Croton

“ As models for the picture he was allowed the presence of five of the most beautiful maidens of Croton at his own request, in order that he might be able to “transfer the truth of life to a mute image.” ”

“ Croton, krō′ton, n. a genus of tropical plants, producing a brownish-yellow oil, having a hot, biting taste.—ns. Crō′tonate, a salt formed by the union of crotonic acid with a base; Crō′ton-oil, a powerful purgative oil, expressed from the seeds of the Croton tiglium, also used externally.—Croton′ic acid, an acid obtained from croton-oil. [Gr. krotōn, a tick or mite, which the seed of the plant resembles.]
Crottles, krot′ls, n.pl. lichens used for dyeing. [Gael. crotal.]
Crouch, krowch, v.i. to squat or lie close to the ground: to cringe: to fawn. ”

“ It is indeed hard to realize that a town thronged with citizens covered all this area. Yet so it is. Every footstep is a memory. Along this very track walked the sumptuous ladies of Croton on their way to deposit their vain jewels before the goddess Hera, at the bidding of Pythagoras. ”

“ This in the town which still bears the name of Croton. The people are all more or less unhealthy; one meets peasants horribly disfigured with life-long malaria. There is an agreeable cordiality in the middle classes; business men from whom I sought casual information, even if we only exchanged a few words in the street, shook hands with me at parting. I found no one who had much good to say of his native place; every one complained of a lack of water. Indeed, Cotrone has as good as no water supply. ”

“ The newest formed leaves are light olive green with mid-ribs and veins of golden yellow, and the interspaces spotted with the same color. As the leaves become older, the green deepens and changes to a bright bronzy crimson, and the golden yellow of the mid-ribs, veins and spots becomes a rich orange scarlet." Princess of Wales is one of the long-leaved drooping forms of Croton, and is very distinct in character. The leaves are from one and one-half to two feet in length. The ground color is green, and the variegations creamy-yellow, very variable in color. ”

“ But their worshippers regarded them as men of the olden time; and, in fact, the most of the heroes lived at one time. Many are historical personages: generals like Leonidas, Lysander; philosophers like Democritus and Aristotle; legislators like Lycurgus and Solon. The people of Croton adored even one of their fellow-citizens, Philip by name, because he had been in his time the most beautiful man in Greece. The leader who had guided a band of colonists and founded a city became for the inhabitants the Founder; a temple was raised to him and every year sacrifices were offered to him. ”

“ Crotáli, pendents of pearls hanging and knobbing one against another.
Crotálo, a musicall instrument made like a great ring of brasse, hollow, which beaten with an iron rod maketh sweet harmony. Also a Cimbal or gingling rattle or clapper. Also a childes rattle.
Crotésca, antique, fretted or carued worke.
Crotóne, the plant Palmachristi.
Cróto, a bird like a Swan with a bagge vnder his chin, which brayeth as an Asse.
Crótto, a common by word for an egregious foole or gull, for Crótto was such a notable foole, that to make his face euen, he did cut off his nose and sow vp his mouth. ”

“ At Crotona, where he finally established himself, his extraordinary qualities collected round him a great number of disciples. The inhabitants were notorious for luxury and licentiousness, but the good effects of his influence were soon visible. Sobriety and temperance succeeded. Six hundred of the inhabitants became his disciples and enrolled themselves in a society to aid each other in the pursuit of wisdom, uniting their property in one common stock for the benefit of the whole. They were required to practise the greatest purity and simplicity of manners. ”

“ Crossraguel, an abbey, now in ruins, 2 m. SW. of Maybole, Ayrshire, where John Knox held disputation with the abbot, and of which in his "History of the Reformation" he gives a humorous account (1562) .
Crotch, William, musical composer of precocious gifts, and writer in music, born in Norwich; became, in 1797, professor of Music in Oxford, and in 1822 Principal of the Royal Academy; his anthems are well known (1775-1847) .
Crotona, an ancient large and flourishing Greek city, Magna Græcia, in Italy; the residence of the philosopher Pythagoras and the athlete Milo. ”

“ Up, up. Croft glanced at his companion and found her face wide-eyed. Up, up, as she floated beside him, her slender shape in the void of darkness beyond the atmosphere of Palos beginning to flash and glow with its contained fire. For Croft had willed himself to that one of the moons on which he had first come down from his daring journey from the earth. And now it swung above them. Together they swam toward it, and came to it finding its barren and lifeless crags and plains aglare in the light of Sirius, partly steeped in impenetrable gloom. ”

“ Crothers had been a widow.
“Well,” said Mrs. Crothers idly, “then I feel encouraged and anointed for better things. I was thinking what a stupid time I was going to have—I, a house-mouse, with such a field-mouse as Sara Audrey here.”
“That is disingenuous of you,” said Arnold promptly. “No girl of twenty-two, however charming, can compete with the woman who looks twenty-two and is a very little more.”
“Men like brains,” admitted Mrs. Crothers with pretty thoughtfulness, “but they love complexions.” ”

“ Mr. Crotchet gave a long whistle.
"Very good," said Sir Richard; "we shall be back with you soon. You take good care of the horses."
"I will, sir."
"What do you think of that, Crotchet?" said Sir Richard, as they made their way into the very meadow across which Todd and Lupin had run to get to Caen Wood.
"It's the finger o' Providence, yer worship."
"Well, I cannot deny, Crotchet, but that it may be so. At all events, whether it be Providence or chance, one thing is quite certain, and that is, that we are on the track of those whom we seek." ”

“ Crotchet!"
"Here you is, sir," replied Crotchet; "I was just coming. It's all right. The old wagabone hasn't done nothing, sir, to spread the fire out of his own blessed premises, as I can see. The church isn't in danger, sir, I take it."
"Very good, Crotchet; then we need not remain here any longer. I cannot, for the life of me, think what has become of our man that we left in Todd's house. In all the riot and racket of the fire, no one seems to be at all aware of what has become of him. Is he a steady sort of a man, Crotchet?" ”

“ Crothers contemptuously. "And it isn't news at all—it's chloroform. Nothing's news that doesn't make people sit up; you'll never make a newspaper man till you learn how to spice things up—lots of pepper, red pepper at that. A paper that can't make 'em sneeze will never earn its salt."
"Are you referring to the report I wrote of the game with the Scotch bowlers, Mr. Crothers?" Harvey enquired, nodding towards a confused cluster of well-scrawled pages on the table. ”

“ Many men have acquired the ability of which he was master, as applying to the earthly sphere; Croft, however, had carried it to its ultimate degree and had shaken off or entered the atmospheric envelope of our planet at will. In our conversation, which ended with his announcement that he was going back to Palos to wed Naia and live out his life in that other world, he had explained the whole thing to me—largely as I felt at the time and after, because I had dabbled in the occult to some extent, and he knew I would understand, in part at least. ”

“ He saw the natives working in the fields, strong-bodied men, clad in what seemed a single short-skirted tunic reaching to the knees, with the arms and lower limbs left bare.
One or two stopped work and stood to watch the caravan pass, and Croft noticed that their faces were intelligent, well featured, and their hair for the most part a sort of rich, almost chestnut brown, worn rather long and wholly uncovered or else caught about the brows by a cincture which held a bit of woven fabric draped over the head and down the neck. ”

“ Crothers. “Mornings are as irresistible a temptation to me to be frank and confidential as after-dinner is to most people.”
“What do you want to know?” asked Arnold, acquiescent. When a woman grows confidential he had observed that she grows confidential in questions, not answers. Mrs. Crothers appreciated his understanding and paid it the tribute of a smile.
“Ah, well,” she said, “since you are so clever, do you think that Lawrence and Sara Audrey are in love?”
“Brixton?” asked Arnold frowning. Mrs. Crothers noted the frown and sighed a little. ”

“ Crothers was a man who approached his ends by the use of his better qualities. The man whom the children of the factory shrank before in trembling fear, the man whom the men fawned before, and the women loathed and hated in dumb acquiescence, was not the man who years ago crept around the desk in his office to implore a kiss from "little Miss." Crothers could smile and speak courteously ”

“ And though at such things Croft thrilled as may any man thrill, at the thought of the one woman who can drive him to madness as a man, yet unlike the ordinary mortal he thrilled still more at the beauty of her soul. For unlike the customary lover, Croft had seen it—and because of his knowledge of such matters, because he knew the meanings in a spiritual sense of certain vibrations—because he could interpret the meaning involved in auric colors—he knew that only a chastely pure spirit possessed an aura of blue and gold. ”

“ Here Croft found the man he sought, reclining on a padded divan, his too full red lips slightly parted in a bibulous smile, his long hair curled and anointed and perfumed till he reeked of aromatic scents; his well-formed hands loaded with rings, his body clad in a crimson garment, embroidered in gold.
Beside him, lying outstretched like some splendid creature of the jungle as it came to Croft, was a woman; tawny as a lioness in the tint of her hair and heavy-lidded eyes, lithe as a lioness, too, in every sensuous line of her body, well-nigh unclothed. ”

“ In the underground portion of a tower at Crotoy, still to be seen, although the upper part has disappeared, facing the sea, is a door-way, which local tradition points out as that of the dungeon of Joan of Arc. Crotoy, or Le Crotoy, is on the coast of Picardy, a little to the north of Abbeville. In the fifteenth century it was a place of some warlike importance, especially to the English. Its situation near the coast, and the strength of its fortress, made Le Crotoy one of the principal places on the sea line, whence stores and war provender could be carried into France. ”

“ Onesimus rose, miserable and crestfallen. ‘I am penniless,’ he said, ‘or I would try to show myself grateful.’
‘Tush!’ answered Croto. ‘I am King of the Grove and priest of Diana and of Virbius—whoever Virbius was,’ he added under his breath. ‘The women give me so many offerings that, but for the never knowing where or when the sword will smite, I should be as fat as a Salian, and I feed nearly as well. Nay, poor lad, I can well do something for thee and never feel the loss. I have more money than I know what to do with, for I can never leave the grove. ”

“ Their hair, unrestrained save for a metal filet or cincture, fell in masses down their graceful backs. The flesh of their shoulders and arms and sandalless feet, glowed warm and pinkly white. Their lips grew parted, and their eyes, unaccustomed to masculine presence, save possibly that of old Zud, grew wide. For Croft was no ancient as he stood there in his azure robe, with the cross and the wings in gold upon his breast and his yellow hair in a tawny mass upon his head. More he was like some young and comely god himself, with his bold, strong features, his hint of latent strength. ”

“ Farwell my boke and my devocion:
when his attention was attracted by a young gentleman who was sitting on a camp stool with a portfolio on his knee, taking a sketch of the Roman Camp, which, as has been already said, was within the enclosed domain of Mr. Crotchet. The young stranger, who had climbed over the fence, espying the portly divine, rose up, and hoped that he was not trespassing. “By no means, sir,” said the divine, “all the arts and sciences are welcome here; music, painting, and poetry; hydrostatics and political economy; meteorology, transcendentalism, and fish for breakfast.” ”

“ Crotchet heard this information with great attention; and when he and Sir Richard Blunt were alone, he said—
"I tell you what it is, sir—the country will never suit Todd."
"How do you mean, Crotchet?"
"I mean, sir, that, in my opinion, he has gone back to London again. The country, sir, ain't the sort of place for such men as he is. You may depend upon it, he only came to the little wood to get rid of Lupin, and he has gone back to try and hide in London till the row is over." ”

“ It is one that will make you or mar you, Crotchet. I have myself important business here, or I would myself take this man to Newgate. As it is, Crotchet, I wish to entrust you with that important piece of duty, and I rely upon you, Crotchet, for keeping an eye upon him, and delivering him in safety."
"It's as good as done," said Crotchet. "If he gets away from me, he has only another individual to do, and that's the old gent as is down below, with the long tail. Lor' bless you, sir, didn't I say from the first, as Todd smugged the people as comed to him to be shaved?" ”

“ Crotchet, seizing a cushion from a pew, held it up before his mouth, to the imminent danger of choking him, and said—
"Hold your row! If you wants to be murdered, can't you get it done quietly, without alarming of all the parish? If you has got anything to say, say it; and if you has got nothink, keep it to yourself, stupid."
"Todd!" gasped the beadle, the moment the pew-cushion was withdrawn from his mouth. "Todd—Sweeney Todd!"
"What?" cried Crotchet.
"Here!—he has been here, and I'm a dead man—no, I'm a beadle. Oh, murder! murder!" ”