1 MAY.
2 TAYLOR the Water Poet.
In comparison with such fashions, clean shaving is clear gain of time. And to what follies and what extravagances would the whiskerandoed macaronies of Bond Street and St. James's proceed, if the beard once more were, instead of the neckcloth, to “make the man!”—They who have put on the whole armour of Dandeyism, having their loins girt with—stays, and having put on the breast-plate of—buckram, and having their feet shod—by Hoby!
I myself, if I wore a beard, should cherish it, as the Cid Campeador did his, for my pleasure. I should regale it on a summer's day with rose water; and, without making it an Idol, I should sometimes offer incense to it, with a pastille, or with lavender and sugar. My children when they were young enough for such blandishments would have delighted to stroke and comb and curl it, and my grand-children in their turn would have succeeded to the same course of mutual endearment.
Methinks then I have shown that although the Campbellian, or Pseudo-Campbellian assertion concerning the languages which might be acquired in the same length of time that is consumed in shaving, is no otherwise incorrect than as being short of the truth, it is not a legitimate consequence from that proposition that the time employed in shaving is lost time, because the care and culture of a beard would in all cases require as much, and in many would exact much more. But the practical utility of the proposition, and of the demonstration with which it has here been accompanied, is not a whit diminished by this admission. For, what man is there, who, let his business, private or public be as much as it will, cannot appropriate nine minutes a-day to any object that he likes?
CHAPTER CLVII.
WHICH THE READER WILL FIND LIKE A ROASTED MAGGOT, SHORT AND SWEET.
Malum quod minimum est, id minimum est malum.