Fan

“ It will be convenient, at this juncture, to describe in detail the various elements composing this fan-type which has easily distanced all others in the affections of the fair—a triumph so absolute and complete, that to ninety-nine women out of every hundred the idea of a fan is an instrument which may be folded. ”

“ Swat, hit, connect, line out, get on the job.
Else you shall feel the brunt of fandom’s ire
Biff, bang it, clout it, hit it on the knob—
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
The burden of good pitching. Curved or straight.
Or in or out, or haply up or down,
To puzzle him that standeth by the plate,
To lessen, so to speak, his bat-renown:
Like Christy Mathewson or Miner Brown,
So pitch that every man can but admire
And offer you the freedom of the town—
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
The burden of loud cheering. O the sounds! ”

“ That Fan was a shy, modest, pretty girl, with a delicate type of face not often seen among those of her class, made the case look all the worse for those who sent her out, exposing her to almost certain ruin.
Poor unhappy Fan knew what they thought, and to avoid exciting remarks she always skulked away, concealing her little stock-in-trade beneath her dilapidated shawl, and only bringing it out when at a safe distance from the outspoken criticisms of Moon Street. ”

“ You've got your kiss and that ought to satisfy you”; and with a smile and nod to Fan she walked on.
Fan pursued her walk to the Serpentine, with a new delicious sensation in her heart. It was so strange and sweet to be spoken to by a lady, a stranger, and treated like an equal! And in the days that were not so long ago with what sad desire in her eyes had she looked at smiling beautiful faces, like this lady's face, and no smile and no gentle word had been bestowed on her, and no glance that did not express pity or contempt! ”

“ What I do, I do only to please myself, and not others. If I am disappointed in you, and find you different from what I imagine, I shall not keep you, and there will be an end of it all. Now don't look so cast-down; I believe that you are at heart a good, pure, truthful girl. I think I can see that much in your eyes, Fan. And there is, after all, something you can do for me—something which few can do, or do so well, which will be sufficient payment for all I am doing for you.”
“Oh, ma'am, will you please tell me what it is?” exclaimed Fan, her voice trembling with eagerness. ”

“ We have seen how the good citizens of Dieppe celebrated the joyful occasion of the birth of the dauphin by the gift to the queen-mother of a precious fan of carved ivory. On the more humble printed fan, Immortality, amid a great concourse of people, with fireworks and illuminations in the background, presents the royal infant on a cushion, to kneeling, admiring, and devoted France, who offers a basket of hearts. ”

“ Fan thought her marvellously beautiful, but felt a little frightened in her presence, she was so tall and stately, and her face had such a frowning, haughty expression. Beautiful women-faces had always had a kind of fascination for her—the gentle, refined face, on which she would gaze with a secret intense pleasure, and a longing to hear some loving word addressed to herself from a sister with sweet lips, so strong that it was like a sharp pain at her heart. ”

“ She stands with a fan in her hand, in the attitude of one just about to speak; the head, well set and poised, is thrown slightly back, the brilliant beautiful eyes look laughingly out as if enjoying some gay speech, and the full lips are slightly parted, as if ready with a playful rejoinder. ”

“ 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. ”

“ An' fan within my bosom still,
⁠A never-dying flame.
You still possess a pleasant look,
⁠A calm unruffled mind;
A soothing voice, a faithful heart,—
⁠Complaisant, warm, an' kind.
Thy constant care has ever been
⁠To smooth life's rugged way ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ The scene is in the garden of a country-house—during what in Italy we call the Villeggiatura, that is the month we spend in the country during the vintage. A lady's fan is found by an ill-natured person in a curious place; all the rest agree not to see the fan, not to acknowledge that it is a fan. It is all left to us at the moment, all except the songs and the music, and you know how delightful those are. ”

“ The Fan is one of those mythological fictions which antiquity delivers ready to the hand, but which, like other things that lie open to every one’s use, are of little value. The attention naturally retires from a new tale of Venus, Diana, and Minerva. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To dream of one's family as harmonious and happy, is significant of health and easy circumstances; but if there is sickness or contentions, it forebodes gloom and disappointment.
Fan.
To see a fan in your dreams, denotes pleasant news and surprises are awaiting you in the near future. For a young woman to dream of fanning herself, or that some one is fanning her, gives promise of a new and pleasing acquaintances; if she loses an old fan, she will find that a warm friend is becoming interested in other women. ”

“ The old musician turns towards his cousin with a courtly bow, offers her the fan of the favourite, saying: ‘It is time for that which has served Vice to be in the hands of Virtue; a hundred years will be required to work such a miracle. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ It was the fan of the people—the poor relation of the more aristocratic painted fan.Pg 207 ‘Ill drawn, roughly modelled, and often vilely bedaubed,’ says Henri Bouchot in his entertaining ‘History on Fans,’132 ‘its genesis is not hard to determine ”

“ 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 ”

“ Yes, you gave me this fan today; it was your birthday present. If that woman crosses my threshold I shall strike her across the face with it.
That Lady Windermere owns a fan; that it bears her name; that, as a gift chosen by her husband and recently given her, he must recognize it on sight: all these important facts have been planted by neat emphasis when Act I ends. Even in Act II, the fan is kept before the public. Just before Mrs. Erlynne enters, we have:
Lady Windermere. ”

“ Oliver Wendell Holmes has written a delightful poem on the “Origin of the Fan.” In all our art loan collections there is, nowadays, an exhibition of fans. The young student of fan-painting should strive to see some of those of Watteau and of Boucher. Tiffany to-day turns out some very beautiful specimens; and more than one of our artists could admirably paint a fan or two as his contribution to Fan History.
Nothing can be prettier as a Home Amusement than fan-painting, into which much, but not too much, Japanese suggestion should creep. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ FAN. To dream you see your sweetheart fanning herself, signifies that a stranger will step in some fine day and “cut you out.” If a maid dreams that her beau presents her with a fan, or offers to fan her, it is a sign he will attempt to take improper liberties with her. ”

“ We trust we have shown that, in the words of Sir George Birdwood, there is perhaps more in a fan than was dreamt of in Johnson’s matter-of-fact definition:—‘An instrument used by ladies to move the air and cool themselves.’
What, then, of the future? May we reasonably look forward in this twentieth century for a renaissance of the fan; for a re-attainment, if not of its past spiritual significance, at least of something of its artistic possibilities?
The future is full of hope; we have turned our backs upon the bad old nineteenth century, with its manifold outrages upon the æsthetic sense ”

“ The inseparable fan,—her constant companion, play thing and interpreter, in the saloon, the ball room, the theatre or the church,—rests carelessly, in her right hand, which coquettishly clasps the folds of her mantilla ”

“ The modest fan was lifted up no more, And virgins smiled at what they blush'd before. ”

“ The girl of the period, when she writes to her friend, usually dips the handle of her sunshade in a basin of ink, and scrawls characters monstrous in size and form, an insult to the paper-maker's art and shocking to man's aesthetic feelings. Now from the first Fan had spontaneously written a small hand, with fine web-like lines and flourishes, which gave it a very curious and delicate appearance ”

“ The sole purpose of THE FANTASY FAN is to strengthen the bond between the fans, and advance the popularity of fantasy fiction in every way possible. We will do our part by publishing interesting and absorbing articles by the leading fan writers and authors of the day—many dozens of which we now have on hand ”

“ Her fan in ordinary resembleth a banner spread, which she keepeth continually on the alert to detect the least breeze. She possesseth an active and gadding mind, totally incommensurate with her person. No one delighteth more than herself in country exercises and pastimes. ”

“ Fanny and I are twins,—familiarly known as “Fan-and-Ann,”—and as unlike each other as it is possible for twins to be. Fan, who always passes for the elder, is half a head taller than I am, and very beautiful, with a stateliness and imperiousness of manner which would befit a queen, while I am shy 10and reticent and small, and only one has ever called me handsome. ”

“ Authenticated examples of Louis XIII. fans are exceedingly rare. In the Jubinal collection at Paris is a superb fan painted on skin, representing the king playing blind-man’s buff with the four quarters of the globe. ”

“ If your attention is directed to the fan, you may recall the word rococo, but not the image represented by it. If your attention is not called to the fan, the mind is satisfied with the indistinct image, or substitutes for it an image of some other fan. ”

“ The name implies that everything contained therein should be boiling hot—and these boiling hot arguments, as we have found out, create an unpleasant atmosphere for many concerned. THE FANTASY FAN is attempting to bind the lovers of science and weird fiction tighter together with friendship, and not to separate them thru dislike of each others ideas. ”

“ Is something—nothing—’tis a whim-a.’
The fan-makers were not slow in following up with a fan. On April 25, the following advertisement appeared in the Craftsman:—
‘This day is published, by J. Pinchbeck at the Fan and Crown in New Round Court, in the Strand.
‘The Reason for the Motion. A Satire, whereon are the Portraits of divers Noble Personages. To which is annexed, Explanatory Verses, which will serve as a Key to the Whole.
‘Where may be had, All sorts of Fans and Fan-Mounts. The newest fashion, and suited to the nicest Taste. Wholesale or Retail. ”