Capuchins alone. Although I have used some anecdotes about beards that were incidental to these quarrels, I have not gone into the religious phase of the subject to any extent.

Apart from such modern writers on beards as D. B. Wyndham Lewis, Donald Ogden Stewart, Stephen Leacock and Beverley Smith, the most delightful writers on the subject are the eighteenth century authors. That was really the last time the thing could be done properly — in the calm, serene world before the French Revolution when there was still reverence for scholarship per se and men had the leisure and the will to treat trifles gravely. The best of all of the writers of this period is the French author, Jacques Antoine Dulaure. In the following pages I have drawn freely from his book, Pogonologia, or a Philosophical and Historical Essay on Beards, which was first published in an English translation in 1786. I am also indebted to many persons for suggestions and material, especially to Raymond T. Bond, whose knowledge of beards is extensive and peculiar. Among others, my thanks are due to James T. Soby, Dr. Donald B. Cragin, Louis McQuilland, Warren S. Archibald, Robert Josephy, Kenneth Britton, Farwell Knapp, Cedric E. Smith and to my father, Emlyn Valentine Mitchell.

THE beard has played a salient part in the life of the race. The enormous importance attaching to it in the days when it was universally worn is perhaps a little difficult to understand in an age like ours when the desire of everyone to appear youthful has effectively kept the beard in check. Incredible as it may seem, one ancient king actually made a terrible scene because the reigning head of another state sent a beardless youth upon a political errand to his court. This bearded monarch stormed and raged when he beheld the satin-skinned lad, heaping so much abuse upon him that the young ambassador was finally driven to saying to the king scornfully, “Had my master known that you set so much store upon a beard, he would have sent you a goat."

Very different was the reception accorded George Killingworth, a political agent of Queen Elizabeth, when he was sent upon a mission to the court of Ivan the Terrible. Killingworth had a grand beard, measuring five feet, two inches in length. It was a glorious shade of yellow, quite broad and thick. Ivan was de

lighted by it and could not resist playing with it after luncheon. Others were allowed to touch it, too.

The ambassadors whom David, the psalmist king, sent to Hanun, king of the Ammonites, to console him for the death of his father, were bearded. But Hanun did not like the looks of David’s bearded delegation. Convinced that they were spies, he had half their beards and half their garments down to their waists cut off, and in this sad plight sent them back to David, who was furious at the insult. To save the faces of his representatives and to allow them to hide their shame, he sent them a message, saying, "Tarry ye at Jericho until your beards be grown." David then marched against the Ammonites and in a couple of bloody battles destroyed seven thousand of their chariots and killed their General Sophach and forty thousand foot.

When one considers the various pretexts under which nations today declare war upon each other, one is inclined to believe that the cutting of the ambassadorial beards may have been the apparent rather than the real cause of this appalling massacre, although when one recalls in what high esteem beards were held among the Jews and that there is a law in Leviticus expressly forbidding the cutting off of any part of the beard, David's punitive expedition appears neither excessively harsh nor unjust.

Other wars beside this affair of King David's have been fought on account of the beard. There was a nasty clash between the Tartars and the Persians, because the Tartar religion made a special point of the manner in which beards should be worn and the Persians went contrary to the Tartar teaching in this respect. And, as will presently be shown, the dogs of war were let slip in Europe when Louis the Young shaved his beard.

One of the greatest risks in wearing a beard, particularly in the old days, seems to have been that it made an excellent handle by which one’s enemy could seize one. Warfare was of a different character then. It was generally at closer quarters; there was a great deal of splendid hand-to-hand fighting, and a beard was of no benefit to its owner when things got hot. This held true for military operations as well as in the case of private brawls. It was positively dangerous to wear a beard. For this reason Alexander the Great prior to the battle of Ardela made all his soldiers shave, a defensive measure likewise adopted by some of Alexander's contemporaries, who, however, let their hair remain long in back to show that they had no fear of being seized from behind.

Alexander, it should be noted, while depriving his men of their beards, retained his own. This may have been because like a modern general he remained in

the background while the fighting was going on, or perhaps it was because he was so confident of his own prowess in battle that he did not feel that so far as he personally was concerned there was any military necessity for his shaving. But a reason probably much nearer the truth is that he knew if he appeared minus his beard it would detract from his dignity and he would fail to command the same respect that he did when in a bearded state.

The Emperor Charlemagne, whose great beard was as white as a Mayflower, was as indifferent to this danger of seizure as was Alexander. He used to spread his beard out over his cuirasse when he went into battle as an inspiration to his men, a practice followed in the tenth century by King Robert of France, the rival of Charles the Simple, who was noted for his exploits and his long white beard. When Charlemagne rode to the revenge of Roland after the famed defeat at Roncesvalles, he went so far as to make all his knights expose their beards outside their armour in order that friend might be distinguished from foe.

However, in the storming of a certain town during the crusades Alexander’s measure of making his followers rid themselves of their beards before going into action was preferred to Charlemagne's method of exposure. It was a night assault, and the Christians were shaved. He who wore a beard that night got the

cold steel. Several crusaders who forgot to use their razors were done in by their mates in the darkness.

It is a lamentable fact that at one time in his career Charlemagne was not only as beardless and smooth as Hoover, but a confounded shearer of beards into the bargain. He absolutely refused to let the Beneventians have Grimoald for duke, unless he made the Lombards shave. The Lombards, by the way, are said to derive their name from their long beards. But Charlemagne had no sooner become Emperor of the West than he adopted the Roman beard. Circumstances change everything, as one writer caustically remarks. And yet Charlemagne I think should be forgiven for having at one time been a traducer of the beard. Legend has it that away under the earth the mighty champion of Christianity sits with his knights around him. In all these centuries his immense beard has grown right through the table. Some one of these years the crucial challenge to the faith of Christ will come, and the venerable Charlemagne will draw his great beard from its home of stone and take the field again with Roland and Oliver and all his peers.

One of the saddest instances of a person being seized by the beard is recorded by Dulaure. It is the case of Bessarion, the famous Greek scholar, who became Archbishop of Nice, afterwards a cardinal, and at length rose to be Patriarch of Constantinople.

Violent hands were also laid upon another fine sacerdotal beard in France. The owner of this beard was the Bishop of Clermont, Guillaume Duprat, a son of the chancellor and prime minister of Francis I, who assisted at the Council of Trent and built the College of Jesuits at Paris. There were numerous quarrels in the Church during the sixteenth century between the shaved priests and the bearded priests. It was a question of discipline. Duprat’s beard, probably the best in France at that time, did not escape the attention of the shaved faction. The canons of his cathedral in full chapter assembled came to the barbarous resolution that he should be shaved.

Accordingly, on Easter Sunday when he came to perform divine service he found the gates of the choir shut. Three dignitaries of the chapter, including the dean, were waiting for him at the entrance. Two of them were armed with scissors, razors, soap and a basin of hot water. The basin was probably similar to the one described by Randle Holme in his work on barbering, a basin such as “the valiant Don Quixote took from a bloody enchanting barber, which he took to be a golden head-piece.” The third dignitary held the ancient statute book of the church, pontng with his finger to the words barbis rasis. They closed in on him like a pack of hungry creditors. "At the sight of this frightful preparation,” says

Dulaure, "the prelate perceived that they aimed at his beard, the dearest object of his attention; two of these fatal enemies seemed to threaten it with the instruments with which they were armed; and the third kept crying: 'Reverend father in God, barbis rasis.' The impatient dean had already laid hold of his episcopal fleece, when our bearded bishop stopped him, and being a little recovered from his fright, he endeavored to convince him of the impropriety of working on such a great holyday, and that it was better to defer the operation till the next day; but the temporizing prelate’s eloquence made no impression on the minds of these intractable men; the unmerciful dean kept his hold: full of indignation at this mortifying insult, and terrified for the fate of his cherished beard, Duprat suddenly took to his heels, crying: ‘I save my beard, and quit my bishopric.’

“He immediately repaired to his country house at Beauregard, three leagues from Clermont, and swore he would never more live in that capital. It was in this place of retirement, that, being violently moved at the affront which his beard had received, he fell ill and died of grief."

To come from far-off things and battles long ago to modern times, an instance of an outrage to the beard of an official was contained only last year in an Associated Press dispatch from Athens. It concerned

the case of a religious fanatic named Carayanidis, who was caught in a church of Piraeus while cutting off the beard of the Metropolitan of Athens. “The act,” said the dispatch, “was in reprisal for the substitution by the Metropolitan of the Gregorian for the Julian calendar, which is greatly resented by the populace." This church beard cutter was acquitted, but whether it was merely a popular verdict, whether insanity was successfully interposed as a defence, or whether the case went off on some technicality, was not stated. At any rate, the ruining of this Greek beard was a much higher and more humiliating form of revenge for changing the calendar than would have been a mere vulgar assassination.

An amusing anecdote of the strategical use of the beard, not in warfare but in a game of chess, is related by Alfred Kreymborg, the poet, in the current number of The American Mercury. “I remember a game I played with a rabbi old enough to be my father’s grandfather," says Mr. Kreymborg. "He had a beard longer than the beard of Moses. He combed it with care and let it hang with ease over one corner of the board. It was too long to hang anywhere else. We were in the midst of an exciting game in the midst of an excited band of kibitzers. I noticed nothing at the time but the game itself. The old rascal had ‘swindled' me out of the first game: a legitimate swindle, a

coffee-house trap. I vowed vengeance and dug myself into the table. The smoke was terrific—I didn’t smoke in those days. The pieces we handled were heterogeneous: queens looked like bishops, bishops like pawns, and some of the knights had no heads. I was nearsighted, but I didn't mind. I'd got the hang of the pieces. And I’d got the hang of the position. But I didn’t get the hang of the beard. I paid no attention to that.

“The game was going my way,” Mr. Kreymborg continues. "The rabbi was attacking on all sides, but I revelled in such tactics. I was always at my best in building up walls against attacks, and then forcing a hole with a pawn, another pawn and then the counter attack. The old fellow shook his head, so did the other old fellows. They began poking fun at him, unmerciful fun. ‘Warte nur,' he said, but kept on retreating. ‘Warte nur yourself' I retorted, and went on advancing.

“Suddenly, I detected a mate in three moves and cried, ‘Check!' He moved his king. Then I shouted, `Check again!' and he moved his king. Then I grabbed my queen, banged her down and crowed, 'Checkmate, my friend!' The rabbi shook his head calmly. 'Not yet, my friend,’ he replied, lifting his magnificent beard off the corner of the board. Out came a rook that removed my queen!"

Not only was the beard regarded as the seat of honor in olden times, but it was also considered to be the mark of manhood and virility, the special symbol of wisdom and philosophy, and by it the most sacred oaths were sworn. Plutarch mentions the long white beard of an ancient Laconian, who being asked why he let it grow so luxuriantly, replied, “ ‘Tis, that, seeing continually my white beard, I may do nothing unworthy of it."

There is probably in the history of beards no better example of the awe and admiration which the sight of a majestic beard commands than the incident related by Livy. The Gauls had captured Rome and the sanguinary hordes were swarming into the capitol to pillage and murder. The Roman senators sat calmly in dignified silence, awaiting their fate without a trace of fear. The spectacle of these grave and reverend men with their long beards cast a spell over the rough invaders. The slaughter stopped as they became lost in admiration. Their weapons fell from their hands. The bearded conscript fathers continued to sit in mute resignation until at last a soldier stepped up to one of them and touched his white beard. The aged lawmaker, thinking he had been insulted, promptly bashed the untutored barbarian on the head with his ivory rod, and for this act paid with his litre. The spell was broken and the carnage began once more.

In the battle of the bearded and the shaved, the most celebrated writers seem to have been on the side of the beard. Homer writes with high respect and warm regard of the white beards of Nestor and old King Priam, and Juvenal is pleased to remember that of Antilochus, the son of Nestor. The beautiful profuse beard that covered the chest of Mezentius is described with keen appreciation by Virgil, while Chrysippus pays tribute to the noble beard of Timothy, a famed player on the flute. The Bible abounds in complimentary allusions to beards. David sang the praises of the growth on Aaron’s chin. Those pious men, the patriarchs, who were so richly blessed with supporting spouses, had enormous beards.

“When I am walking in my gallery in the country, and see my ancestors, who many of them died before they were my age, I cannot forbear regarding them as so many old patriarchs, and, at the same time, looking upon myself as an idle smock-faced young fellow," said Sir Roger de Coverley. "I love to see your Abrahams, your Isaacs, and your Jacobs, as we have them in old pieces of tapestry, with beards below their girdles, that cover half the hangings"

Saint Clement of Alexandria, one of the most learned of the early interpreters of the faith complains in several of his profound works about the

CONCERNING BEARDS disgraceful practice of shaving, and speaks with great warmth against the rakes of his time, who were not ashamed to appear in public close-shaven. This saint eulogizes the beard. "lt contributes," he says, “to man’s beauty, as a fine head of hair does t0 that of a woman}

In the old days of the beard the absence of hair from the human countenance was considered a mark of turpitude and disgrace. Diogenes asked all shaven men whom he met if they were dissatisfied with being men and had changed their sex. Among many nations the loss of the beard meant banishment. ln the eyes ofthe first fathers ofthe Church a shaved chin branded the debauchee. Tertullian, one ofthe greatest of the early ecclesiastical writers, is a staunch and eloquent opponent of the razor.

lt is told of one of the popes that he refused to accept an edition of the works of a certain saint because in the illustrations the saint was shown without a beard.

Some satiric verses of d’Aubigne directed against the detestable Henry lll of France, who appeared smooth-faced at a party, show the odium in which one who applied a razor to his beard was held. Henry was utterly profligate anyway, but his shaving was regarded as a descent to uncomputable depths of degradation.

One of Shakespeare’s most sprightly heroines avows that she will kiss every man who has a beard that pleases her. One hopes she met with a soldier such as the poet describes in his Seven Ages speech, “full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard," because, of course, there must have been something exciting about a man resembling a leopard. In those old days when lovers felt true passion and ladies were accustomed to behold their lovers with beards, the sight of a shaved chin excited feelings of horror and aversion in ladies, just as in this unheroic age would the sight of a gallant whose beard should stream like a meteor on the troubled air. But there are exceptions to this rule today. There are women who prefer men bearded. And in the bearded times there were women who fancied men with faces wholly unadorned. Thomas Campion celebrates one of the exceptional girls of his day in a bit of verse that is now generally forgotten.

The naked chin of King Louis the Young of France, eldest son of Louis the Fat, disgusted and alienated his young wife, Eleanor. When her husband shaved his beard she revenged herself as she thought proper by yielding to the amorous advances of various bearded gentlemen, including a big Turk named Saladin, for whom she had previously entertained only platonic sentiments. If the reaped chin of the king had resulted merely in displeasing her majesty and in a bit of mild cheating on her part, the mischief would have been comparatively trifling, but it was the origin of centuries of bad feeling and bloodshed between England and France, costing millions of lives.

Louis had married Eleanor before mounting the French throne. She was the daughter of the last Duke of Aquitaine and had for her marriage dower the rich provinces of Poitou and Guienne. Thus the alliance united to the French crown a wonderful stretch of country extending from the Lower Loire to the Pyrenees. Some

time later, Count Thibaut of Champagne, an incorrigible plotter, who was always fomenting disturbances, provoked Louis to march into

Champagne, where he sacked the town of Vitry and set fire to a church in which hundreds of people who had gone there for sanctuary perished. Struck with remorse at his own cruelty, Louis at the instigation of the clergy cut off his beard by way of atonement. His unusual appearance made him very ridiculous and contemptible in the eyes of Queen Eleanor, and she often chided him about it, but the penitent king continued to employ the razor devoutly.

Saint Bernard, spurred on by Pope Eugene III, his old disciple, took advantage of the king’s state of mind to persuade him still further to expiate his fault and appease the wrath of God by undertaking a second crusade to the Holy Land. The remorseful Louis was as easily prevailed upon to make this expedition as he had been to allow himself to be shaved. Eleanor, either out of curiosity or a sense of duty, decided to accompany her husband to Palestine. The enterprise was a failure, and Louis had the further misfortune to be injured in his honor and domestic comfort by the notorious indiscretions of the queen. She kept expressing her admiration for long beards, and allowed Raymund, Prince of Antioch, her paternal uncle, and the uncommonly handsome Turk named Saladin, both finely bearded men in a dark way, to make her forget the fatigues of the campaign and the fact that her consort was beardless. 16

Upon their return from the East, Louis was eager to get rid of his false lady, but his minister, Abbot Segur, dreaded the consequences of the restoration of her dowry, and prevailed upon him not to divorce her. After the death of Segur, however, Louis had his marriage set aside under the pretext of consanguinity. The provinces of Aquitaine were not only detached from the crown of France, but what was worse were transferred to that of England by Eleanor's marriage six weeks after her divorce to Henry, Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy, who shortly afterwards became Henry II of England. Poor shaved Louis seeing this monarch in possession of his wife and her provinces declared war against him. In this way the cutting off of a beard started those wars that kept France in flames for three hundred years.

Many illustrious men have rejoiced in the surname of Bearded. Socrates, whom Aristophanes introduces into his comedy of the Clouds measuring the leap of a flea from his own beard to that of Cærephon and back again, was called the Bearded Master. Constantine IV was distinguished by the appellation Bearded. Handsome Beard was the name bestowed on Baldwin IV, Earl of Flanders, a prominent crusader. There was a famous Bouchard of the great house of Montmorency who was proud to be called Bearded. A

fifteenth century governor of Berwick named Sir Magnus was remarkable for his long red beard and was called by the English Magnus Redbeard and by the Scotch in derision Magnus Redmain, as if his beard had been a horse’s mane. Sir John Mandeville, whose book of Trave/s has been called “the most unblushing volume of lies that was ever offered to the world,” was known as ]ohn with a Beard.

A number of abominable characters have been nicknamed after their beards. In the annals ofpiracy there is one such famous chin ornament, which gives to Captain Edward Thatch, sometimes called Teach, most of the power of his personality. This callous and bloodthirsty buccaneer, who put whole towns to the sword, killing the aged and infants and defiowering virgins, had a long silken beard, jetty in hue, of which he was inordinately proud; but on a day of slaughter he took liberties with it, filling it with gunpowder squibs, while he himself chewed glass to make the blood run out of his mouth. One of this Blackbeard’s favorite tricks was to caress his beard lovingly at table and then suddenly blow out the lights and fire under the table at the legs of his colleagues. Thatch, in his grim way, reminds one of the eccentric old man of the limerick:

There was an Old Man with a beard,

Who said, “It is just as I feared'

Earl Carroll, producer of Vanities, has shown familiarity with this limerick. In one of his revues a flock of canaries suddenly flew out of the beard of an actor when it was tweaked by another player. Considerable publicity was won for the show by this stunt, as it stirred up a controversy over the question of cruelty to the birds. Ifl remember rightly, it was established that the canaries enjoyed nesting in the crepe hair and did not mind being flushed into the spotlight.

The most famous beard in the world, however, was not black but blue. Monsieur Charles Perrault, author of that nervous delight of the nursery, Bluebeord, was Superintendent of Public Buildings in Paris under Colbert. He retired in early middle-age to devote himself to literature and the education of his children. He wrote for their amusement His/oirer ou Con/er du Temp: Posse. This book of immortal fairy legends was dedicated to Mlle. Elizabeth Charlotte d’Orleans, niece of Louis XIV. It contained in addition to Blueoeard, tales of equal fame in Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Pur: in Boot:. The cruel husband with the azure beard, whose disobedient wife found the corpses of

CONCERNING BEARDS

The original Bluebeard, a much more sinister wretch than Perrault's murdering husband, was Gilles des Rais (or Retz), who lived in Brittany in the first half of the fifteenth century. He was noble and wealthy and a brave soldier, fighting under the banner of Joan of Arc and was later created a Marshall of France. Gilles was a handsome man, tall and upstanding, with large blue eyes and long black eyelashes. His hair was raven in color with that extreme black which has a blue glint in it. This showed especially in his fine beard of which he took great care.

In his early years there was apparently no great vice in Gilles des Rais and the Maid ofOrleans valued his knightly services. At the close of the French king's wars with England and Burgundy, Gilles retired to his country seat in Brittany and it was then that he lost his soul. Like many people of the time, gentle folk as well as simple folk, Des Rais was an implicit believer in the possibility of compounding the Elixir of Life, to keep mankind young and blooming forever, and of finding the Philosophers Stone which could transmute any metal into gold. To aid him in his researches he brought with him Francisco Prelati, an 20

CONCERNING BEARDS Italian magician, who professed to know all about Black and White l\lagic and who had a most unsavoury reputation wherever he abode.

As Gilles grew older and perhaps less well equipped for gallantry in an age when a man lived a decade in a year, the greater his desire became for the Elixir of Life. It appeared that the one great essential for this marvellous potion was the blood of maidens and children. As wealthy aristocrats then were almost a law to themselves, Gilles des Rais had no scruples in endeavoring to procure this ingredient for the Elixir. From quiet houses all over the countryside in Brittany, young girls and children were kidnapped, brought to Des Rais’ fortress and hideously experimented on by the seigneur and his friend. Somehow the Elixir failed to materialize, so fresh victims had constantly to be found to provide the missing ingredient.

At first the peasantry thought that their children had fallen a prey to wild beasts, or had slipped down precipices or been drowned; but very shortly it became evident that there was a wild beast in human form seizing virgins and infants for his awful purpose. The country was scoured night and day by bodies of searchers, and finally Des Rais and Prelati were caught redhanded and delivered into the hands of justice, both ecclesiastical and lay. Despite Des Rais’ 21

position and his money (seriously depleted by his series of failures with the Philosophers’ Stone), despite, too, his past distinguished services for France, he was at last compelled to realize that he must suffer the fate of the common criminal along with his base accomplice.

This Marshall of France and colleague of the Maid was sentenced to death and executed in the city of Nantes on October 27, 1446, amid a great crowd of citizens and folk who flocked in from the country districts. Gilles was gibbeted and burned in his beard. He died truly penitent. Instead of hurling execrations at him, the multitude prayed for his soul. He was but forty-two years of age, though he looked sixty.

The Bluebeard story has appealed to many writers. Plays and operas have been based upon it. One of Thackeray's most amusing burlesques is Bluebeard's Ghost, which opens with Mrs. Bluebeard moaning low for the husband cut down by the cruel cavalry sabres of her brothers. Edna St. Vincent Millay has a sonnet in Renascence on the Bluebeard theme of overpowering curiosity. A highly entertaining Bluebeard ballad which appeared anonymously some years ago in a Vassar College paper is often attributed to Miss Millay. In this ballad the cruel husband with the lapis-lazuli beard triumphs.

CONCERNING BEARDS The ordinary xtory I.m't gary But ajest; T0 te/I the truth unqua/{hed, Her husband ·wam’t ma//{fed, Her head ix in the bloody Lit!/e xtud y H/ith the rext.

Landru, the heavily bearded Parisian, whose wives had a faculty of disappearing, was guillotined on the evidence of their ashes. He was known as Bluebeard also. But his beard was not of a bluish hue; it was a decided chestnut shade. Before his execution the prison ofiicials wished to cut off Landru’s long beard, but he pleaded so earnestly for its retention that he was allowed to suffer death with it still intact, although it was undoubtedly severed by the blade of the machine at the moment of decapitation. In earlier days a condemned person was frequently shorn of his beard as an added disgrace.

The concern of Landru for his beard at the last minute of the eleventh hour brings to mind Sir Thomas More, who did so handsomely by himselfand his beard on the scaffold. When he laid his head upon the block he perceived that his beard was likely to be injured by the executionefs axe. A man of wit and humor to the last, he said cheerfully as he put it

ZM

CONCERNING BEARDS out of the way, “My beard has not been guilty of treason. It would be an injustice to punish it.’ When john Brown was hanged the noose was adjusted beneath his beard in order to spare it.

All the noble old writers on the subject of beards are agreed that the time spent in caring for the beard is not time lost because the more the beard is admired the more will the mind be fed and entertained with manly and courageous ideas. The grandfather of Mrs. Sappho Thomas, the mistress of Henry Cromwell, poet, rake and friend of Pope, had a pleasant habit during the toilet of his beard. Sappho says, "He was very nice in the mode of that age, his valet being some hours every morning in starching his beard and curling his whiskers, during which time he was always read to."

Robinson Crusoe, shipwrecked on a juan Fernandez peak, had no one to look after his beard or read to him, but caring for his beard himself doubtless gave valor and energy to his mind. As there was no one to observe his personal appearance, one could hardly fail to pardon him if he had let his beard spring out in unrestrained and wanton freedom, but he had fetched along from the wreck a supply of razors and scissors and devoted some of his leisure to grooming his beard. At one time he sufiered it to

CONCERNING BEARDS become a quarter of a yard in length, but he usually kept it trimmed pretty short. He speaks of the hair on his higher lip, to which he gave full rein, training it into a large pair of Mahommedan or Turkish “whiskers” almost monstrous enough to permit him to hang his hat upon them. Defoe, it should be remarked, uses the term “whiskers” incorrectly. The word whisker or whiskers applies to the hair on the cheeks; the moustache or moustaches being the hair on the upper lip, and the beard the hair covering the chin. The terms are often carelessly used, especially by beardless writers, and Defoe was one of these.

The favorite oath of the Mohammedan is “By the beard of the prophetl” The camel boy who founded the most militant religion in the world dyed his beard red. Those splendid fighting men, the Sikhs, have the same practice. As a youth Mohamet married Khadija, who was many years his senior, but a wealthy widow. The favorite among his young wives was Ayesha. Doubtless both women combed the prophet’s beard for him. He is described as “of middle height, greyish, with hair that was neither straight nor curly, with a large head, large eyes, heavy eyelashes of reddish tint and thin beard of the same colour."

His followers often comb their beards after praying and before rising from their knees, any stray hairs 26

CONCERNING BEARDS from their beards being carefully saved for burial after being broken in two.

Henna is the beard dye chiefly used among the Arabians as it gives the beard the color nearest to that recommended by Mohamet. In Europe and America the colour most commonly employed when beards were in favor was a dark brown or blackish shade. It was applied to conceal that prominent mark of advancing age, gray hair. l have talked with barbers who remember dyeing beards in the 'eighties and ’nineties.

"The dye was vile stufif," one of them told me. "lt was difficult to apply properly and almost impossible to get off your fingers. VVe barbers hated it and finally got rid of that end of our work by not keeping any dye on hand. And what good did it do to dye a beard, anyhow? You could always spot a dyed beard, and ofcourse the gray hair would come in again right away. Some men would have the gray hairs pulled out of their beards. We used to get ten cents for trimming a beard, and, believe it or not, I have known customers who would expect a barber to spend fifteen or twenty minutes yanking white hairs out of their beards. All for a dime, mind you. There was nerve for you. We don’t get as many shaves now as we used to, but beards were very bad for business] Theophrastus speaks of an old man who before

pleading his cause before the Lacedemonian senate stained his white beard and hoary locks black. His adversary interrupted him in the middle of his speech to inquire of the senators what confidence could be placed in the words of a man who carried a lie in his face. Lewis Carroll’s aged man sitting on a gate in Alice Through the Looking Glass, says, But I was thinking of a plan To dye one's whiskers green, And always use so large a fan That they could not be seen.

Fan beards were once popular and were kept in that shape by a wax preparation, which gave the hair a pleasant odor and any colour desired. The beard was put in order at night and to prevent its getting out of shape, it was done up in a sort of purse made expressly for that purpose. This was a continental practice of the time of Henry IV. The large bat-wing collar of the late nineteenth century is said to have been designed to fan out the beard.

There was formerly a prejudice against yellow beards, which were known as Cain-coloured beards. Cain and Judas were always depicted with yellow beards in old tapestries and paintings. Shakespeare describes a person by saying, "He hath a little wee

CONCERNING BEARDS face, with a little yellow beard; a Cain-coloured beard." Yellow beards differ from other beards in that they make a person look younger instead of older. The yellow-bearded white cannibals who were a feature of the side-show of the Ringling BrothersBarnum and Bailey circus in the seasons of 1928 and 1929 had beards like sponges.

Golden beards had a long run and were very popular with Eastern princes, The kings of Persia were addicted to this fashion. Gold thread and spangles were woven into their beards. This idea of decorating the beard spread from Asia to Europe. The early French kings wore ribbons in their beards, with silver threads among the gold. Saint Chrysostom did not approve of golden beards. After reproaching the women of Antioch for their luxurious indulgences, he says, "lfl should give you an account of a sort of luxury still more absurd than that of those women, who wear gold in their hair, load their lips and eyebrows with it, who, in short, are covered all over with this precious metal, don’t think I want to raise a laugh: what I am going to relate exists at this day; it is the king of Persia I mean to speak of. This monarch is not ashamed to wear a golden beard; all the hair of his chin is covered or interwoven with little plates of gold or threads of the same metal. This prince with his face thus adorned looks more like a monster than a man]

In the reign of Louis Xl the Duke of Lorraine appeared at the funeral of the Duke of Burgundy, whom he vanquished at the battle of Nancy in 1476, in a false golden beard in imitation of the knights of old. “He was," says the continuator of Monstrelet, “dressed in mourning, and had a long golden beard that reached down to his middle, in commemoration of the ancient worthies, and of the victory which he had gained over him.’

Bearded men in these days are often obliged to trim their own beards because of the difiiculty of finding barbers experienced in the art of beard trimming. Although the term barber is derived from the word meaning beard, I have seen bearded men come out of barbershops looking as if the barber had chewed 0H their beards. Their hair has looked chewed too. Club barbers in some of the older clubs, such as the Union League Club, are said to be very good at trimming beards. But these barbers are not for the ordinary bearded person. Mr. jaschke, the Barber of Kings, whose shop was in Regent Street, London, did not long survive the destruction of his shop when Regent Street was rebuilt five or six years ago. Mr. Arthur Machen wonders what would have happened if he had gone into this shop and asked for a shave or a haircut. “We have all heard," says Mr. Machen, "how King

CONCERNING BEARDS Edward pronounced him the perfect barber; the man who knew not only the art of beard-trimming in perfection, but also that more diflicult art of hearing everything and saying nothing. Royalty was the province of _]aschke’s razors and scissors; his back shop was called the House of Lords, so noble was the custom of the place. And, considering these things, the awful question has just struck me: VVhat would have happened to me ifI had strolled into _]aschke’s and asked for a shave or a haircut? This is a very deep and perplexing question, but the situation is not without precedent. Newman Noggs, it may be remembered, once escorted Miss Morleena Kenwigs to a highly genteel establishment in Soho, where they not only cut and curled ladies elegantly and children carefully, but shaved gentlemen easily. And while Morleena's pigtails were being attended to there presented himself for a shaving a big, burly, goodhumoured coal-heaver, with a pipe in his mouth who, drawing his hand across his chin, requested to know when a shaver would be disengaged.

“Thejourneyman, to whom this question was put, looked doubtfully at the young proprietor, and the young proprietor looked scorn fully at the coal-heaver, observing at the same time: ‘You won't get shaved here, my man.’ ‘Why not?’ said the coal-heaver.

'We don’t shave gentlemen in your line,' remarked the young proprietor.

‘Why, I see you a-shaving of a baker, when I was a-looking through the winder, last week,’ said the coal-heaver.

‘It’s necessary to draw the line somewhere, my fine fellow,’ replied the principal. ‘We draw the line there. We can't go beyond bakers. If we was to get any lower than bakers, our customers would desert us, and we might shut up shop] The situation seems to me fairly analagous. But what would I have said, if I had ventured into the `House of Lords’ at ]aschke’s, asked for a shave, and been told that _Iaschl<e didn’t shave gentlemen in my line? Should I have observed, ‘I see you a-shaving of a temporary major,’ and would jaschke have replied that he drew the line at temporary majors? It is a curious and a doubtful point]

Another famous London barbershop, happily still surviving, where bearded men are welcome, is Burgess` in the Opera Arcade. Any barber here may be trusted to deal properly with the most diihcult beard. The military hair brushes sold on the premises are excellent for brushing the beard.

In Paris there is a good beard trimmer in the barbershop of Felix Milliat, 7 Boulevard de la Madeleine. The proprietor of this place is bearded, but do not

take his chair. Go to his assistant, as he attends to the proprietor's beard, and is consequently always in good trim, so to speak.

There is, or at least was up to short time ago, a Russian barber in the Hotel Commodore, New York, with an understanding of the art of beard trimming; and a barber called Pat at the Hotel Vendome, Boston, can also be trusted with the task of putting a beard in shape, if he is still there. Jack McGee of Hartford, Connecticut, has perfect mastery of the art.

A friend of mine with an orange-tawny beard takes delight in going about blinding barbers. His beard is so crisp and wiry that when it is cut the hair fiies amazingly, and unless a barber is careful he gets an eyeful at the first clip. Barbershops with a bearded patronage keep goggles on hand for their customers to wear as a protection for their eyes while having their beards trimmed, or, lacking this safety device, the customer is blindfolded with a towel.

A neglected or dishevelled beard was a mark of mourning with some peoples. The Egyptians, a smooth-shaven race, allowed their beards to grow as a sign of sorrow. If a man was unable to grow a beard for mourning purposes, he purchased a false one, so that Aunt Minnie would not be cheated of her full quota of honor. The priests and others in Egypt when they did wear the beard affected long, narrow ones cut square across at the tip.

Just after the war a Fourth Avenue publisher had a beard that was curled outward at the end like one of the sacred bulls of Egypt or Assyria. I suspect he had costly perfumes squirted on it. When I questioned him about his beard he said, “One of the penalties of being bearded these days is that it invites a great many impertinent questions. But I don't mind telling you that I have failed to find the violent prejudice that is supposed to exist against the beard, particularly among ladies]

“Would you,” I asked, “look with favor upon a new novel in which the hero was bearded, if one was offered to you for publication?

“No,” he said, "I shouldn`t care to publish a book with a bearded hero~— at least, not at the present time. The beard isn”t popular enough yet. But it is bound to come back, and then, of course, all fictional heroes will be bearded. One thing that retards the return of the beard is the curious popular notion that it is difiicult to grow one. As a matter of fact, it isn't difficult at all. Any young lad can grow a beard."

There are some interesting facts concerning beards in _]. Rennie’s The Art qf Prercrving the Hair. My edition of this work is a miserable tattered copy printed in London, 8vo., in 1826, for Septimus

CONCERNING BEARDS Prowett of Old Bond Street. "Although the hairs of the beard," says Dr. Rennie, “are generally shorter than those of the head, yet they are longer than similar productions on the body They are usually of the same colour as the former, but somewhat darker, and have more the red cast which is frequently conjoined to light hair. They curl, are stronger, and are more resistant, and invariably less oily than those of the head. The fullness of the beard varies considerably in different individuals. Strength and power, in general, are the properties of those in whom it abounds, and assumes a deep black. It may also be remarked, that, in different species of animals, the strongest males are those in which the exterior production, by which they are distinguished from the females, is most perfect. This characteristic may be said to\indicate the energy or weakness of their constitution. A small lion is never seen with a large mane: large horns always belong to a Hne deer; long and strongly twisted ones to a well-built ram. The same observation is not applicable to the other hairs common to both sexes: those of the arms, thighs, etc. are often quite as large, and even more numerous, in a weak than muscular person]

Dr. Rennie, after pursuing the history of the people of different nations that suffer their beards to grow and those who are in the habit of shaving 35

CONCERNING BEARDS Eunuchs, remarkable for a weakness of powers, frequently lose part of their beard}

"Such are our prejudices respecting the ideas we have formed to ourselves of beauty," Dr. Rennie goes on to say, “that we consider ridiculous that which is really beautiful; for whatever proves organic perfection, must undoubtedly be such: a male peacock, deprived of the emerald plumage of its tail; a ram, robbed ofits horns; a deer that has lost them, have something displeasing: why, then, should not a man, deprived of his beard, produce a similar f`eelingP"

Dr. Rennie might have cited as relevant to the points he makes, Gay’s fable of the goat without a beard and certain passages in Samuel Butler’s Hudihmy. One wishes he had brought in Samson who lost his strength with his hair. Did Samson have a strong beard?

A mere list of the known varieties of beards would make a fair-sized catalogue. There is.a seventeenth century song that mentions the difficulties of classification. Nvw of heard: there he such zz company, Offashionx such a lhrong, That ’ti: very hard ta trea! of the heard, Th0’ it he never :0 long. 37

Chaucer speaks of the spade beard, but his own beard was forked, a style followed by Frank Brangwyn the artist. The cathedral beard was broad and long and was so called because “bishops and grave men of the Church anciently did wear such beards". Length was an advantage in an ecclesiastical beard. The Bishop of Bellay, ]ohn Peter Camus, used to divide his beard into two or three tufts according to the number of heads into which he had divided his sermon. But the beard is not popular with the clergy at the present time. This is shown by the fact that at the 1930 Lambeth Conference the only bearded prelate was the Bishop of Exeter. In heraldry a full face with a sharp-pointed beard was termed “a man’s face with a pick-a-devant beard". The so-called mouse-eaten beard was "when the beard groweth scatteringly, not together, but here a tuft and there a tuft." In addition to the ordinary square and round beards, there were many others, such as the swallow tail, the artichoke leaf, the meat axe, the scrubbing brush, etc. Professor William Lyon Phelps has suggested that bearded men who shaved their upper lips, like Abraham Lincoln and John Greenleaf Whittier, did so for convenience in eating. Whatever may have been the motive in the nineteenth century, this custom seems to have originated in the Church hundreds of years ago. A

CONCERNING BEARDS provincial council held at Rheims in 1583 recommended that all priests of the diocese cut off the hair of the upper lip in order to be able to receive the communion without any obstacle. Some twenty years before this the Sorbonne gravely decided that a long beard was contrary to sacerdotal modesty. On july 1, 1561, this assembly ordered all the members of their university, doctors, bachelors, etc. to wear their beards shaved, etc. Nan dexemm barbu: fs? veniant tami. One would think that in an American university today any member of the faculty would be permitted to wear a beard, but only a short time ago a young instructor at Harvard with a fine red beard was requested by the authorities to shave. He is now the only bearded member of the faculty of one of the smaller New England colleges.

Barbers were as cunning as tailors in giving a man an appropriate cut. “lf a man have a lean and straight face, a Marquess Otto’s cut will make it broad and large; if it be platter-like, a long slender beard will make it seem the narrower; if he be weasel-becked, then much hair left on the cheeks will make the owner look big like a bowdled hen.' A drunken Persian king who did not like the way in which a barber trimmed beards had the unfortunate man's hand lopped off. 39

There have always been certain risks connected with wearing a long beard. There is the fire hazard, for example, which was greatly increased by the introduction of the pleasing minor social vice of smoking. There is the danger of pestilence, now much diminished since doctors gave up the custom of the beard. And there is the risk, which I have mentioned elsewhere, of the beard being grasped by some ruflian or blackguard wishing to gain a harmful ascendancy over the owner. Despite these risks, I find upon inquiry that insurance companies make no distinction between bearded men and shaven men in writing accident and life policies. As a matter of fact the beard, as often as not, may be a protection.

VVith regard to the first of these risks, namely, that from fire, an elderly gentleman died in New York early this year as a result of accidentally lighting his beard instead of his pipe. Death seems to have supervened in this case as much from sorrow over the loss of a first-class beard as from the character and extent of the burns, which apparently were not primary burns. Nor does the victim seem to have breathed the flames of his blazing beard.

Samuel Pepys records in his diary the curious incident of Mr. Damford’s beard, which was damaged by hot mince pie. Pepys dined with a number of gentlemen, including a man named Prin, an honest,

CONCERNING BEARDS plain fellow, but not very free or pleasant in his discourse, according to the diarist, although he told the best story of any. “Among all the tales that passed among us today," reads the entry in the journal, “he told us of one Damford, that, being a black man, did scald his beard with mince-pie, and it came up again all white in that place, and continued to his dying day.’

Dante had a beard having a burnt appearance. He is usually pictured with the beardless chin of an ascetic poet, but in some of the older lives of him mention is made of his beard. It is said that people pointed him out in the streets as the man whose beard was scorched because he had been in hell.

Burning or singeing the beard with hot nutshells was the method adopted by Dionysius for dressing his beard after he had taken away the golden beard of Aesculapius, the god of physic. Dionysius was afraid to trust himself in the hands of the barbers of Syracuse after depriving the god of all doctors of his beard, and was assisted in applying the hot nutshells by his children.

Medical men were for years so loyal in their attachment to the beard that it became the distinguishing mark or badge of the profession. Young doctors emerging from medical school, hospital or pest-house to engage in practice immediately grew

CONCERNING BEARDS beards to give themselves an appearance of age and wisdom. It was really a harmless form of showmanship, no worse than similar things sometimes done by members of other professions. When I started to practise law I bought for six dollars from the proprietor of a livery stable a huge second-hand rolltop desk that had been through the Boston fire and a swivel chair of the same vintage, thinking that this aged furniture would suggest to possible clients that I was far from being green at the legal game. Many people can remember being tickled by the beard of the old family doctor as he leaned over them to discover what was the trouble. When a boy I made the happy discovery that the bearded dentist to whom I was sent could be made to stop work by pulling a single hair of his long beard. He would pause in his drilling and scratch his chin. But I pulled a hair of his beard once too often and was caught. Instead of being angry, he was amused and often told people of the trick I had played on him. The medical profession finally got rid of the beard for sanitary reasons. One doctor whom I asked about the matter because I knew he had worn a beard, said, “We got tired of tying our beards up in little Hannel bags every time we operated."

At one time doctors prescribed the wearing of beards by persons with delicate throats and it was

thought to be a salutary thing contributing generally to the health of man. Adrian Junius, a physician who lived in the sixteenth century, in his commentary on the hair of the head, asserts that the beard is a preservative against several disorders. Gentian Hervet in one of his discourses on beards relates that after the Council of Trent several ecclesiastics being obliged to shave were seized with violent toothaches. Pierrius Valerianus in his Pm Sarerdaium Burbis speaks of the beard as a promoter of health. `"I`he beard in summer,” says he, “defends the face from the burning rays of the sun, and in winter from rimes.” Between the danger from the beard as a germ carrier and the healthful benefits to be derived from growing one, I think it may be said that the honors are easy.

I have already spoken of seizure of the beard for purposes of violence. But the beard was frequently touched or taken hold of to show affection and esteem. It was indeed one of the amenities of ancient days. It meant that good faith and friendliness existed between two persons. When Joab went to Amasa he took hold of his beard with his right hand to kiss him, saying, “Art thou in health, my brother? And because of this Amasa paid no heed to the sword that was in _]oab’s hand, and ]oab smote him in the iifth rib and Amasa shed out his bowels to the ground. 43

Among the Greeks it was believed that to touch the beard of a person from whom a favor was asked was to have that favor granted. This ancient superstition is graphically illustrated in one of Ingres’ greatest paintings, in which Zeus, powerful and stern in a beard as black as that of the new king of Abyssinia, is represented upon his throne above the clouds, while a scantily clad girl kneeling at his feet stretches up her hand to touch his beard as she petitions for his favor. The girl is Thetis, a lovely marine divinity. The circle made by the beard and the hair of the god, with the white hand of the girl resting on the coal-black beard, makes a fine focal point in what is probably the best beard picture extant by a great artist. Ingres painted this picture in 1811, and I have reproduced it as a frontispiece to this book.

Beards were often cut off as a sign of servitude, which is another reason why a shaved chin was regarded as disgraceful. The usage is referred to in the Morte d'Arthur where Malory tells of King Rience's remarkable blanket of beards. King Rience after conquering all the tribes in England demanded that each king send him his beard as a token of submission and fealty. He had these kings’ beards woven into a great blanket. Only one beard was missing from the collection. Arthur refused to send his

CONCERNING BEARDS in for inclusion in Rience’s patchwork quilt, because he could not bear to part with this sign of his virility. Rience swore vengeance, but Arthur overthrew him in battle, and saved the beard that he wore all the rest of his days.

There were, however, certain ceremonial occasions when the beard was cut off and no disgrace attached to the act. Thus when a sovereign took a vassal or an ally under his protection the subservient person cut off his beard to show his fidelity and confidence. When the nobles ofSpoleto, the town now known for its truffles, went to Rome and placed themselves under the protection of the Pope, they left their beards in his Holiness' hands as a proof of their loyalty.

The custom of beard cutting constituted a kind of adoption, which conferred upon the person the title of son. So sacred was the ceremony regarded by the contracting parties, says Dulaure, that whenever anyone had promised to adopt another and cut off his beard, the greatest rascal breathing did not dare break his word. The same usage in a modified form was of even more ancient date and held in higher respect. Merely touching the beard was then regarded as sufiicient. Clovis, the French king, sent deputies to Alaric, king of the Goths, to treat with him and ask him to touch his beard and be adopted for his son.

Three hairs from a king’s beard stuck in the wax seal of a document gave extraordinary solemnity to the instrument, and the pledging of one`s beard for the performance of some act was once not uncommon, a beard being considered security of the highest order. Money was frequently raised in this way. But it is to be feared that bankers would look askance ifsuch collateral was offered as a loan today. Count Baldwin of Edessa resorted to a clever stratagem to get money from his father-in-law, who was an enormously rich old gentleman. Baldwin told him that being hard up for money with which to pay his troops, he had been forced to borrow the money and had pledged his beard for the payment of it. His father-in-law was horrified. “How is it possible,” he cried, “for a man to find it in his heart to pledge a thing that should be so carefully preserved, a thing that is the proof of his virility, wherein consists the principal authority of man, and is the ornament of his face? How could you possibly consider as a thing of little value that which cannot be taken from a man without loading him with shame? The count replied that that as he valued nothing in the world as much as his beard he thought it his duty to pledge it to satisfy his creditors and that he would live up to his promise if he could not immediately get the cash he needed. His father-im

CONCERNING BEARDS law alarmed for the safety of Baldwin's beard instantly gave him the money and asked him never again to pledge a property on which the honor of a brave knight depended.

A somewhat similar case is that of the romantic Portuguese who pledged one of his whiskers. "In the reign of Catherine, Queen of Portugal, the brave john de Custro had just taken in India the castle of Diu," says an old account. “Victorious, but in want of everything, he found himself obliged to ask the inhabitants of Goa to lend him a thousand pistoles for the maintenance of his fleet, and, as security for that sum, he sent them one of his whiskers, telling them, `All the gold in the world cannot equal the value of this natural ornament of my valour, and I deposit it in your hands as a security for the money.’ The whole town was penetrated with this heroism, and everyone interested himself about this invaluable whisker: even the women were desirous to give marks of their zeal for so brave a man: several sold their bracelets to increase the sum asked for, and the inhabitants of Goa sent him immediately both the money and his whisker.’

In this hairless age of ours one hears of beards being grown in payment of bets, but in bearded times the reverse of this was true, and men often wagered their beards and if they lost were obliged to cut them 47

CONCERNING BEARDS oH`. A case of this sort arose in the old days between an Italian and a Greek professor over the question as to whether or not a certain Greek syllable was long or short. The Italian wagered a large sum and the Greek his beard. The Greek lost and to save his beard made very advantageous offers to the other, but the Italian insisted on having the unfortunate Greek’s beard and kept the spoils of his adversary's chin as a monument of his victory.

There is said to be a man in Washington who is paid to wear a beard. He is connected with some queer department of the government. I do not know what department it is, but I think it is one that is charged with the collection and preservation of our national folk lore and ballads or with some such duty. A friend of this government servant having a fancy to see him in a beard offered to pay for all the liquor he drank if he would wear a beard. The offer was accepted and as compensation for thus adorning himself, the bearded person is kept in drink by his friend.

Artists, perhaps more than any other class of persons, have been responsible for keeping alive the tradition of the beard, as they have worn it in season and out. An abbreviated form of the beard bears the name of the great Flemish portrait painter, Vandyck, a fact which has popularized and helped to perpetuate the memory of this old master.

Vandyck’s fellow countryman, Peter Paul Rubens, was also bearded. It will be remembered that Mr. Pallet, the half mad artist in Smollett’s novel, Percgrzhe Pickle, had so much admiration for the paintings of Rubens, whose manner he copied in his own work, that he fancied he only needed to grow a beard to render the resemblance perfect. He resolved to keep his face sacred from the razor and persisted in this purpose despite the continual reprehensions of Mrs. Pallet, who, being then with child, said he looked so hideous that she dreaded a miscarriage at any moment. It was not until she threatened in very plain terms to apply to the courts for a lunacy commission to inquire as to his sanity that Pallet relented and shaved.

Henry VIII in 1535 legitimized the Holbein beard, so called after Hans Holbein the younger, who painted with his left hand and perished in the Great Plague of London. Holbein when he first went to England was for some time a guest artist in the home of Sir Thomas More, whose beard, as already mentioned, narrowly escaped the executi0ner's axe. The nearest thing we have to the Holbein beard in this country is the beard of Mr. Chief Justice Hughes of the Supreme Court. The Holbein beard does not taper, but is rather short and is brushed to either side or parted at the chin, giving a broad or squarish 49

CONCERNING BEARDS look to it. King Henry wore a thin moustache whose ends joined his beard, but Mr. Hughes does not follow him in this particular. Some pictures of the Honorable James Hamilton Lewis of Illinois seem to indicate that his beard is a modified Holbein. Of these Holbein beards, Henry’s was a lively red, that of our Chief Justice is now gray, and the natty beard of Mr. Lewis is noted for its pinkish hue.

An English artist, James Ward, R. A., (17691859), celebrated as an animal painter, wrote a spirited pamphlet in Defence 0f the Beard, in which he justified the adorning of one’s self in this manner as a thing pleasing to God and the wearer, and insisted that reasons of religion and taste obligated every hirsute man to grow one. “VVhat would a Jupiter be without a beard?" inquired the artist. “VVho would countenance a shaved Christ?" Ward practised what he preached. He had a truly magni· ficent beard large enough to furnish a galaxy of minor prophets with beards ofrespectable dimensions.

The feeling voiced by Ward with respect to a beardless Christ persists today. The attendant who showed me through a part of the Duke of Warwick’s place, familiar to most American tourists in England, pointed out the famous painting there of Christ without a beard, remarking as he did so, "Very sinful, sir.’

The artist with the prize beard was the German dauber john Mayo. His beard was so big that he was nicknamed John the Bearded. Although he was a verv tall man, his beard swept the ground when he stood upright and his feet would have become entangled in it when he walked if he had not kept it tied up to his girdle. john took meticulous care of his beard of which he was justly proud, but he was always pleased to unfasten it before the Emperor Charles V, who loved to see the wind make it fly in the faces of the lords of his court.

A beard brought fame and fortune to a French portrait painter named Liotard, who appeared in Paris during the middle of the eighteenth century dressed in the garments of the East and wearing a beard. At that time the beard was in almost total eclipse in France. Liotard had lived for three years in Constantinople where he followed the dress of the Orientals and allowed his beard to grow like a true believer. The beard improved his appearance as it hid the deformity of his face. What this deformity was I have been unable to discover, but it was in all probability the absence of any chin worth mentioning, or perhaps he had been kicked in the face by a horse. Liotard's talent in getting immediate and striking likenesses of his sitters caused him to be sent for by the Grand Seignior to come to the Seraglio

CONCERNING BEARDS to paint pictures of the Sultanesses. It was a big commission which he carried through with success.

Upon returning to France, Liotard decided to re - tain his Levantine dress and beard and thus arrayed appeared in Paris in the year 1752. His beard and gorgeous Eastern get up won him the respect and admiration of the people and did more to distinguish him from the crowd than did his talents as an artist. News of this astonishing bearded person naturally reached the ears of the court where he was invited to come to do the portraits of the king and royal family, and where in a short time he made his fortune. Liotard was not much of a colorist, but he was such a neat draughtsman that the Marchioness of Pompadour was offended at his strict accuracy in making her likeness. As she presented him one day with a fat fee for drawing her picture, she remarked, “All your merit consists in your beard.” I regret to say that at length Liotard) in order to comply with the ardent solicitations of his wife, who was a Parisian, followed the French fashion of the time and shaved the beard which had figured so largely in bringing him success.

Today the best beards to be met with outside of the peasant districts of Russia and the State of Maine are those encountered in the haunts of artists. The Latin Quarter of Paris always has a good as

CONCERNING BEARDS sortment on display. At the very top of Montmartre is the Lapin Agile, whose proprietor, the bearded Pere Frédéric, is the most famous innkeeper of Bohemian Paris. His beard is long and white and it is said that he thinks he is Santa Claus. Once an inn for waggoners, the Lapin Agile became a meeting place for the great artists and poets of France along towards IQOO when the Rue Pigalle was abandoned for higher regions. ln the early days the hardy Pere Frédéric slept with a revolver clutched in his hand; there was a fight every night to keep out the murderous blackguards and desperate characters who tried to storm the place. One of Pere Frédérids sons was killed in one of these brawls. The little back room and the front bar were reserved for friends who deserved the privilege through merit of their work, but marauders invaded even these places and sat drinking with their knives stuck in the tables, ready at the drop of a hat to clean the joint.

Among the famous people who made the place their rendezvous were Picasso, Derain, Dufy, Modigliani, Braque, André Salmon, Appollinaire, john Pellerin and others. It is to be noted that some of these gentlemen were well bearded.

Pere Frédéric still stands in the hallway of the Lapin Agile and greets you as you enter. The place 53

CONCERNING BEARDS is dark and dirty and has stone Hoors and walls. Often the only place to sit will be a cavity in the wall where a stone has fallen down. A great figure of Christ by Walsey hangs in the main room, stretchmg ICS arms, as it were, over the company. There are students and whores and painters and poets and tourists. Frédéric comes in with his guitar and shouts, “We will now have a little art." And someone sings old ballads or recites poetry by Baudelaire or Mallarmé. Almost every great French poet of the last thirty years has written special verses in honor of the place and they are sung there. Picasso has painted an interesting picture of people standing at the bar, with Frederic in the background in his beard and the fur hat which he wears the year round. Everyone joins in the singing while shabby waiters pass around drinks of old sherry containing cherries that have stood in wine for a hundred years. At the conclusion of a song everyone claps in unison, the men spit heartily and the women weep softly.

Speaking of music, the composer Brahms and his Hne white beard come to mind. Brahms died with his own “heavy tears falling into his beard"

A Parisian character totally unconnected with the arts but noted for his beard is the policeman who directs the trairic at Place St. Denis. It is a rather tough section of the city but people make special

CONCERNING BEARDS pilgrimages to see this gendarme whose steel-gray beard hangs down to his belly. It was a wet day when I went out to look at this beard and I was afraid the oHicer might have it under cover, but it was fully exposed to the elements outside his cape and seemed neither soggy nor bedraggled. He cut a line figure, the embodiment of dignity and authority, as he stood there directing the trafiic in the beard that has made him one of the most distinguished members of the Paris police force.

No beard of modern Paris, however, can compare with one that appeared in the streets of the city toward the close of the fourteenth century. It was probably the greatest beard the world has ever seen. Its extraordinary length and luxuriance caused a mighty sensation. This matchless beard was worn by a man who claimed to be the Patriarch of Constantinople. It never occurred to anyone to question a character with such a noble beard. The Parisians went wild with admiration. The patriarch's progress through the town was a series of triumphs. Honors were heaped upon him. Never was there such a tribute to a beard. But the patriarch must have laughed in his beautiful beard as he continued his conquering way, because he was really not the patriarch at all, but only an impostor, and the beard which had drawn the admiration of a whole people and enraptured them was entirely false. 55

The false beard is not in favor today outside of the theatre. While some of the beards to be seen in the movies are artificial, there are many real ones in the pictures, some actors occasionally letting theirs grow for particular roles. In the language of Hollywood an “airedale" is a bearded extra, a person with a natural beard. The studios have lists of bearded men who can be called when needed for a western horse opera in which bearded prospectors or pioneers lounge in the background, or for a Biblical drama, or for any other picture requiring the atmosphere that only bearded characters can supply. A telephone summons will bring in any kind of a beard from the Rip Van \/Vinkle variety to the modern, neatly-clipped, college professor type.

Towards the middle of the fourteenth century there was a great rage for false beards in Spain, particularly amongst the estates of Cortez of Catalonia. The Spaniards are said to have taken to this artifice with the utmost alacrity as they were quick to perceive the advantages of artificial beards over natural ones. They were easily acquired and allowed of variety in form and colour. A person could change beards as often as he liked. In the morning he might appear with a short red one and in the evening with a long black one, and there were special beards for holidays and working days and also for

extraordinary occasions of every kind. A person doubtless selected beards much as he selects neckties today. But this pleasing custom had its abuses. It meant that men went about in a disguise that could be changed quickly with bewildering results. Everyone shifted beards and changed his appearance according to his whim or interest, and life in that quarter of Spain seems for a time to have resembled a huge masquerade party under cover of which many errors and misdemeanors were consummated and family relations were seriously strained. The government was at last obliged to act. King Peter of Aragon expressly forbade his subjects to wear false beards. It is a pity that this vogue for fake beards was not made the basis of a series of amusing adventures by one of the old story tellers, Boccaccio, for example, or Rabelais.

A modern false beard worn with the most amusing and successful results is the one Aldous Huxley provides for the young poet Gumbril in his book Antic Hay. Gumbril, who was timid in all things, bought a beard from a theatrical outfitter in Leicester Square, London, a fan-shaped, blond beard, mounted on gauze and guaranteed undetectable. It worked an amazing transformation in the poet, changing him from a melancholy and all too mild person, into a sort of jovial Henry VIII, a massive Rabelai

CONCERNING BEARDS sian man, broad, powerful and exuberant with vitality and hair. It brought him instant success with the ladies. Gumbril found that young men with beards were liked, because the ladies thought they looked so Russian.

Women in war time have been known to camouflage themselves with false beards. The Lombard ladies cunningly arranged the hair of their heads into beards to deceive the enemy into thinking them men, and, according to Suidas, the Athenian women resorted to the same trick, succeeding, it is said, in frightening the souls of their adversaries by this form of masquerade. Charles XII had a female grenadier in his army, a fine, buxom, bearded girl. Captured at the battle of Pultoway, she was carried to St. Petersburg and presented to the Tsar in the year 1724. This Amazon’s beard was not a fake; it was a splendid example of the genuine thing, a real museum piece.

This brings me to a phase of my subject that some may consider unpleasant. Many people feel about bearded women as Dr. ]ohnson felt when accosted by a woman of the town while strolling " in the Strand one evening. “No, no, my girl,said Johnson. "It won’t do.” One constantly meets with women who have a tendency toward beardedness» whose features are shadowed by this mark of virility.

of a desire to usurp man’s symbol of sovereignty. The practice became so extensive that a law was passed at Rome to put a stop to it. This extraordinary law was a part of the Twelve Tables, and Cicero comments upon it in his De Legibus. Women were forbidden to shave their cheeks. Mulieres genas ne radunto.

One of the earliest records of a bearded woman is to be found in sacred history. A Spanish saint, St. Paula the Bearded, had a beard that grew miraculously. It is said that she was being pursued by a man of evil intentions, but succeeded in reaching a shrine where a beard suddenly sprouted from her face and saved her.

Throughout history we find accounts of bearded women exhibited at fairs, markets and in museums. Barnum had a bearded lady on view in his American Museum in New York in 1853. He drew attention to her by getting someone to claim that this bearded person was really a man disguised as a woman. Barnum managed to get the case into the courts where it was proved not only that the bearded creature actually was a woman but was happily married and the mother of several children.

Of course there have been cases of bearded men who have posed as women. One such case is reported in The Diary of Montaigne's Journey to Italy

in 1580 and 1581. In one of the towns he visited he was told of Bearded Mary, who up to the age of twenty-two was thought to be a girl, but turned out to be a boy. Montaigne says that in the town where this occurred they have a song about Bearded Mary.

Pictures of bearded women may be seen in that book of horrors, Gould and Pyle's Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, where there is also a photograph of Jo-Jo the Dog-faced Boy, who went the circuit of the dime museums a few years ago.

The beard for many ages was looked upon as the special emblem or badge of wisdom. Philosophers were always bearded. Cheiron, the ancient bearded centaur, was “the wisest thing under the sky". The white beard of Euphrates, the Syrian philosopher, is spoken of by Pliny the Younger, who says it inspired the people with awe. The Indian philosophers, according to Strabo, took special care to cultivate lengthy beards in order to impress the multitude. Flaccus A. Persius, the young Etrurian poet, recognizing the beard as the special symbol of wisdom, thought he was paying Socrates the highest possible compliment when he called him the Bearded Master. Antonius Pius and Marcus Aurelius wore the beard as philosophers. It is noted in one of the

Sir Roger de Coverley papers that Lucian more than once rallies the philosophers of his time who endeavored to rival one another in beards, and represents a learned man who stood for a professorship in philosophy as unqualified for it by the shortness of his beard.

julian the Apostate and vegetarian emulated the Greek philosophers in the matter of a beard, although it is unlikely that he wore his in ringlets as was the fashion with many of the old-time wise men, to judge from the ancient sculptures. Julian was a dirty creature, and his beard the most disgusting of any in history, but fortunately, as he said, "l neither like to give nor receive kisses.” Many monarchs have made confidants of their barbers, but this prince loathed them. Nevertheless, shortly after his arrival at the imperial palace in Constantinople, he requested the services of one. A magnificently dressed officer presented himself. "It is a barber I want," said the pontiff, looking him up and down with a cold eye, “and not a receiver-general of the finances."

Questioning the man, Julian learned that this barber enjoyed, in addition to a large salary and some valuable emoluments, a daily allowance for twenty servants and twenty horses, and that the number of barbers distributed among the various oilices could only be compared to the insects of a

CONCERNING BEARDS summer’s day. He sacked the lot. Julian also discharged one thousand cooks, one thousand cupbearers, and kicked out a horde of eunuchs, who naturally were beardless. He was so strongly opposed to the luxuries and fopperies of the day that he affected extreme slovenliness of dress and an uncleanliness of person that extended to his beard. Gibbon in T/ze Der/ine and Fal! zyfthe Raman Empire says, “ln a satirical performance, which was designed for the public eye, the emperor descants with pleasure, and even with pride, on the length of his nails, and the inky blackness of his hands; protests that, although the greatest part of his body was covered with hair, the use of the razor was confined to his head alone; and celebrates, with visible complacency, the shaggy and papu/our beard, which he fondly cherished after the example of the philosophers of Greece." The italics are the historian's; Gibbon is always giving his readers little nudges in this way.

The `“satirical performance" alluded to by Gibbon is nothing less than the emperor’s own work entitled Miropogan, or t/ze Enemy xy' the Beard. No one, it is said, should laugh at the literary or musical compositions of royalty, because one can never tell who wrote them. In this case Julian did the work himself and certainly it was nothing of which to be ashamed.

CONCERNING BEARDS He was a clever young pagan, perfectly competent to do his own pamphleteering without summoning any ghost writers to assist him; his literary output was, in fact, enormous, and his production went at a fast clip. Gibbon declares that julian could employ his hand to write, his ear to listen, and his voice to dictate, and pursue at once three different trains of ideas without hesitation and without error. He turned stuH` out almost as speedily as Edgar Wallace.

The imperial beard book was composed at Antioch during the winter evenings of the year 362. Antioch was a very gay city then. "Fashion was the only law, pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendour of dress and furniture was the only distinction of the citizens." It was a great place for spectacles, and the magnificence of the games of the theatre and the circus were regarded as the glory of Antioch. Performers were imported from adjacent cities. Laodicea furnished charioteers; Tyre and Berytus, comedians; Cmsarea, pantomimes; Heliopolis, singers; Gaza, gladiators; Ascalon, wrestlers, and Castabala, rope dancers. The emperor disapproved heartily of all these things, which of course produced mutual ill-humour between him and the people. This lack of harmony increased to such a pitch that during “ the mad, licentious days of the Saturnalia the

streets of the city resounded with insolent songs, which derided the laws, the religion, the personal conduct, and even the beard, of the emperor" Julian, backed by his loyal Gallic legions, might have revenged himself for these insults by putting some of the Antiochans to the sword, but instead he wrote a satire. He wrote it, presumably, in purple ink, as that was the colour the Roman emperors used, green ink being employed by the lesser functionaries of the state. Publication of this literary blast was effected by sticking it up outside the palace gates for all to read. In it Julian confessed his own faults with a fine irony and proceeded to give the people a terrific blowing up for their bad manners and worse morals. lt was a wonderful outburst. Antioch must have felt as if it had been kissed by a bomb. Gibbon expresses great admiration for The Enemy of the Beard, which, he says, “still stands as a singular monument of the resentment, the wit, the humanity, and the indiscretion of Julian." The title of the work is, of course, an allusion to the Antiochan's derision of the bearded emperor’s philosophical character.

Great sport was had at the expense of the beard when a decade ago the game of spotting beards called "Beaver!" was all the rage in England and

CONCERNING BEARDS spread all over the world. This game was started by D. B. Wyndham Lewis while he was conducting a column in the London Daily Express. The story, as I had heard it, was that one day when he was hard up for copy Mr. Lewis’ glance strayed out of the window where he happened to see a little elderly gentleman with a big white beard and brown bowler riding gaily along on a motorcycle in the very thick of the trafic. The sight of this beard gave him the idea and turning back to his typewriter he then and there invented the game by writing, “All England has gone mad over a new game called Beaver!'

VVhen I aske