A fan which has been styled the ‘impracticable,’ is of circular form, the radiants of ivory, tortoise-shell, sandalwood, or metal filigree, perforated to such a degree as to render it useless as a means of disturbing the air. These are elaborately carved with figures, scroll-work, and other designs, or with birds, flowers, etc., in silver gilt filigree. The ‘double-entente’ fan, opened in the ordinary manner, exhibits some harmless _motif_ such as a flower, bird, or landscape; opened the reverse way, it discloses a ribald sketch that would entail severe penalties on its maker if discovered. The Peking variety shows two such pictures which are not seen when the fan is opened, but are disclosed by turning back the two end ribs of the fan. The ‘dagger-fan’ is an invention of the Japanese, its importation into China being strictly forbidden. In its outward appearance it is sufficiently harmless, being apparently an ordinary lacquered folding-fan: in reality it is a sheath containing a deadly blade, short and sharp, resembling a small Malay kris (see illustration facing page 60). These dagger or stiletto fans are by no means confined to the East; in the British Museum is a print of an Italian stiletto concealed in a case made in imitation of a fan; the panaches of ivory, engraved with Italian arabesques. [Illustration: Feather Fan, (Argus Pheasant) with embroidered case. Chinese, early 19th Cent. Victoria & Albert Museum.] Inscription fans are common, and exhibit an endless variety of devices. Some are literary _tours de force_, the most famous being that associated with the Emperor Chien Wên, of the Liang dynasty, A.D. 550, and said to be the composition of the monarch himself. This consists of a couplet of eight characters written in the eight corners of an octagon fan. On beginning at any one of the eight characters and reading round the way of the sun, it forms a couplet of perfect sense and rhythm. A story is told of a favourite of the Emperor Ch’êng Ti of the Han dynasty, B.C. 32, whose name was Pan, and who for some time had been a confidante of his Majesty and the Queen of the Imperial Seraglio. Having persuaded herself that something more than an ordinary attachment of the hour existed between herself and the ‘Son of Heaven,’ finding her influence on the wane and being unable to conceal any longer her mortification, grief, and despair, she forwarded to the Emperor a circular screen-fan, upon which were inscribed the following lines expressing the contrast between the summer of her reciprocated love and the autumn of her desertion:—