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The sentiment is not entirely disinterested; but are not motives generally mixed? St. Bernard preached a Crusade from this pulpit in 1146. The ivory carvings are very ancient, and remarkably fine, representing figures from the Greek myths. Ivory handles were usual for the fly-fan, or flabellum, used at the altar, to keep flies and other insects away from the Elements.
One entry in an inventory in 1429 might be confusing if one did not know of this custom: the article is mentioned as "one muscifugium de pecock" meaning a fly-fan of peacock's feathers! Small round ivory boxes elaborately sculptured were used both for Reserving the Host and for containing relics. In the inventory of the Church of St.
Dix, "I hardly felt like saying anything before her. She is so old and innocent." "Is n't she!" said Mrs. Osgood. Virginia, much exercised over the health of Aberdeen Boy, had gone out to the barn to have a talk with Uncle Israel, who, with a peacock fly-fan moving majestically back and forth, was sitting up with eighteen hundred pounds of sick bull.
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