Beard

“ I involuntarily put my hand up to my beard. "Oh, I don't mean that you're too hairy, the beard's becoming; but you are hairy. You look simple; somehow one associates simplicity with trustworthiness; and now you're blushing." ”

“ For as your grey beard turns white, one by one they go by you into the darkness. How long have they been falling away who could remember with you once the great occasion of your manhood? Once you could crack with many, but now your recollections overlap with few. ”

“ The beard, among men, is the sign of puberty, vigour, and weakness. ’Tis this hair on the chin which first tells him that the time is come when his organs, being more unfolded, will procure him a new existence, that he is entering the state of manhood, that he is going to take his place in society, and that he is endowed with the valuable faculty of begetting his own likeness. ”

“ Such is the marvellous effect which this ornament of manhood has produced in all ages. Even now, that our effeminate customs so justly paint the faculties of our souls, the sight of a long beard still commands respect. ”

“ Deliver me from horn and beard,
I yield them glad to lord or laird;
A beard will cause the women hate,
And horns will make me claw my pate.
A beard is brush-wood on the face,
A crop luxuriant of disgrace:
A downy beard betokens youth,
A grey one age, such is the truth;
To be too young or yet too old,
I fear would make my Missie cold;
I am freed from my beard you’ll say,
That we ne’er meet again, I pray.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. ”

“ Now nature makes use of the colours of the face in painting the Beard—a reason by the bye for not attempting to alter the original hue, and carries off her warm and cold colours by that means. Never shall I forget the circumstance of a gentleman with high colour, light brown hair, full whiskers of a warm brown, deepening into a warm black, and good looking, though his features, especially the nose, were not regular—taking a whim into his head to shave off his whiskers. ”

“ There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said, "It is just as I feared!— Two Owls and a Hen, Four Larks and a Wren, Have all built their nests in my beard!" ”

“ How much such a beard is to be pitied!’ If they would correct any one’s mistakes, they will tell him, ‘For shame of your beard! Does not the confusion that follows such an action light on your beard?’ If they entreat any one, or use oaths in affirming or denying any thing, they say, ‘I conjure you by your beard, by the life of your beard, to grant me this—or by your beard this is or is not so,’ They say farther, in the way of acknowledgment, ‘May God preserve your blessed 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. ”

“ Now the Beard, which, as the Romans phrased it, “buds” on the face of youth in a soft downiness in harmony with immature manliness, and lengthens and thickens with the progress of life, keeps gradually covering, varying, and beautifying, as the “mantling ivy” the rugged oak, or the antique tower, and by playing with its light free forms over the harsher characteristics, imparts new graces even to decay, by heightening all that is still pleasing, veiling all that is repulsive. ”

“ My mind is now at ease about that mystery, because I know every man I see on the avenue, by the beard he wears, whether he is civilized or savage, rich or poor. If he is able to get shaved without running in debt for shaving, he is shaved clean and smooth. Has he a beard like a goat’s; his beard proves him to be one that will stand on the left hand. ”

“ THE beard has not only the advantage of giving a man a stern, majestic air, of preserving over the sex the empire which Nature has bestowed on him, and of displaying on his face the characteristical marks of his manhood, but likewise enables the attentive observer to remark, by more determined changes, the different states of human life, and gives him the still more valuable advantage of being useful to his own preservation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Its inconsiderable forehead is crowned with turning sandy hair, and the deep concave of its long insatiate jaws is almost hidden by a dense red beard, which can not still abate the terrible decision of the large mouth, so well sustained by searching eyes of spotted gray, which roll and rivet one. ”

“ A cropped head and three days' growth of beard will make an extraordinary difference in any one, but I would never have believed they could have transformed me into quite such an unholy-looking ruffian as the one I saw staring back at me out of the glass. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Is there an ornament to be found that more perfectly unites all these advantages? is there one that is less far-fetched, that brings us nearer the first ages, that gives a man a more stern, more grave, or more venerable look, and, consequently, is there one that more becomes the priesthood, than the majesty of a long beard? ”

“ His ruddy skin, his bushy eyebrows, his famous red beard, now plentifully streaked with white, his square, powerful frame, somewhat inclined to stoutness, above all, his penetrating and piercing eyes, gave to his aspect a certain terror before which men trembled and women shrank appalled. ”

“ For a moment the wild idea of letting his beard grow—that oldest form of disguise—occurred to him, only to be dismissed immediately. A beard takes a month to grow, he had neither the time nor the money to do it, nor the inclination. ”

“ I am of St. Chrysostom’s opinion, that a golden beard is a hideous thing; that, so far from the gold’s heightening its natural beauties, it only degrades them. Nature is like virtue, it pleases without dazzling. ”

“ If nature has been stingy, and that glorious excrescence, the beard, is impossible to you, mon cher, pray accept our sympathy; but, please be generous enough to take the inevitable with good grace, and not worry us with foolish arguments about bearded barbarians and unsanitary savages. We know that you can make a strong case against the beard, but we imagine we can make one equally strong in its favor. ”

“ A single hair comes wafted by the wind. A beard:grew from the hair, and on the beard was engendered a worm. Owing to this the low wretch came, the evil pagan removed into the beloved jaw-bones, the dearlycherished teeth, to devour and gnaw, to crunch, rasp, and play havoc with the jaws, and hack the teeth. ”

“ The cut of the beard, the long prickly-ended, clotted moustache, which looks as though it were being continually rolled up in saliva, the sallow, half-bronzed, apparently unwashed colour—these may all, perhaps, be assumed by any man after a certain amount of labour and culture. ”

“ The clown's beard, busy and not subject to any fashionable trimming, is sufficiently described in the words of the song." We quote nearly the whole of this old ballad, in fact all that has a real bearing on the subject of the beard:—
"The beard, thick or thin, on the lip or chin,
Doth dwell so near the tongue,
That her silence on the beard's defence
May do her neighbour wrong.
Now a beard is a thing that commands in a king,
Be his sceptres ne'er so fair:
Where the beard bears the sway, the people obey,
And are subject to a hair. ”

“ There seems, at all times to have been a sinister protest, in some quarter or other, against the presumed arrogance of the beard—a lurking spirit of revolt, engendered possibly of envy, against the supremacy of its reign. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Under the strongest light one could observe his extreme thinness, his hollow cheeks, his projecting cheek-bones, his earthen-colored face dotted with small red spots and framed in a rough, straggling beard. ”

“ Hair is to the human aspect what foliage is to the landscape; and, whenever pen or pencil is guided by poetic feeling or good taste, it lingers with admiration and delight amid the shadows and glossy silken sheen—the ever-varying tints, and waving, wanton loveliness of sunny, luxuriant hair. ”

“ The colour of the Beard is usually warmer than that of the hair of the head, and reflection soon suggests the reason. The latter comes into contact chiefly with the forehead, which has little colour; but the Beard grows out of the face where there is always more or less. ”

“ In the family groups, children and little dogs are most prominent; of the male portraits the beard is the principal part. It is useless to look for men here; one sees nothing but hair. Everybody wears a beard à la mode du moyen âge—flâneurs, coachmen, marquises, artisans. ”

“ For among the bearded races a fine and flowing beard is universally admired; while among the beardless races stray hairs are carefully eradicated, thus displaying the same aversion to the intermediate or half-hairy state which, as I suppose, has been mainly instrumental in completely denuding the body of man. ”

“ He’s clever, this same Brotherson, and there’s glory to be got in making a fool of him. Do you think it could be done with a beard? I’ve never worn a beard. While I’m settling back into my old trade, I can let the hair grow.”
“Do. It’ll make you look as weak as water. ”

“ In works of art, particularly in portrait statues, the beard is always treated as an individual characteristic. It is mostly arranged in graceful locks, and covers the chin, lips and cheeks, without a separation being made between whiskers and moustache. ”

“ The fashion of ornamenting the hair is an universal vanity, probably as old as the creation; for the earliest records and antiquities introduce us to the mysteries of wigs and beard cases, and such evident and lavish displays of tonsorial art, as remind one more of the skilful artist than the first rude essays of the craft. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The most religious men and the aged shave the entire surface of the head. The young men shave the beard, except the mustache, till the age of thirty years after which time the beard is clipped at the length of about one inch till the age of forty. ”

“ Some of the most accomplished of penmen hold their pen between their toes. The man-like apes live to about the same age as man, and all of them, like man, have beards. The anthropoid beard, too, like the human, appears at the age of sexual maturity. The human beard often differs in colour from the hair of the scalp, and whenever it does it has been observed to be invariably lighter—never darker—than the hair on the scalp. This is true among all races of men. ”

“ But, as compensation, the dark full beard promises to be so much the better; I am always successful with beards. The hands in the pockets are very fortunate; the left leg is entirely concealed by the right—not especially picturesque, but extremely convenient for the artist. ”

“ After you have scraped off a sufficient amount of beard to show a sufficient amount of skin to convince the Top, when he eyes you over, that you have actually shaved, you shake the lather off your razor and brush, dab what is left of the original water over the torn parts of your face, seize the opportunity, while you have the mirror before you, of combing your hair with your fingernails, and button your shirt collar. ”

“ The curling and plaiting of the beard and hair, as shown in the sculptures, is doubtless intended as a distinguishing mark of a superior and conquering race. Their colossal-winged bulls and monstrous deities are adorned with the same venerable badge of power and authority. Since nearly all that is known on this subject is directly derived from the researches of Mr. Layard, we cannot do better than refer to the volumes of one to whom not only this nation, but the civilised world, are indebted for his arduous and most successful explorations. ”