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‘“But the real use of the fan,” cried he, “if there is any, is it not—to hide a particular blush that ought not to appear?”
‘“Oh 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.”’
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!
In Shakespeare’s day no lady thought of stirring abroad without this accompaniment, the care of the toy devolving upon the gentleman usher—
‘Peter, take my fan and go before.’
Romeo and Juliet.
From the Aubrey MS., 1678, we learn that ‘the gentlemen (temp. Henry VIII.) had prodigious fans, as is to be seen in old pictures,[7] like that instrument which is used to drive feathers, and in it a handle at least half a yard long; with these the daughters were oftentimes corrected (Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief-Justice, rode the circuit with such a fan; Sir William Dugdale told me he was an eye-witness of it;[8] the Earl of Manchester also used such a fan); but fathers and mothers slasht their daughters in the time of their besom discipline when they were perfect women.’[9]
