Thomas S. Gowing

“ This purplish bloom of a black Beard is much admired by the Persians; and curiously enough they produce the effect by a red dye of henna paste, followed by a preparation of indigo.
There is one other point connected with colour which ought not to be omitted. All artists know the value of white in clearing up colours. Now let any one look at an old face surrounded by white hair, whether in man or woman, and he will perceive a harmonizing beauty in it, that no artificial imitation of more youthful colours can possibly impart. In this, as in other cases, the natural is the most becoming. ”

“ During all the best ages of the Republic, while the old Roman virtue retained something of its original vigour, and before it had been sapped and undermined by the imported vices and effeminate customs of conquered nations, Rome’s statesmen, heroes, priests and people all wore, and all reverenced, the virile glories of the Beard! ”

“ Permit me to conclude this section of my lecture by reminding all who wish to let their Beards grow, that there is a law above fashion, and that each individual face is endowed with its individual Beard, the form and colour of which is determined by similar laws to those which regulate the tint of the skin, the form and colour of the hair of the head, eyebrows, and eyelashes; and therefore the most becoming, even if ugly in itself, to their respective physiognomies. What suits a square face, will not suit an oval, and a high forehead demands a different Beard to a low one. ”

“ Such, however, is the force of prejudice founded on custom, that people who sink themselves to the ears in deep shirt collars, and to the chin in starched cravat and stiffened stock, muffle themselves in comforters till their necks are as big as their waists; nay do not demur some of them to be seen in that abomination of ugliness—that huge black patch of deformity—a respirator, have still sufficient face left to tell us that the expression of the countenance would be injured by restoring the Beard! ”

“ Nothing indeed but the long effeminizing of our faces could have given rise to the present shaven ideal—to the forgetfulness of the true standard of masculine beauty of expression, which is naturally as antipodal as the magnetic north and south poles, to that of female loveliness, where delicacy of line, blushing changeable colour, and eyes that win by seeming not to wish it, are charms we all feel, and at the same time understand how inappropriate they are when applied to the opposite sex ”

“ NOT only was the Beard intended to serve the important purposes just described; but, combining beauty with utility, to impart manly grace and free finish to the male face. To its picturesqueness Poets and Painters, the most competent judges, have borne universal testimony. It is indeed impossible to view a series of bearded portraits, however indifferently executed, without feeling that they possess dignity, gravity, freedom, vigour, and completeness ”

“ There is something in the operation of shaving which, besides its painfulness, ought to make it repulsive to those who do not shave themselves—such as having the face bedaubed with lather and rubbed with a brush, which has done the same office for hundreds of chins. It is amusing to hear a knot of free and independent Englishmen roaring “Britons never will be slaves;” most of whom will give their chins to be mown and their noses to be pulled by any common Barber, and pay him too for the pulling. ”

“ I trust my honest and uncompromising brother Beard will pardon the liberty I have taken with his name. No one can be a more sincere admirer than myself of the manly way in which he maintains his opinions on all occasions, and the humorous kindness of disposition which renders him beloved in private and in public. ”

“ It is of the utmost consequence to recall the superstitious practice of the Egyptian Priests, and to remember that Moses issued this command to the Aaronites, fresh from Egypt, because it most convincingly shews that the practice of shaving, even when resorted to with the view of pleasing the Deity, by an extreme degree of external purity, in approaching His mysterious presence, was directly and most absolutely forbidden. It is as if God had said, “What art thou, O man! who thinkest in thy vain imagination that I, thy Creator, knew not how to fashion thee! ”

“ Neither the mouth nor chin are, as we have said, unsightly in early life, but at a later period the case is otherwise. There is scarcely indeed a more naturally disgusting object than a beardless old man (compared by the Turks to a “plucked pigeon,”) with all the deep-ploughed lines of effete passions, grasping avarice, disappointed ambition, the pinchings of poverty, the swollen lines of self-indulgence, and the distortions of disease and decay! ”

“ O Fashion! most mighty, but most capricious of goddesses! what strange vagaries playest thou with the sons and daughters of men! What is there so lovely, that thou canst not, with a word, transform into an object of disgust and abhorrence? What so ugly and repulsive, but thou hast the art to exalt it into a golden image for thy slaves to worship, on pain of the fiery furnace of ridicule? ”

“ So much for the general charge; if we examine the separate features, there can be no question that the upper part of the face—the most godlike portion—where the mind sits enthroned, gains in expression by the addition of and contrast with the Beard; the nose also is thrown into higher relief, while the eyes acquire both depth and brilliancy. The mouth, which is especially the seat of the affections, its surrounding muscles rendering it the reflex of every passing emotion, owes its general expression to the line between the lips—the key to family likeness ”

“ The Turks will point to theirs and say, “do you think this venerable Beard could lie?” And a man’s testimony used to be so much measured by his Beard, that in hiring a witness, length of this appendage was an indispensable qualification. To touch another’s Beard, unless to kiss it respectfully, is considered by all these people a great insult. When two friends meet, to kiss it, sometimes on both sides, answers to our shake of the hand—how are you? and “may God preserve your Beard!” is a form of invoking a blessing on a friend. ”

“ Perhaps no human feature has been more the subject of Fashion’s changeable humours than the Beard, of which it is purposed to night to render some account, in the hope of being able to prove that in no instance has she been guilty of more deliberate offences against nature and reason! ”

“ As the Beard makes its appearance simultaneously with one of the most important natural changes in man’s constitution, it has in all ages been regarded as the ensign of manliness. All the leading races of men, whether of warm or cold climates, who have stamped their character on history—Egyptians, Indians, Jews, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Arabs, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Turks, Scandinavians, Sclaves—were furnished with an abundant growth of this natural covering. ”

“ I have reserved to the last the curious fact, which in itself is perfectly conclusive as to the protecting office of the Beard, and explains why its hair has additional provision for its nourishment; and this fact is, that while the hair of the head usually falls off with the approach of age, that of the Beard, on the contrary, continues to grow and thicken to the latest period of life. ”

“ And while the result of shaving is a mere negation, depriving us of a natural protection, and exposing us to disease, the other process, consume what time we will, is natural and instinctive, and attended with the satisfaction of adding the grace of neatness to nature’s stamp of man’s nobility. ”

“ Even when disease or accident renders necessary the removal of the whole or part of the Beard, it is only at the last extremity that an Arab will yield; and then he lives secluded, or if obliged to go out, wears a thick black veil, until his chin can reappear “with all its pristine honours blushing thick upon it.” ”

“ Perhaps a Beard may be defined more clearly by stating, that in its full extent it comprehends all hair visible on the countenance below the eyes, naturally growing down the sides of the face, crossing the cheeks by an inverted arch, fringing the upper and lower lips, covering the chin above and below, and hanging down in front of the neck and throat:—moustaches and whiskers being merely parts of a general whole. The hair of the head differs from that of the Beard. ”

“ In the bosoms of their families the Beard is treated as an object of reverential fondness—wife and children kissing it with the most tender and respectful affection. To express high value for a thing, they say, “it is worth more than one’s Beard.” ”

“ Gresham the Merchant Prince, who found his Beard no hindrance to business; and the Poet of Poets, whether ancient or modern, Shakspeare.
As might be expected, the dramatic literature of the time is full of allusions to that feature which men still honored and admired. Lear can find no more pathetic outburst of insulted majesty, in addressing his vile daughter Goneril, than the words—
“Art not ashamed to look upon this Beard?” ”

“ It is to be hoped, that when any one for the future talks about the Beard being a foreign fashion, he will be reminded that it is a good old English natural fashion, and that the present custom of shaving was borrowed from France, at a time when we had no credit to borrow anything else, seeing that king, courtiers, and patriots, were all the pensioned dependents of the French monarch! ”

“ In the babe, the chin is exceedingly soft, and its curve blends into those of the face and neck: in the boy it still retains a feminine gentleness of line, but as he advances to the youth, the bones grow more and more prominent, and the future character begins to stamp itself upon the form: at the approach of manhood, the lines combining with those of the mouth become more harsh, angular, and decided ”

“ And it is the more necessary to mark this, because there are many religious persons who have by custom acquired the Egyptian notion, and forgotten its emphatic condemnation. There are many who, though told that certain diseases to which the more active of the clergy are specially liable, might be prevented and may be cured, by simply wearing the Beard, will still insist upon their ministers paying the penalty invariably attaching to a violation of God’s laws, because their prejudices lead them to fancy a smooth face rather than a manly one. ”

“ HAVING seen that the Beard is a natural feature of the male face, and that the Creator intended it for distinction, protection, and ornament, let us turn lightly over the pages of history and examine the estimation in which it has been held at various times among the leading people, ancient and modern.
The first nation which suggests itself is the Egyptian, and very peculiar forms of Beard were assigned by them on their monuments to their gods, kings, and common people. ”

“ Old Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy adds his quaint testimony. “No sooner doth a young man see his sweetheart coming, than he smugs up himself, pulls up his cloak, ties his garter points, sets his band and cuffs, sticks his hair, twires his Beard,” &c.
D’Israeli also says, “when the fair sex were accustomed to behold their lovers with Beards, the sight of a shaved chin excited feelings of horror and aversion; as much indeed as in this less heroic age would a gallant whose luxuriant Beard should ‘Stream like a meteor to the troubled air.’” ”

“ Under Charles the 2nd, the Beard dwindled into the mere moustache, and then vanished. And when we consider the French apery of that un-English court, it is no wonder the Beard appeared too bold and manly an ensign to be tolerated. It went out first among the upper classes in London, and by slow degrees the sturdy country squires and yeomen also yielded their free honors to the slavish effeminate fashion, which, by the force of example, descended even to the working classes, on whom it imposed new burdens and some bodily diseases from which their hardy frames had been hitherto exempt. ”

“ In mourning, the Persians shave themselves; and Herodotus relates one instance when they also cropped the manes and tails of their horses in honor of their leader Mardonius.
One wiseacre of a Sultan is said to have shaved his Beard, saying “his councillors should never lead him by it, as they had done his forefathers!” forgetting that he had still left them the convenient handle of his nose—by which, as you know, ladies and gentlemen, people have been led from time immemorial. Let me hope, therefore, no one will cite this as an historical precedent for shaving. ”

“ Though there are individual exceptions, the absence of Beard is usually a sign of physical and moral weakness; and in degenerate tribes wholly without, or very deficient, there is a conscious want of manly dignity, and contentedness with a low physical, moral, and intellectual condition. Such tribes have to be sought for by the physiologist and ethnologist; the historian is never called upon to do honor to their deeds. ”