Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Fly
Who quits a world where strong temptations try,
And since ’tis hard to combat, learns to fly!
Goldsmith.—Deserted Village, Line 101.
“Go!” says he, one day at dinner, to an overgrown one which had buzzed about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time, and which, after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him; “I’ll not hurt thee,” says my uncle Toby, rising from his chair, and going across the room, with the fly in his hand—“I’ll not hurt a hair of thy head:—Go!” says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape; “go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee? This world, surely, is wide enough to hold both thee and me.”
Sterne.—Tristram Shandy, Vol. II. Chap. XII.