slab bearing the print of i suoi santissimi piedi, square little feet, of ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee
... goodliest figure, His honest face ruddy with health and joy, And smiling like the AEgean, when the sun Hangs high in heaven, and the freshening wind Comes in from Melos, rippling all its floor: And there was Manto too, the good old crone, So dear to children with her store of tales, Warmed with new life: how to her old grey face And withered limbs the very dance of youth Seemed to return, and in her aged eyes The waning fire rekindled: little Maeon, That mischievous ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman |
