Fan (device)

“ Fans serve an infinite variety of purposes and speak a language in this land of their own, and no season or condition of life is without its ministrations. The fanner winnows his grain with a fan, the housewife blows up the charcoal fire with a fan, and gardeners, sitting for hours on patient heels, will softly fan half-open flowers until every petal unfolds. For specific gifts, specific designs and colors appear. ”

“ The witty author of the lines appended to Bosse’s engraving of Summer, in the circular composition of the four seasons, a lady with a fan, accompanied by a Cupid bearing a parasol, suggests that the love-god himself would be a better substitute for the fan, not only for cooling the heated cheek, but also to assuage the fire that burns within. ”

“ Give your visiter a fan to cool herself, if the room is warm, or to shade her eyes from the glare of the fire or the light—for the latter purpose, a broad hand-screen is generally used, but a palm-leaf fan will do for both. In buying these fans, choose those whose handle is the firm natural stem, left remaining on the leaf. They are far better than those with handles of bamboo, which in a short time become loose and rickety. ”

“ An electric fan, on the other hand, is a very powerful aid to comfort in hot weather. In fact it is hard to think of any mechanical device that has contributed more in recent years. An amusing illustration of the importance of moisture in the air in relation to bodily comfort is in the case of the man who thought he would obtain a cool-weather office in hot weather by installing a block of ice and causing his electric fan to play upon it. ”

“ Nature, ever bounteous, provides us gratis, without any patent dues, with an instrument—the human hand—the most exquisitely delicate and complicated machine known to us; this instrument is directed by a force—the human mind—still more subtle, if possible, in the delicacy of its operations. In place of this, M. Alphonse Baude, in his wisdom, offers us his conglomeration of wheels, axles, metal bolts, and screws! The intelligent fan-lover will therefore note this date, and carefully examine any fan sticks made subsequent to it. ”

“ A fan which has been styled the ‘impracticable,’ is of circular form, the radiants of ivory, tortoise-shell, sandalwood, or metal filigree, perforated to such a degree as to render it useless as a means of disturbing the air. ”

“ The fan, therefore, must be considered as part of a continuous development from the umbrella symbol of might and power, employed equally in the East as in the West, and the infinitude of military and processional fan-like standards and sceptral fans, to the hand-fan and fly-whisk. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the fan is efficacious as a weapon of offence in Love’s sieges, it is no less effective as a shield against Love’s darts. On a painted Spanish fan in the Schreiber Collection in the British Museum are represented three fair nymphs in a wooded landscape, one of whom is receiving on her fan an arrow discharged by the Love-God, who is accompanied by my lady Venus in her car. ”

“ The Chinese have exhausted every species of ingenuity in the construction of fans of an outré character. The ‘broken fan,’ a curious trick, is to all intents and purposes a simple folding-fan, and opened from left to right presents no feature uncommon. On being opened to the reverse, the whole fan appears to fall to pieces, each bone, with the part attached, being separated from the other as though the connecting strings were broken: the principle is extremely simple, but the effect is surprising. ”

“ There can be no possibility of doubt that this form of fan was common to the whole of the East and to a greater portion of the West, and has endured throughout the centuries.
These fans are of two kinds—rigid and flexible; in Pg 42 1. ‘TALAPAT’ FAN
2. PANKHÂ. (Embroidered velvet, with silver handle. Moorshedabad. India Museum.)
3. FROM AN ILLUMINATION both instances they are invariably plaited, the material being stripped palm, bamboo, ivory, peacock quills, etc. The rigid variety is often placed loose in the handle, to allow of its being swung round and round like a policeman’s rattle. ”

“ In a miniature in the Royal Library at Paris, of Sivaji on the march, a sayiban or sun-fan is seen, having an arrangement of drapery in form of a curtain or valance.29 Here we discover a point of contact between the fan and the umbrella, although it is probable that in this instance its use as a shade-giving instrument had not developed. ”

“ These two fans, the winnowing-fan and the fire-fan, minister to the two most pressing of man’s necessities—to the first of his physical necessities, his daily bread, and to his chief mental necessity, the attainment of the bread of life; the fire-fan keeping alive the flame sacred to the great goddess who is the mother of all things, mistress of the elements, giver of the golden grain, which, when ripened, is separated from the chaff by the winnowing-fan ”

“ I may add, that in summer men and women alike go out bareheaded, so that some protection, such as is afforded by the screen fan, is needed. As a general rule, there [134] is a picture on one side of our fans, and some writing on the other. Common folk buy their fans ready painted and written upon, whereas people of fashion buy their fans blank, and ask distinguished people to illustrate them with a painting or a piece of writing. Some collectors possess hundreds of fans, which replace with us the autograph albums that you have in Europe. ”

“ A showy fan is indispensable, in all seasons, both in and out of doors. An Andalusian woman might as well want her tongue as her fan. The fan, besides, has this advantage over the natural organ of speech—that it conveys thought to a greater distance. A dear friend at the farthest end of the public walk, is greeted and cheered by a quick, tremulous motion of the fan, accompanied with several significant nods. An object of indifference is dismissed with a slow, formal inclination of the fan, which makes his blood run cold. ”

“ That bodies fall to the ground when dropped, or return when thrown or shot into the air is nothing more than a stick of wood thrown into a stream floats with the current and drifts to the bank.
Most people when asked which side of a fan you feel the air from, when fanning yourself, naturally reply from the side toward you, but by trying the experiment you will soon discover that the air comes after the passage of the fan, only filling the space or vacuum the fan has made. ”

“ Roll-up fans (Maki uchiwa) are circular, the paper stiffened with thin strips of bamboo; the handle is of bamboo cut through with a slit to allow the circular fan, which is set on a pivot, to have free play. When open, the strips of the bamboo foundation are horizontal, thus securing rigidity; when not in use, the position of the strips may be reversed, and the disc rolled round the stick and tied.
Of modern fans, those of ivory and tortoise-shell, carved or decorated with lacquer and inlay, are, for the most part, made for exportation, and are often of extreme beauty. ”

“ When it enters common life, held firmly, yet freely between the fingers and the ball of the hand, it serves as an extension of it, feathered to flout the air. The ordinary fan practice is to throw the hand outwards while letting go one side of the fan ”

“ On a scroll is the inscription, ‘l’utilité des éventails,’ ‘la utilidad de los abanicos.’
This use of the fan as shield, is adopted also by the shinláung, or monastic novitiate of Burma, who employs his large palm-fan, both as a shelter from the fierceness of the sun’s rays, and as a screen from the sight of womankind, moving, in the latter instance, his fan from right to left as occasion requires, i.e. whenever a woman happens to pass.
Epoch Louis XV.
Fan Mount—Unfolded. ”

“ Those of paper, pretty but not expensive, are very common favors. But the opulent offer pretty satin fans painted with the recipient's monogram, or else a fan which will match flowers and dress. Fans of lace, and of tortoise-shell and carved ivory and sandal-wood, are sometimes presented, but they are too ostentatious. Let us say to the givers of feasts, be not too magnificent, but if you give a fan, give one that is good for something, not a thing which breaks with the "first fall." ”

“ I have likewise invented a Fan, with which a Girl of Sixteen, by the help of a little Wind which is inclosed about one of the largest Sticks, can make as loud a Crack as a Woman of Fifty with an ordinary Fan.
When the Fans are thus discharged, the Word of Command in course is to ground their Fans. This teaches a Lady to quit her Fan gracefully, when she throws it aside in order to take up a Pack of Cards, adjust a Curl of Hair, replace a falling Pin, or apply her self to any other Matter of Importance. ”

“ The fan is in the hands of every one, from the merest baby to the big toreador, who employs it as a means of exciting the ire of his bovine adversary. It serves as convenient screen for the dark-eyed beauty, who, seated in the balcony in the still evening, listens eagerly to the impassioned serenade beneath.
At the theatre, says Blondel, nothing is more curious than the manipulation of these instruments, playing with the expressive grace which is a silent flirtation. ”

“ The air that is brought upon us by a fan feels cooler than it really is; this we realize when we notice how comfortable the draft of a fan is even on the very hottest days. When one fans oneself in the old-fashioned way, the heat produced in working the fan is often almost enough to balance the loss through the improved evaporation of sweat. ”

“ The uses of the Fan? They are legion!—They record for us public events, military, political, civil; they tell us our fortunes; instruct us in Botany, in Heraldry, in tricks with cards; they propound conundrums; take us to the theatre, to bull-fights, to church, to the first balloon ascent; and to Mr. Thomas Osborne’s Duck-hunting! ”

“ These fans usually open out to a little more than a quarter of a circle. An example appears in the Wyatt collection.
In another type, the plain ivory sticks are painted in the Chinese taste, the fans slightly larger than those previously referred to. In some, purely Chinese motifs are employed; in others, a semi-naturalistic arrangement of flowers and festoons is associated with the Martin type of decoration on the guards and lower semicircle of the fan. ”

“ That is the time when the Fan, which is all the Armour of Woman, is of most use in her Defence; for our
Pg 6
minds are constructed by the waving of that little Instrument, and our thoughts appear in Composure or Agitation according to the Motion of it. You may observe when Will Peregrine comes into the side Box, Miss Gatty flutters her Fan as a Fly does its Wings round a Candle; while her elder Sister, who is as much in Love with him as she is, is as grave as a Vestal at his Entrance, and the consequence is accordingly. ”

“ There was nothing to be seen at the windows to indicate where the fan had dropped from; no shadow on the blinds, no movement to be seen within. Stepping back to look up, I noticed that one of the top windows was half-open, but there seemed no light in the room, and no sign of any one there. Then I looked at the fan in my hand. A plain but good one of white silk with ivory ribs. Too good at least to admit the suggestion that it had been deliberately thrown away as worthless. ”

“ Then the fan is opened, and the top continues to spin along its edge to its farther side, and along it until the hand is reached, when up it runs on the arm to the shoulder, and across the back and down the other arm, on to the fan again. ”

“ This is absolutely marvellous to one who has been accustomed to see a fan opened with both hands, and furled only on one side. But that I may at once exhaust the subject of fans, let me add, that in the hands of its true mistress, the fan becomes a substitute for language, and an interpreter of etiquette. If a lady perceives that she is an object of attention to some inquisitive and admiring caballero, she has immediate recourse to her fan, that she may convey to him one most important piece of information. If she be married, she fans herself slowly ”

“ Bathed in fumes of whiskey toddies;
Tobacco, garlic, cheese, and lager beer
Perfume the heated atmosphere;
Old boots, pipes, leather, and tan,
And, if in luck, a “soap-fat man;”
Ar’n’t we jolly? What a blessing!
A horse-car hash, with such a dressing!
How to keep Cool.
1. Don’t fan yourself. Those persons who are continually using a fan are ever telling you “how awful hot it is.” Look at their faces! Red hot! Human nature is a contrary jade. The more you blow with a fan that warm air on your face, the more blood it calls to that part, and the more blood the more heat. ”

“ He pressed an electric button, and above the dull humming sound of the ever-revolving globe rose the purr of an electric fan. The masked man moved a lever controlling the windows, and when he judged the air to be clear of whatever fumes he feared he stopped the fan, reclosed the windows, and standing up, removed his mask. ”

“ This fan is used by men as well as women, and for the double purpose of moderating the heat and repelling the flies, which, in warm weather, are excessively annoying. It is more effective than the ordinary European fan, and requires less exertion. ”

“ The vanes of the fan, when set in motion by electrical or some other motive power, produce a powerful current of air, which can be regulated according to requirements. As in the last plan, the aspirating influence of the fan may be exerted over a system of rooms, by means of connecting tubes. ”