Moustache

“ A thick, white moustache, in which glimmers a vague reflection of gold, partly hides a scar which would give to that red face a terrible look were it not for the expression of those eyes, in which there is fervor mingled with merriment. ”

“ He wore neither beard nor whiskers, but his short hair, and his thick, drooping moustache were both jet black, and betrayed as yet, thanks either to Nature or Art, none of those straggling streaks of silver which tell so plainly of the advance of years. He had a clear olive complexion, a large aquiline nose and deep-set eyes, piercing and full of fire, under a grand sweep of eyebrow. ”

“ From the earliest ages the moustache has been worn,—even the Arabs, who shave the head, leave untouched the upper lip. What would the pictures of some of the great masters be without it? Didn’t the Roman youths dedicate the first few downy hairs of the coming moustache to the gods? Does not the moustache give a manly appearance to the smallest and most effeminate? Does it not even beget a certain amount of respect for the wearer? What sort of guys would the razor make of Count Bismark, Dickens, the Sultan of Turkey, or Anthony Trollope? ”

“ The moustache is divided, and falls over the corners of the mouth, and the [Pg 274] beard, or imperial, is a full tuft on the chin, which, as well as the moustache, appears to be marked with a tool since taken. The face is a sharp oval, that of the bust is a blunt or round one. The chin is rather narrow and pointed, yet firm; that of the bust well rounded. The cheeks are thin and fallen; in those of the bust full, fat, and coarse, as if ‘good digestion waited on appetite,’ without thought, fancy, or feeling, troubling either. ”

“ They want their old favourites, and if they miss a well-known 'Imperial,' a moustache, a pair of dyed whiskers, or other such hall-mark in the picture, or on the other hand find a set of familiar chins concealed beneath an incipient Newgate fringe, a nose and chin which have been accustomed to meet for many a long year suddenly divided by the intrusion of a bristly moustache, or a delightfully asinine expression lost under the influence of a pair of bushy side-whiskers, recognition becomes impossible and the caricature falls flat. ”

“ The keen eyes looked straight out at the observer, with an earnestness of gaze betokening earnestness of purpose. The features and contour of the face were both delicate and strong; and the mouth, sensitive as well as resolute, was shadowed, not hidden, by the dark moustache. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Furthermore, the absence of the slight shade given by the eyelashes in the glare of the sun seemed to me to be the cause of that anxious, distressed expression, or of a fierce and wild scowl, observable on so many faces. The moustache is very seldom allowed to grow, except on one side, and then only in a tuft at the corner of the mouth. ”

“ A broad, lofty brow, and pensive dark eyes stamp their owner as a man of intellect and thought, while the peculiar curve of the well-formed nostrils betokens a sensitive and self-contained nature. The lower half of the face is hidden by a dark silky beard and moustache. ”

“ Tall, spare figure, and grey moustache, Roman nose, and clear, bright eyes, thin lips, and broad white forehead—the expression of the whole bespoke an active, resolute, upright man, not easily pleased or displeased. ”

“ You have fine blue eyes, well opened, a white forehead well shaped, magnificent black hair, a little moustache which suits those pale cheeks, and a slim figure; you've a foot that tells race, shoulders and chest not quite those of a porter, but solid. ”

“ He was tall and handsome, with a perfectly waxed moustache and a faultless frock-coat. He bowed before me with a sort of solicitous curve to his broad shoulders, and the way he massaged one hand with the other had a highly soothing effect. ”

“ A small moustache together with a small growth of hair directly below his lower lip and his long flowing hair, apparently natural, inclined to curl over his shoulders, give him the characteristic Stuartesque and cavalier appearance of the late seventeenth century. ”

“ Moustaches are much more common to-day than beards, and it is barely possible that they may escape æsthetic condemnation, and survive to the millennium. Persons with very short upper lips or flat noses, it is true, only emphasise their shortcomings by wearing a moustache; but in broad faces with prominent noses a well-shaped, not too drooping, moustache is no doubt an ornament, relieving the gravity of the masculine features and adding to their expression. ”

“ What I Found in My Pocket Once when I was very young I met one of those men who have made the Empire what it is--a man in an astracan coat, with an astracan moustache--a tight, black, curly moustache. Whether he put on the moustache with the coat or whether his Napoleonic will enabled him not only to grow a moustache in the usual place, but also to grow little moustaches all over his clothes, I do not know. I only remember that he said to me the following words: "A man can't get on nowadays by hanging about with his hands in his pockets." ”

“ Modern usage applies this word to the hair grown upon a man’s chin and cheek. When the chin is shaven, what remains upon the cheeks is called whiskers. “Moustache” or “moustaches” describes the hair upon the upper lip. But the words have in the past had less exact meaning. Beard has stood alone for all these things, and whisker has in its time signified what we now call moustache, as in the case of Robinson Crusoe’s great pair of “Turkish whiskers.”
The bearded races of mankind have ever held the beard in high honour. It is the sign of full manhood ”

“ It occurred to me as he spoke that I had seldom seen a slenderer form of masculine adornment on which to pride one’s self, till I suddenly recollected that a black moustache on a human face must be as relatively inconspicuous to any other species ”

“ The Chinese consider it a great honour to be a grandfather, and every man who is fortunate enough to be one wears a moustache, as the distinctive sign of his good luck. These thin grey moustaches are the more conspicuous, as the young men not only wear none, but, as a general rule, grow no beard at all. ”

“ He has clearly-cut and rather prononcé features, a strong-built, well made figure, a long moustache, close-shaven cheeks, and eyes that are rather deep-set, and are, when you are near enough to see them well, of a deep blue-gray. ”

“ The young man was slight, but athlete in build, and his face, although dark and sunburned, would have been extremely pleasing, but for a suspiciously unnatural moustache, that drooped heavily over his mouth, completely hiding that feature and thereby seriously injuring the amiability of his expression. ”

“ Now, for instance, why is the King of Hearts the only one that hasn't a moustache?" ”

“ The fingers of the other hand caressed lightly a moustache that had caused more heart-burnings among the gentler sex than any other two moustaches in the C-division. The eyes above the moustache were stern and questioning. ”

“ The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. ”

“ Now as the incoming air must follow the direction of the draught, you will readily perceive that any air entering by the nostrils must pass through or over the hair of the moustache, and be warmed in the passage: and when the air makes its way by the mouth, it must pass under the moustache and be warmed, like that under the eaves of a thatched roof. ”

“ It is the simple matter of hair on the face of male adults. When I was young, it was an unpardonable offence for any English person other than a cavalry officer, or perhaps someone of high social rank, to wear a moustache. ”

“ Have we not hair upon our chins and upper lips? And can we not, by diverting the trend of our moustache or by growing our beard in this way or that, avoid the boredom of looking the same for long? Let us beware. ”

“ Our lower lips would swell up to an enormous size and then break and fester. It was very painful, but when once cured we were not troubled again in this way, A good thick moustache was the best preventative, and I am sure a beard protected one's face a great deal. Some few of us shaved, but nearly all let their hair grow. ”

“ I added, laughing, “a most becoming moustache.”
“Oh! decidedly—I confess to a weakness for moustache; one may then be quite sure the man is no curate—eh! Mary?—But he talks too much, and evidently cares not for music.” ”

“ The Roman Catholic clergy of Dalmatia, secular and regular, are allowed to wear the moustache without beard or whiskers, as a concession to national prejudices.
Amongst English people, always ready to be swayed by fashion, the hair of the face has been, age by age, cherished or shaved away, curled or clipped into a hundred devices. Before the immigration from Sleswick the Briton knew the use of the razor, sometimes shaving his chin, but leaving the moustaches long. ”

“ He will not wear a false moustache or a wig, for instance. But the beginner is taught how a difference in dressing the hair, the combing out or waxing of a moustache, the substitution of a muffler for a collar, a cap for a bowler will alter his appearance. ”

“ From the Restoration year the razor comes more into use. Young men shave clean. The restored king curls a few dark hairs of a moustache over each cheek, but his brother James is shaven. With the reign of Queen Anne the country enters the beardless age, and beards, moustaches and whiskers are no more seen. In the 18th century the moustache indicated a soldier from beyond sea. A Jew or a Turk was known by the beard, an appendage loathsome as comic. ”

“ Mousseline′-de-laine, an untwilled woollen cloth, in many colours and varied patterns. [Fr.]
Moustache, Mustache, mus-tash′, n. the hair upon the upper lip of men: a soldier—also Mustach′io.—n. Moustache′-cup, a cup for drinking tea, &c., having the top partly covered to keep the moustache from being wet.—adjs. Moustached′, Mustach′ioed. [Fr. moustache—It. mostaccio—Gr. mastax, mastakos, the upper lip.]
Mouth, mowth, n. ”

“ Their features are marked, the nose straight and often aquiline, and the cheek-bones a trifle prominent; the hair is abundant and rarely black, the eyes are piercing and cold, and a well-cultivated moustache imparts a military air to the men. ”

“ He was a man of eight-and-twenty or thirty, above the middle height, slightly built, with delicate and regular features, a colour in his cheeks, a moustache curled up at the ends, a pointed chin-tuft, and black hair carefully parted down the middle. ”

“ It will be found rather difficult to paint moustaches on the hand so as to give them the right merry expression. The teeth, which lend so much life to the face, are troublesomely small to represent. We therefore think it best to draw a pair of moustaches exactly similar to the ones we subjoin, which can be made to stick in their place by the aid of a little diaclon or shoemaker's wax. ”

“ You note that the man wears a moustache, and you learn in some mysterious way that he was once accustomed to be very trim and spruce in person. When he speaks, you find that you have a hint of a cultivated accent ”

“ His moustaches, which were small and sprang from the corners of the mouth, accentuated the weary and drawn look which begins to appear on his face as early as 1391, and is so striking in the effigy on his tomb. ”

“ A second glance, and—my word for it—you will modify your opinion. A third will do away with your indifference; a fourth change it to admiration!
Continue the scrutiny, and it will end in your becoming convinced: that a woman wearing a moustache—young, beautiful, and brunette—is one of the grandest sights which a beneficent Nature offers to the eye of man.
It is presented in the person of Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos. If there is anything unfeminine in her face, it is not this ”

“ To make the second face, you must, if possible, get some one with very light eyebrows and no moustaches; then paint eyes and eyebrows on the forehead, which must be done artistically, shadows and all, and connect them, as represented, with the bridge of the nose, paint heavy black moustaches, [Pg 133] and your performer will have the appearance of possessing an immensely long face; he must, however, keep his eyes shut, or the illusion will be dispelled. ”

“ There are now much used packets of papers of a certain kind on which to wipe the razor, and which keep its edge keen, and are a substitute for the strop.
“Beards, moustaches, and whiskers, have always been most important additions to the face. In the present day literary men are much given to their growth, and in that respect show at once their taste and their vanity.{128} Let no man be ashamed of his beard, if it be well kept and not fantastically cut. The moustache should be kept within limits. The Hungarians wear it so long that they can tie the ends round their heads. ”

“ Get some person with a high forehead and tolerably long hair, and paint under the eyes a pair of eyebrows, and on the forehead a nose and pair of moustaches, as represented in the annexed cut. Then make the person [Pg 210] lie down on his back under a table, in such a way that you can arrange a curtain so as to conceal all the body and half the face. Brush the hair out to resemble a beard, and you have a perfect representation of a bodyless head.
For painting the moustaches and eyebrows, Indian-ink or burnt cork will answer. ”

“ Some men have full moustaches and large goatees, on the faces of others a few carefully tended hairs, as in China, do duty for both, while many have full, strong beards. The mouth is either the wide, full-lipped, gaping cavity constantly seen among the lower orders, or a small though full feature, or thin-lipped and refined, as is seen continually among patricians. ”