PEGS FOR ORNAMENTS 59 



but on my memory. I can recollect the time when 

 no gentleman, still less any lady, would have owned 

 a terrier with its ears on. And why go back so 

 far ? The same sentiment is prevalent in good 

 society with respect to men's beards in this year of 

 grace and smooth faces. Yet, if one chance to be 

 looking at a Rembrandt instead of at society, what 

 an infinitely handsomer adjunct to a noble face is 

 a fine beard than a pair of ears! 



When woman first looked at her face in a polished 

 saucepan, she was at once struck with the comi- 

 cality of those things, and bethought herself what 

 to do with them. She decided to use them for pegs 

 to hang ornaments on. The improvement excited 

 the admiration of her husband and the envy of her 

 rivals to such a degree that all other women of taste 

 in her tribe did the same, and from that day to this, 

 in almost every country in the world, it has been 

 accounted a shame for any respectable woman to 

 show her face in public in the hideousness of naked 

 ears. This discovery of its capabilities gave a new 

 value to the ear, and a large, roomy one became an 

 asset in the marriage market. I have seen a pretty 

 little damsel of Sind with fourteen jingling silver 

 things hanging at regular intervals from the outside 

 edge of each ear. If Nature had been niggardly, 

 the lobe at least could be enlarged by boring it and 

 thrusting in a small wooden peg, then a larger one, 

 and so on until it could hold an ivory wheel as large 

 as a quoit, and hung down to the shoulders. 



