The philosophy of beards : a lecture : physiological, artistic & historical / by T.S. Gowing.
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gods are also well furnished. And ^Esculapius the God of Health,—significant fact!—is most abundantly endowed. The mother of Achilles, when supplicating Jupiter, touches his Beard with one hand, with the other his knee. As might he supposed from their hardy characteristics, the Spartans especially cherished the Beard. When one Nicander was asked why ? he replied, " because we esteem it the ornament that preeminently distinguishes man." It being demanded of another why he wore so long a Beard ? his noble reply was, " Since it is grown white, it inces- santly reminds me not to dishonor my old age."* Plu- tarch, after mentioning the bushy hair and Beard of the Spartan commander Lysander, says, " that Lycurgus was of opinion that abundance of hair and Beard made those who were fair, more so, and those who were ugly, more terrible to their enemies." Eegarding shaving as a mark of slavish servitude, they compelled their chief magistrates to shave their upper lips during their term of office, to remind * The Bev. John More, of Norwich, a worthy clergyman in Elizabeth's reign, who is said to have had the longest and largest Beard of any Englishman of his time, seems to have chosen this Spartan for his model; since when asked to give a reason for it he replied, "that no act of his life might be unworthy of the gravity of his appearance." And Baudinus, quoted by Pagenstecher, says, Frederick Taubman, the celebrated German wit, humourist, and theologian, being asked the same question answered, " in order that whenever I behold these hairs, I may remember that I am no vile coward or old woman, but a man, called Frederick Taubman."