The Philosophy of Beards.
69
in England, every one washes the face more than once a day. Besides, if this were an argument, we had better shave the head and eyebrows as well.
II. "That it would take as much time to keep the Beard in order, as to shave." Supposing even it did, still there is a most important difference both in the two operations and in their results. For the process of combing and brushing the Beard, instead of being tedious, uncertain, and often painful, like shaving,[1] confers a positively delightful sensation, similar to that which one may imagine a cat to experience,
When smoothing gently down its fur,
It answers with a purr, purr, purr;
And in its drooping half-shut eye.
A dreamy pleasure we espy.
- ↑ There is something in the operation of shaving which, besides its painfulness, ought to make it repulsive to those who do not shave themselves-such as having the face bedaubed with lather and rubbed with a brush, which has done the same office for hundreds of chins. It is amusing to hear a knot of free and independent Englishmen roaring "Britons never will be slaves;" most of whom will give their chins to be mown and their noses to be pulled by any common Barber, and pay him too for the pulling. Even when the party is a self-shaver, to say nothing of the waste of time, what a number of petty annoyances and exercises of temper docs it involve! Notwithstanding the boasts of cold water shavers, depend upon it in rigorous weather most people prefer hot to cold water, which renders them slaves to their servants; next, razors, as we know from puff advertisements and our own experience, arc the most uncertain of articles; then there is the state of the nerves, that even the strongest cannot always control, causing the unsteady hand to gash and hack the chin, or cover it with blood from the beheading of those pimply eruptions of which the razor has been ofttimes the originator.
