MR. FAIRLY ON FANS.
Jan. 21.—I came to my room; and there, in my own corner, sat poor Mr. Fairly, looking a little forlorn, and telling me he had been there near an hour. I made every apology that could mark in the strongest manner how little I thought his patience worth such exertion....
He was going to spend the next day at St. Leonard’s, where he was to meet his son; and he portrayed to me the character of Mrs. Harcourt so fairly and favourably, that her flightiness sunk away on the rise of her good qualities. He spoke of his chapel of St. Catherine’s, its emoluments, chaplain, brothers, sisters, and full establishment.
Finding I entered into nothing, he took up a fan which lay on my table, and began playing off various imitative airs with it, exclaiming, “How thoroughly useless a toy!”
“No,” I said; “on the contrary, taken as an ornament, it was the most useful ornament of any belonging to full dress, occupying the hands, giving the eyes something to look at, and taking away stiffness and formality from the figure and deportment.”
“Men have no fans,” cried he, “and how do they do?”
“Worse,” quoth I, plumply.
He laughed quite out, saying, “That’s ingenuous, however; and, indeed, I must confess they are reduced, from time to time, to shift their hands from one pocket to another.”
“Not, to speak of lounging about in their chairs from one side to another.”
“But the real use of a fan,” cried he, “if there is any, is it not—to hide a particular blush that ought not to appear?"
“O, no; it would rather make it the sooner noticed.”
“Not at all; it may be done under pretence of absence—rubbing the cheek, or nose—putting it up accidentally to the eye—in a thousand ways.”
He went through all these evolutions comically enough, and then, putting aside his toy, came back to graver matters.