Fans.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1830, 29 March 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

Fans.

How few women know how to hold a fan. I noticed that a Spanish girl of my acquaintance held hers half open. I asked for the philosophy of the thing. I have a profound conviction that women of all lands never do a serious thing with a reason, nor a trilling thing without one. " Why, you wouldn't have me hold it any other way, would you ? " she said, with miKl surprise. " What difference does it make ? " "Why, all the difference in the world. If I keep it closed, it means I hate you." " Heaven forfend ! " I ejaculated. "And if I open it wide," she continued, softly, "it means I 1-o-v-e y-o-u." I became interested. I learned that in Spain the eti quette of the fan was a serious matter, and not to be trifled ■with. Even to a friend of one's own sex, the fan is always presented. The Spanish ball-room, seemingly f-o decorous, is a seething mass of flirtation and intrigue ; each fluttering fan conveying its separate messnge of warning, doubt, encouragement, or hope. Though the fan no longer " supplies the place of snuff and chat," its language is still useful to young people in difficulties, real or imaginary ; and I give it to them, as it was given to me, in the strictest confidence, with the warning that all other codes are spuiious — that for sale at the book stores, and entitled, with shockingly bad taste, " The Little Flirt," being especially so. It will be observed that the system I give is not an artificial one, but conforms in every respect to the natural laws of expression : Closed I hate you. Open I like you. Half Closed I am indifferent. Putting the fan under the eye I see you. Putting it above the eye I understand you. Closing the fan from you Go away. Closing it toward you.. Come here. Shutting the fan .... Stay where you are. Counting the sticks . . The hour of appointment. It is a curious fact enough, that thongh Gay wrote a poem, in several cantos, on the fan ; though Addison, in the Spectator, thought the subject of suificient importance to devote a whole paper to it ; though Disraeli, in " Contarini Flemming " remarks that " in the hands of a Spanish lady, the fan is a weapon that would shame the strategy of a regiment of generals ; " and, lastly, though the " Encyclopedia Britannic a," in its new edition, goes to the extent of saying that "in Italy, France, and Spain, fans had special conventional uses," and that " the various actions in handling them giew into a code of signals, by which ladies were supposed to convey hints, or signals, to admirers or to rivals in society " — no one of these very eminent authorities '• convey the slightest hint " as to what this " code of signals " might be ; a good illustration of the paradox that a thing may be too well known in one generation to be remembered in the next. The only writer who does more than allude to the language of the fan is Irvine, who, I believe, though of this even I am not certain, mentions seeing a senorita counting the sticks of her fan to let her lover know the hour they weie to meet.