Graying hair

Definition and stakes

Various,  The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04…

“ Anything but to have a head look like a head! anything but to have hair look like hair! See this lady of 1750, her hair drawn violently back from her forehead and piled up on a cushion nine inches high. She is plainly one of those lovely, warm-toned blondes whose hair is of that priceless red that makes all other tints look poor and sad; and so she defiles its exquisite texture with grease, and blanches out its wealth of color with flour. ”
Source: Gutenberg

Anonymous,  Trichocosmos: Notes historical… (1890)

“ It is certain that, in regard to the hair, the ancients had no monopoly of beauty.
Concerning grey hair, we may remark that the term is a misnomer applied to single hairs; for the greyness merely arises from the commingling of white and dark hairs. When the secretion of the colouring matter in the pulp ceases, all succeeding growth from the bulb is colourless. Every one feels some little anxiety about grey hairs. To the moralist they are Death’s blossoms—the solemn warning to adjust the mantle e’er we fall. With some, grey hairs will even intrude upon the pleasures of youth
”
Source: Gutenberg

Portrait of Elinor Glyn Elinor Glyn,  Red Hair

“ My hair is too red—brilliant, dark, fiery red, like a chestnut when it tumbles out of its shell, only burnished like metal. If I had the usual white eyelashes I should be downright ugly, but, thank goodness! by some freak of nature mine are black and thick, and stick out when you look at me sideways, and I often think when I catch sight of myself in the glass that I am really very pretty—all put together—but, as I said before, not a type to please every one. ”
Source: Gutenberg

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