Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1879-07-11
A Glance Over the Heads OF Our
GrandmOthers.


In the good old days of ignorance
and honesty, many hundred years be-.
fore the introduction OF barricades and
opera bouffe, the hair was looked upon
in France with a kindly regard which
amounted almost to reverence. Fair
women priced their tresses as they did
their honor, and brave men valued
their locks as dearly as they loved life.
The hair of the head commanded the
same respect as the beard of the Prophet
inspires in the hearts of the faithful.
1t was something to swear by. As an
expression of politeness, it was the
fashion to pluck hair from the head
AS we doff our hats or bow nova
days. and the Indians rub noses-by
way of salute and an uncompliment.
airy reference to the hair was considered
an insult of an unbearable nature.
Long and flowing hair was so much
esteemed that the tonsure of the clergy
was regarded as an act Of modification
aud self denial. The most degrading
punishment to which criminal or q
serf who had been wanting in respect
to his lord was condemned consisted
in shaving the head. A close crop was
a token Of subsection. Women who
treated some of the commandments with
contempt, too, were deprived of their
ringlets. A king lost his crown when
he lost his hair, and it was the custom
among the maires of the palace, when
they wished to rid themselves of q
ros faineant, to cut off his majesty's Lair
and send him to convent. Ii he OBJ
jected to this, they cut off his head in
stead.
A great value was attached to fine
head of hair, and all the resources of
ingenuity and art were exhausted by
the women to set it off to advantage.
1t was as much considered and Guilt
waited rs it was by the goddesses of
Olympus and, according to the poet.
the painter, and the sculptor, the art
of dressing the hair was lot neglected
by the neurological beauties. The
hair, indeed, was accounted one of the
most precious attributes Of female love-
iness by the gods, and mortals have
always agreed with them in this opin-
ion. Poets still sing of woman's hair
as they did of old, and no poet of an.
tiquity has expressed himself more en-
Enthusiastically on the subject than Mr..
Swinburne,l who is bllstered, as it
were, with poetic fire, as soon Is he
touches this theme. The blood boils
in his veins. and his eyes are lit up
with fine frenzy, when he stretches
himself at the feeeof one of his hero
ines and plays with the tangles of her
hair. Claudian does not become near
ly so warm when he describes Venus
surrounded by the graces, combing out
her long, glorious locks" 1t was to
Venus, by the way, that the Roman
ladies prayed when they were afflicted
with al epidemic malady which carried
off the HAIR of their heads and when
the plague ceased they erected statue
to the goddess in gratitude. Ariadne,
abandoned at Naxos, wandered by the
shore, so Catullus tells us, with her
luxurlant golden hair floating over her
naked shoulders and thus Bacchus
saw her, and became at once enamored
of the love-lorn maid. And Bacchus
was not a god to be denied ; he took
her in his arms, carried her to his
chariot, and drove away with her before
the very eyes of the satyrs. If he had
met Diana when she hunted in the
forest,
Her locks unbound waving in the wanton wind,
he would have been fascinated, no
doubt, in the same way. Juno, "by
whose splendid hair, as the poet says,
"all Olympus was perfumed, " the god
of wine dared not approach out of re-
spect due to her as the wife of his father
or the aversion due to her as the de-
stroyer OF his mother.-N. y. Home
Journal.