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affections, its surrounding muscles rendering it the reflex
of every passing emotion, owes its general expression to
the line between the lips—the key to family likeness; and
this line is more sharply defined by the shadow cast by the
moustache, from which the teeth also acquire additional
CWhiteness, and the lips a brighter red. Neither the mouth
i nor chin are, as we have said, unsightly in early life, but at
^ a later period the case is otherwise. There is scarcely in-
deed a more naturally disgusting object than a beardless
old man (compared by the Turks to a "plucked pigeon,*)
with all the deep-ploughed lines of effete passions, grasp-
ing avarice, disappointed ambition, the pinchings of
poverty, the swollen lines of self-indulgence, and the dis-
tortions of disease and decay ! Now the Beard, which, as
the Romans phrased it, "buds" on the face of youth in a
soft downiness in harmony with immature manliness, and
lengthens and thickens with the progress of life, keeps
gradually covering, varying, and beautifying, as the
" mantling ivy " the rugged oak, or the antique tower, and
by playing with its light free forms over the harsher cha-
racteristics, imparts new graces even to decay, by heighten-
ing all that is still pleasing, veiling all that is repulsive.
The colour of the Beard is usually warmer than that of
the hair of the head, and reflection soon suggests the
reason. The latter comes into contact chiefly with the
forehead, which has little colour; but the Beard grows out
of the face where there is always more or less. Now
