" WOMAN WITH THE FAN." THE FOUR D.'S.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1687, 1 March 1913, Page 15

" WOMAN WITH THE FAN."

THE FOUR D.'S.

— : a A collection of the works of the late c Charles Conder at the Leicester Galleries has been attracting attention; writes the London correspondent of the "Aus- ® trnlnsian." Though born in Australia, j Conder was by temperament a French- 1 man, with a French artist's gift for paint- ? ing charming and interesting women. 1 His speciality was nineteenth century s boudoir art. His happiest efforts are ® mnking high prices to-day, because of j their suitability for "my. lady's chamber," Conder loved to paint glimpses of * a society fairyland, in which butterfly ■ daaies and damsels fluttered about in gowns of prettily-matched colours.. His ? lit tie. groups of women undfer trellises of rows are delightfully .unreal, arid in j miiriy cases just snfhciently shocking to 1 cbarm an up-to-date woman. On the < famous Conder fans, , these pictorial fancies are delightful. A husband with j wESOO to spare could not do better than , present his wife with a Conder fan. l There 6 are indications that the fame of Conder a 9 a fan-maker will increase rather than j deorease. The .fan has been out of favour for many years. It was associated with the charmers of the 18th oentury, and fell into disfavour at the time_ of the French Revolution. To-day, old-time fans are being taken from wardrobes and t presses and sent to' the fan-makers to be j renovated. In France, there is an am- ( portant school of modern painters, ineluding such artists as Charle9 Detaille and Lasellez, designing fans. Some of the most beautiful fans of the moment | are of Brussels point, with a hand-painted-gauze medallion in the centre. The modern fan is a necessity, a3 there are not enough of the 18th century sort to meet the demand,..evidenced 1 by the exhibition of fans now being held at the Baillie Gallery. Perhaps the woman of to-day ia waking to the thought that uho has discarded this feminine weapon too lonptj As a contributor to Addison's "Spectator wrote:—"Women are armed with fans as ' '.men with sw'ords-and sometimes do morb ' 'execution with them. ' There is an infinite variety of emotions to bo made use of in tho flutter of a fan.",,

You will never bo ft, bore if you avoid tho four D's, is tho advioe given by tho wife of .tho Attorney-General of mo United States, to tlie social aspirants of Washington. The four D's stand for: Disease, Descendants, Domestics, Dress, tho four subjects which loom so large in most women's taik. By avoiding tho first you do away with, "organ recitals," as Americans call that form of conversation which turns principally to doctors, hospitals, "and operations. This topic has , becomo horribly common of recent years, and nothing could be more unpleasant than the, way some women dwell upon their ailments, going into the minutest details with ghoulish oiijoyinent. Tho ordinary healthy person loathes such talk,. for ' while it is only Tight and wise that everyono 6hould have some knowledge of physiology, it is neither sano nor wholesome to let one's mind run constantly on disease and surgical possibilities. To those of healthy imagination such conversation is boring in the extreme; while to those who are naturally morbid or neurotic, ft may be a iource of positive danger. So we should bo glad indeed to see tho first D eliminated from the conversational list. Tho second D stands for Descendants., Now all women, and many,men, lovo to talk of their children's pretty ways and clever sayings, but it is a tendency that should be severely checked, except amongst one's most intimate and dearest friends, who are naturally already interested in tlie youngsters. But to tho outside acquaintance a recital of the doings and Bayings of little • Tommy and Nancy 1 is, as a rule, a plain bore. Under tho same heading comes the j>erson who talks of his or her distinguished forbears, generally distinguished only in their own family oircle, but of no possible interest to the world in general. By avoiding the third D we avoid Mary Jane and her delinquencies; we escape all accounts of the ' washerwoman who stole the soap and blue, and tho charwoman who dressed her sister's family'in her mistress's clothes; and wo are not haunted in oiir leisure moments by tho reminder that eggs are up arid meat is dear, and all the other little worries that weigh oh us at home, but which wo like to forgot when wo have a chanco to meet people and talk of other things. The fourth D is dress. If that were eliminated some women would have nothing at all to say, for their thoughts run in a narrow groove bounded on every sido by dressmakers and milliners. But think of tho lovely silences we should have, the long restful pauses in which to think quietly and sanely, with 110 interruption from "such interjections as "wider at fhe hem," "veiled in ninon," "two narrow j kiitings," and the like. Why, with tho ! wiping out of those i four D's from tho conversational code, thero might be a i chance of the revival of conversation as 'an ■ art, and our afternoon tea parties might bo cheered by the feast of reason and the flow of soul, instead of being depressed, ns they are so often at present, by an unending discussion of Disease, Do; mestics, Descendants, and Dress.