Beards !
p. 12 · Read in the full issue
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By A. C. Rowland, Of Papeete.
jmHOSE of us who survive the Victorian JL age are possessed by a great dis -1 quiet as we witness the steady deteriora tion of the male of our species in the esteem of our womenfolk.
In the happy years of that almost legendary period, man justified his title of lord of creation by reigning as un disputed master in the shadow of his vine and fig tree; whereas now, under the tyranny of the New Enlightenment, there are none to pay him reverence.
Research in the writings of that day and this; careful comparisons of the conversations of our grandmothers with the hectic chatter of modem cocktail parties; inspection of old Daguerreo types and faded photographs in ancient family albums, together with the visages that stare out of the pages of contem porary rotogravure supplements—all have convinced us that mankind has sold his birthright and abdicated his sovereignty by discarding his beard.
In addition to its age-old office as the symbol of power and dominion, the beard of man served him (as did cos metics, enamels and pigments his sisters, his cousins and his aunts), as safe sanc tuary from the appraising eyes of a critical world.
The revealing lines of defective char acter, the sagging wattles of advancing age, facial atavisms and retreatins chins were hidden behind a veil of Olympic dignity. Even a craggy Roman beak modified and balanced by a luxuriant forest clothing its foothills—was a thing of symmetry and beauty instead of the bleak Matterhorn it has since become.
Then came the time when modern man—like Samson—with scissors and razor, divested himself of that wherein his great strength lay.
The spell of the ages has been broken and Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods, darkens to a starless night.
There is but one possible hope for the human male to save himself from this descent to pusillanimous desuetude.
He must again assume the facial habi liments that invested him with honour and majesty—not the goatees and flap ping side pennants and bucolic throat warmers which made whiskers ridicu lous; but the full, flowing beard of the ancestral patriarch!