History of the Fan

History Of The Fan By George Woolliscroft Rhead History Of The Fan CHAPTER I THE ORIGIN AND USES OF THE FAN IN the beginning, before the human advent, when the earth was peopled only by the Immortals, a bright son was born to Aurora, whose soft and agreeable breath was as honey in the mouth of the gods, and the beating of whose gossamer wings imparted a delicious coolness to the air, moderating the heat of summer, and providing the first suggestion of, and occasion for, the dainty little plaything we have under consideration, somewhat waggishly described as a kind of wind instrument, not, perhaps, so much to be played upon as to be played with, and invaluable as assisting to follow out the wisest of the Sage’s maxims when he bids us keep cool. This delicate toy, this airy creation of gauze, ivory, and paint, frail and fragile almost as the flowers kissed by Aurora’s son, endowed apparently with the gift of perpetual youth, may claim a lineage older than the Pyramids; having its origin and being in the infancy of the world, before the birth of history, in that golden age when life was a perpetual summer, and care was not, when all was concord and harmony, and old age, long protracted, was dissolved in a serene slumber, and wafted to the mansions of the gods, the regions of eternal love and enjoyment. It was in these halcyon days that the human family sat in its palm groves, which afforded not only refreshing shade, during the hours when the sun is at its height, but also provided the precursor of this ‘Servant of Zephyrus’—serving further to temper those beams which are the source of all life, and light, and music, for are not all the learned agreed with the late Mr. George Augustus Sala, that if a thorn was the first needle, doubtless a palm leaf was the first fan? ‘Beneath this shade the weary peasant lies, Plucks the broad leaf, and bids the breezes rise.’ The poets, however, who lay claim rather to inspiration than to the dry bones of mere learning, supply us with many fanciful suggestions as to the fan’s origin—a Spanish story (duly told on a printed fan) has it that the first fan was a wing which Cupid tore from the back of Zephyrus for the purpose of fanning Psyche as she lay a-sleeping on her bed of roses. A quaint, though somewhat inconsequent, conceit is that of the French eighteenth-century poet, Augustin de Piis, quoted by M. Uzanne in his work on the fan, in which Cupid, at an inopportune moment, surprises the Graces, who were as much embarrassed as the god was delighted—to hide their confusion, with the hand that was unemployed, they endeavoured to cover up both eyes by spreading the fingers. ‘And soon Dan Cupid was aware That though they veiled their eyes, between The fingers of that Trio fair Himself was very clearly seen; On which his little curly head Deeply to meditate began, Till from their fair hands thus outspread He took his first hint for the Fan.’ Whether we accept this explanation or not, and whatever circumstances attended the origin of the fan, it is abundantly clear that Cupid had a hand in it. Has not Gay told how the master Cupid traced out the lines, conceived the shape, converted his arrows into sticks, and from their barbed points, softened by love’s flame, forged the pin? Is not the fan one of the chief weapons in the armoury of the Love-God? Is it not the rampart from behind which the fiercest fire of love’s artillery is directed? Nay, is it not in very truth the sceptre of the Love-God? Did not the Greeks early recognise this fact by placing the plumed fan in the hands of Eros himself? The fan is at once thecreation of Amor and the chief ensign of his sovereignty! And its uses? Madame la Baronne de Chapt, in the first volume of her Œuvres Philosophiques, discovers a hundred such:—‘It is so charming, so convenient, so suited to give countenance to a young girl, and to extricate her from embarrassment, that it cannot be too much exalted; we see it straying over cheeks, bosoms, hands, with an elegance which everywhere provokes admiration. ‘Love uses a fan as an infant does a toy—makes it assume all sorts of shapes; breaks it even, lets it fall a thousand times to the ground.... ‘Is it a matter of indifference, this fallen fan? Such a fall is the result of reflection, of careful calculation, intended as a test of the ardour and celerity of aspiring suitors.—And the successful suitor, the favoured swain? Is it not he who discovers the greatest celerity in returning the fan to its charming owner, and, in doing so, imprints a secret but chaste kiss upon the fair hand that takes it, and is rewarded by a look ten thousand times more eloquent than speech?’ And if, peradventure, by the spell of some magician, this little instrument could itself be endowed with speech! Aha! ma chère madame, what tales could it not unfold from the recesses of its fluted leaves, what whispers! what confidences! what assignations! what intrigues! ‘Pour une Espagnole,’ writes Charles Blanc, ‘toutes les intrigues de l’amour, tous les manœuvres de la galanterie, sont cachées dans les plis de son éventail. Les audaces furtifs du regard, les aventures de la parole, les aveux risqués, les demi-mots proférés du bout des lèvres, tout cela est dissimulé par l’éventail, qui a l’air d’interdire ce qu’il permet de faire, et d’intercepter ce qu’il envoie.’ Disraeli (Contarini Fleming), in similar strain, with no less eloquence, says: ‘A Spanish lady with her fan might shame the tactics of a troop of horse. Now she unfolds it with the slow pomp and conscious elegance of the bird of Juno; now she flutters it with all the languor of a listless beauty, now with all the liveliness of a vivacious one. Now in the midst of a very tornado she closes it with a whirr, which makes you start. Magical instrument! in this land it speaks a particular language, and gallantry requires no other mode to express its most subtle conceits, or its most unreasonable demands, than this delicate machine.’ ‘Women,’ says the witty Spectator, ‘are armed with Fans as men with Swords—and sometimes do more execution with them.... There is an infinite variety of motions to be made use of in the flutter of a Fan. There is the angry Flutter, the modest Flutter, the timorous Flutter, the confused Flutter, the merry Flutter, and the amorous Flutter. Not to be tedious, there is scarce any emotion in the mind which does not produce a suitable agitation in the Fan; insomuch that if I only see the Fan of a disciplined Lady I know very well whether she laughs, frowns, or blushes. I have seen a Fan so very angry, that it would have been dangerous for the absent lover who provoked it to have come within the wind of it: and at other times so very languishing, that I have been glad for the Lady’s sake the lover was at a sufficient distance from it. I need not add that a Fan is either a Prude or Coquette according to the nature of the person who bears it.’ Mr. George Meredith, too, would appear to have studied its motions: ‘Lady Denewdney’s fan took to beating time meditatively. Two or three times she kept it elevated, and in vain: the flow of their interchanging speech was uninterrupted. At last my father bowed to her from a distance. She signalled: his eyelids pleaded short sight, awakening to the apprehension of a pleasant fact; the fan tapped, and he halted his march, leaning scarce perceptibly in her direction. The fan showed distress.’ In one of the sprightliest of Steele’s letters to the Tatler, the beauteous Delamira, upon the eve of her marriage, resigns her fan, having no further occasion for it. She is entreated by the matchless Virgulta, who had begun to despair of ever entering the matrimonial state, to confide to her the secret of her success. ‘That swimming air of your body,’ says she; ‘that jaunty bearing of your Head over your shoulder; and that inexpressible Beauty in your manner of playing your Fan, must be lower’d into a more confined Behaviour; to show, That you would rather shun than receive Addresses for the future. Therefore, dear Delamira, give me these excellencies you leave off, and acquaint me with your Manner of Charming.’... Delamira explained that all she had above the rest of her Sex and contemporary Beauties was wholly owing to a Fan (left to her by her Mother, and had been long in the Family), which, whoever had in Possession, and used with Skill, should command the hearts of all her Beholders; ‘and since,’ said she, smiling, ‘I have no more to do with extending my Conquests or Triumphs, I’ll make you a present of this inestimable Rarity.’ ‘You see, Madam,’ continued she, upon Virgulta’s inquiry as to the Management of that utensil, ‘Cupid is the principal Figure painted on it; and the skill in playing this Fan is, in your several Motions of it to let him appear as little as possible: for honourable Lovers fly all Endeavours to ensnare ’em; and your Cupid must hide his Bow and Arrow, or he’ll never be sure of his Game.

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