256 The Poets Beasts. 



earldom, says, "What thou art will be seen a bow-shot off 

 if thy beard be not as it should be." 



The anomalous beard makes the whole man eccentric, 

 grotesque, and absurd. What reverence would attach to 

 the appearance of the Nestors of the Moon-folk, whose 

 beards, as we know, grew just above their knees ? or to 

 those elders of the wise sea-folk with their faces smothered 

 in green tangles ? 



Again, to be altogether beardless has passed into an 

 expression of scornful contempt. It was David's hairless 

 chin that exasperated Goliath. It is true that some races 

 affect to despise the beard — thus the Red Indians, who say 

 that a European's face resembles a dog's with a squirrel in 

 its mouth — but they are those who cannot grow a really 

 handsome and venerable length of beard, and illustrate, 

 therefore, very aptly the fable of the fox that had lost its 

 tail. As a rule, all nations of antiquity prided themselves 

 on this adornment. No oath carried with it the same dignity 

 of earnestness as " by my beard " — even when a Welshman 

 pronounced it with a " p ; " no affront such humiliation as 

 that which was offered to the beard. The gods themselves 

 pledged their honour "by their beards." The reddened 

 beard of Ahenobarbus, black till then, was the great Twin 

 Brethren's gage of victory. 



When men succumb to the vril-staff of women in the 

 struggle for existence they are to become Ana and beardless. 



"So his prophesying thus to the Assyrians moved them 

 to paint Apollo with a large, long beard beseeming an old 

 settled person of a most sedate, staid, and grave demeanour : 

 not young and beardless as he was pourtrayed most usually 

 among the Grecians." In fairy tales, again, what beards the 

 magician, the ogres, and the giants have ! When tliey are 

 blue or scarlet (as in the Red Shoes story), or green, like 

 those of the pine-forest Kobolds, they are a trifle whimsical, 

 no doubt, but never ridiculous. 



