Now, the
thorn is a deep symbol of death--naturally enough from its dagger-like
form--all over the world wherever it grows. As Schwenck writes:

"In the Germanic mythology the thorn is an emblem of death, as is the
nearly allied long and deep slumber--the idea being that death kills
with a sharp instrument which is called in the Edda the sleep-thorn,
which belongs to Odin the god of death. It also occurs as a person
in the Nibelungen Lied as Hogni, Hagen, 'the thorn who kills
Siegfried.' The tale of Dornroschen (the sleeping beauty), owes its
origin to the sleep-thorn, which is, however, derived from the
death-thorn, death being an eternal sleep."

This is all true, and sleep is like death. But the soothing influence of
a comb produces sleep quite apart from any association with death.

Apropos of flies, there is a saying, which is, like all new or eccentric
sayings, or old and odd ones revived, called "American." It is, "There
are no flies on him," or more vulgarly, "I ain't got no flies on _me_,"
and signifies that the person thus exempt is so brisk and active, and
"flies round" at such a rate, that no insect has an opportunity to alight
on him. The same saying occurs in the _Proverbi Italiani_ of Orlando
Pescetti, Venice, 1618, _Non si lascia posar le mosche addosso_ (He lets
no flies light on him).

When I was a small boy in America, the general teaching to us was that it
was cruel to kill flies, and I have heard it illustrated with a tale of
an utterly depraved little girl of three years, who, addressing a poor
fly which was buzzing in the window-pane, said:

"Do you love your Dod, 'ittle fy?"

"Do you want to _see_ your Dod, 'ittle fy?"

"Well" (with a vicious jab of the finger), "you SHALL!"

And with the last word the soul of the fly had departed to settle its
accounts in another world. Writing here in Siena, the most fly-accursed
or Beelzebubbed town in Italy, on July 25th, being detained by illness, I
love that little angel of a girl, and think with utter loathing and
contempt of dear old Uncle Toby and his "Go--go, poor fly!" True, I
agree with him to his second "go," but there our sentiments diverge--the
reader may complete the sentence for himself--out of Ernulphus!

On which the wise Flaxius comments as follows on the proof with his red
pencil:

"It hath been observed by the learned that the speed of a fly, were
he to make even a slight effort to