Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1919-12-04
Whisk@s.


II we were to judge by what the eye
alone tells us and not by what we know
otherwise, probably most OF US would
saw that the men who served through
the Civil War were much older than
those who are now returning to US from
the battlehelds Of the war just ending.
The impression is the result OF TWO
causes. In the first place, most OF us
who are old enough to make the COM
parison became acquainted with the
survivors of the Civil War only when
thew had reached middle age, and we
remember them as We first knew them;
but of far wider influence is the cnange
in the matter of boards. Look over the
pictures of Union or Confederate SOL
diers in Brady's wonderful collection
and compare them with the faces in one
of the rotogravure supplements OF our
metropolitan papers of to-day. Inc
change is startling. In class OF more
than fifty that were graduated from
New England college in the early SIX
ties there was only one smooth face'
and that only because the youngster
could not raise a beard. In class
of about eighty that were graduated
from the same college last year there
was not one student who had beard
so completely has facial fashion for
men changed.
That il does change is one OF the IN
teresting differences between western
nations and most of the Oriental peo-
niles. With the Mohammedans, and, in
deed, with nearly all of the Eastern ma
tions except the Chinese and the Jap
anese, the beard is respected as sign
of masculinity. "By the beard OF the
Prophet" is one of the most sacred
oaths that the follower of Mohammed
can utter, and with the orthodox Jews
the hair that covers the face Of a man
is more than an object of respect: it is
a thing to be reverenced; in a sense
sacred thing. When you meet an
ancient Jew in an American city to-day,
wearing long hair and beard that
covers his breast, look not on him as
something to be laughed at, for he will
send you to the nineteenth chapter OF
Leviticus and remind you that through
Moses God gave his people the COM
mand, "Ye shall not round the corners
of your heads, neither shalt thou mar
the corners of thy beard" For people
TO keep a command like that for more
than three thousands years is a thing
to wonder at, not to laugh at.
But with us Westerners the beard
has been largely matter Of fashion
and is now looked upon chiefly from the
practical point of view. The day of
Washington, Adams and Jefferson was
a period OF smooth faces. In Civil War
times boards were in fashion. Now the
era of the smooth face has come again,
partly, no doubt, because men find big
beard in the way and physicians con-
slider the beard as insanitary. Humor,
too, has probably had its effect, for it
takes a man of moral courage to choose
among the derisive names by which
different styles of whskers have been
designated, all of them descriptive and
some of them inspired. We recall with
pleasure Galways, chinchillas, mutton
chops, Belshazzars, Nebuchadnezzars,
lambrequins, spinnakers and others.
Some men find beard useful sort
of blind, facial camoufage that con-
ceals an unkindness of nature. Oliver
Wendell Holmes once remarked that all
of mans other features God makes for
him, but that he makes his mouth for
himself. When he has fallen little
short of success a crop Of whiskers
may be a welcome refuge.
How much a beard makes the mental
picture Of man is easy to discover if
we try to imagine certain familiar char
acters without one. Make the effort
with Moses or William Cullen Bryant
or Peter Cooper or Horace Greeley or,
best of all, with Santa Claus. You can
not do it. No one can.