Hairpin

“ He takes something out of his pocket, and presents it to Mr. T.
Mr. Toov. (mystified) . Why, it's only a hairpin! What a scrupulously honest young man that is, to be sure!
Mrs. Toov. (relieved) . Only a hairpin? (Then, uneasily, to Curph., in an undertone.) Where is—you know what? Have you kept it to use for your own advantage?
Curph. (in the same tone) . I am a very bad man, I know; but I don't blackmail. You will find it behind the card-basket in the hall. ”

“ Why, if one wants to compare life to anything, one must liken it to being blown through the Tube at fifty miles an hour—landing at the other end without a single hairpin in one’s hair! Shot out at the feet of God entirely naked! Tumbling head over heels in the asphodel meadows like brown paper parcels pitched down a shoot in the post office! With one’s hair flying back like the tail of a race-horse. Yes, that seems to express the rapidity of life, the perpetual waste and repair; all so casual, all so haphazard. . .
But after life. ”

“ The great loss of hairpins did not proceed so much from the carelessness of women in fastening their hair, as from their 'pennywise and pound-foolish' system of buying cheap hairpins with few and inefficient 'twists.' These cheap hairpins never 'caught' properly in their coiled-up tresses. ”

“ Dyeing them is another expedient often resorted to for increasing their effect. A good permanent black is all that is needed, and for this use Indian ink. As an impromptu expedient to serve for one night, a hairpin held for a few seconds in the flame of a candle, and drawn through the lashes, will serve to color them well, and with sufficient durability. It need scarcely be [37] added that the hairpin must be suffered to grow cold before it is used, or the consequence may be that no eyelash will be left to color. Good eyebrows are not to be produced artificially. ”

“ Better than straws were hairpins, hatpins, or safety-pins. She had been brought up in a bedroom, and my pincushion had always been an object of interest to her. I have seen her take a long hatpin in her beak, toss it up in the air, catch it, and go to her nest with it.
The invisible hairpins were her chief favorites, and one day my sister said to me, “I cannot imagine where all my invisible hairpins are.” ”

“ Scattered upon the flimsy dresser scarf were half a dozen hairpins—those discreet, indistinguishable friends of womankind, feminine of gender, infinite of mood and uncommunicative of tense. ”

“ When we had resumed our seats in the coach, the advocate made some remark upon the impudence of barbers in general.
"But we ought to decide first," said the lady, "whether or not it is slovenly to go bearded."
"Of course it is," said the advocate. "Beard is nothing but a dirty excrescence."
"You may think so," I answered, "but everybody does not share your opinion. Do we consider as a dirty excrescence the hair of which we take so much care, and which is of the same nature as the beard? Far from it; we admire the length and the beauty of the hair." ”

“ It is common to speak disparagingly of the little Hair-Bird, as if he were good for nothing, without beauty and without song, and, what is of still more consequence in the eyes of the sordid epicure, too small to be eaten, his weight of flesh not being worth a charge of powder and shot. We can never sufficiently rejoice that there are some birds too small to excite the avaricious feelings of these knights of the fowling-piece and the rifle. The Hair-Bird is not to be despised, except by epicures. ”

“ Of course Mammy Susan had done her best all my life to keep me from letting birds get any of my hair for nests, [249] as it is supposed to be the very worst luck that can befall one, and terrible headaches are sure to be the lot of a person whose hair helps make a nest. Nevertheless, I had always sneaked my hair to the birds at Bracken, and this morning, feeling sure that I was the only person astir, I had quite openly brought a wad of hair, Dum's burnished black, Dee's blue black, and my curly brown, all mingled together. ”

“ Who cutteth and curleth ladies, gentlemen, and children’s hair.—She sells a fine pomatum, which is mix’d with ingredients of her own makeing, that if the hair be never so thin, it makes it grow thick; and if short, it makes it grow long. If any gentleman’s or children’s hair be never so lank, she makes it curle in a little time, and to look like a perriwig.
It will be observed in Queen Anne’s reign no other style but that of the perriwig was thought worthy of imitation. In former times, the university barber was a person of some consequence. ”

“ Do you see that blue mug on the shelf, the third from the right? Well, that’s the mug I carried with me that day. I guess you’ll believe it now.”
“Speaking of bald heads,” went on the barber, although no one had said a word about bald heads, “reminds me of how a man worked a game on me once right here in Houston. You know there’s nothing in the world that will make hair grow on a bald head. Lots of things are sold for that purpose, but if the roots are dead nothing can bring them to life. A man came into my shop one day last fall and had a shave. ”

“ Although hair is of a tubular construction, yet all varieties are not of a completely cylindrical form; a curl is the result of all flat-sided or oval hairs, the exceeding oval being the unfailing characteristic of the negro race. A cross section of a hair, if circular, denotes the long, soft, and lank fibre of a cold northern animal; but if the cross section shows an extreme flat-sided hair, that hair will be crisp and frizzled, and of a tropical extraction. ”

“ The scalp you are to make is without a patent 168parting, but with a crown either of silk or skin. If any parting is to be made on this scalp, it should not be clearly defined, but whether it be formed with weft or “knotted,” the hair ought to be set closer than it is elsewhere. This, however, will be alluded to later on. Should a rather narrow scalp be all that is required, and the wearer’s hair thick enough, a parting could well be made upon the head, some of the natural hair being trained to comb over and allowed to mingle with the hair of the scalp. ”

“ The second bird darted angrily at the first and after a struggle succeeded in capturing one of the golden hairs. One hair dropped to the marble floor, making as it struck a musical tinkle, and the first bird escaped still holding in its bill a single hair. ”

“ With the words a handful of guineas changed hands, the jingle of which possessed a persuasive virtue all their own; whereupon the hairdresser began to comprehend that it is sometimes to one's advantage to be feverish.
"But, my lord," he faltered, "would you have Miss Woodville go on the stage with dishevelled hair? Who will take my place?"
"I will, Fisher."
"Can your lordship dress a head of hair?"
"I studied the art in Paris under the celebrated Leonard."
"Is it so!"
"Indeed it is. The man who does not know how to dress a woman's hair misses one of the greatest delights in life. ”

“ I can’t tell you whether their hair is woolly or not, for the women shave it close to the scalp, using razors of iron or glass, and polish their heads with grease so that they fairly shine in the sun. I understand they pull out the hair from all parts of their bodies and that even the babies are shaved. Many of the men carry about tweezers of iron to pull the hairs from their chins, cheeks, and nostrils, and they keep themselves shaved until they are old enough to be warriors. ”

“ Give me a kiss, little Melisande, and then go to nurse and ask her to teach you how to comb your hair.”
“I know,” said Melisande, “I’ve often combed mother’s.”
“Your mother has beautiful hair,” said the King; “but I fancy you will find your own less easy to manage.”
And, indeed, it was so. The Princess’s hair began by being a yard long, and it grew an inch every night. If you know anything at all about the simplest sums you will see that in about five weeks her hair was about two yards long. This is a very inconvenient length. ”

“ I used to attend the king’s levee once or twice a week, and had often seen him under the barber’s hand, which indeed was at first very terrible to behold; for the razor was almost twice as long as an ordinary scythe. His majesty, according to the custom of the country, was only shaved twice a week. I once prevailed on the barber to give me some of the suds or lather, out of which I picked forty or fifty of the strongest stumps of hair. ”

“ The dasypus has hair in the inside of the mouth even and under the feet, two features which Trogus has also attributed to the hare; from which the same author concludes that hairy men are the most prone to lust. The most hairy of all animals is the hare. Man is the only creature that has hair as the mark of puberty; and a person who is devoid of this, whether male or female, is sure to be sterile. The hair of man is partly born with him, and in part produced after his birth. ”

“ In the way of hair, a magnificent chevelure of brown curls ruffles out under the rim of the cap, shadowing over the cheeks and neck of the wearer. Arched eyebrows, a small mouth, and regular teeth, give the finish to a face which might be regarded as a type of manly beauty. ”

“ My hair was long and dragged along the ground. She rushed off, leaping this way and that. Every time she went into the pine wood I took my revenge on her by frightening her with my hair. Master Silvain surprised us one morning when I was butting at her. He laughed and laughed till I didn't know which way to look. I tried to throw my hair back quickly. The she goat came close up to me. She looked at me, stretching her neck and wriggling her back about in the funniest way. The farmer could not stop laughing. ”

“ The hair both of males and females is black, glossy, and straight. The men usually wear it rather long, and allow it to hang about their heads in a loose and slovenly manner. A few of the younger men, and especially those who had been about the shores of the Welcome, had it cut straight upon the forehead, and two or three had a circular patch upon the crown of the head, where the hair was quite short and thin, somewhat after the manner of Capuchin friars. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is enough for women to protect [710] their locks, and bind up their hair simply along the neck with a plain hair-pin, nourishing chaste locks with simple care to true beauty. For meretricious plaiting of the hair, and putting it up in tresses, contribute to make them look ugly, cutting the hair and plucking off it those treacherous braidings; on account of which they do not touch their head, being afraid of disordering their hair. Sleep, too, comes on, not without fear lest they pull down without knowing the shape of the braid. ”

“ Many of the advanced scholars were making and mending their clothes and bedding; something I couldn't do, I fear. The idiots are carefully attended day and night. Never before did I see a natural-born bald-headed person. Here was one, a funny-looking girl, and I was told she had several brothers, sisters, parents, uncles and aunts, all bald from birth—a distinguished family indeed. I wondered whether her disappointment was as great as that of Pye Pod, who once possessed a head of hair, then lost it. ”

“ Mariner, “had followed only one fashion in cutting their hair, but we have seen it polled in every imaginable form; sometimes a small round place only is made bald just on the crown, which causes them to look like Romish priests; at other times the whole head is shaved or cropped close, except round the edge, where, for about half an inch in breadth, the hair hangs down its usual length. Some make their heads bald on one side, and leave the hair twelve or eighteen inches long on the other. ”

“ The hairy coat of a mammal is composed of individual hairs of varying length, colour and thickness, each being rooted in a tiny pit in the skin and growing from a papilla at its base. As the hair grows, its free end is pushed away from the papilla at the rate of one inch in two months. This is the rate in man’s hair, and it is probably greater in the case of lower mammals on account of the greater importance and physiological activity of their hairy coat than in man’s. ”

“ I demanded.
"Use it every day for six days and the hair will never again grow on your face. We used to use it on the heads of confirmed criminals. Whenever one saw a bald-headed man or a man wearing a wig he watched his valuables."
"In my country when one sees a bald-headed man," I said, "he watches his girls. And that reminds me; I have seen a beautiful girl in a garden just to the right of us here. ”

“ The hair, of that soft blonde colour, seen oftenest upon the heads of children, and rarely upon adults, was thick and fine, and long enough to frame the handsome face in close half rings that no barber's skill could ever subdue or make straight. ”

“ The sons, in short square-skirted coats with rows of stupendous brass buttons, and their hair generally queued in the fashion of the times, especially if they could procure an eel-skin for the purpose, it being esteemed throughout the country as a potent nourisher and strengthener of the hair. ”