Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1885 — [?] and Beard. [ARTICLE]

[?] and Beard.

; 1 i" ■ Bhin the scope of human H its to ■i^.. ■ '■ ■ ■ ■ |flllfeS>s;f-^; : > liair and short "*‘ B|f.:.selv«-:i under V K communities, w Kess nor contentIren divided by it, di -S’" W^ 1 granted in eonseMfid legislators, in all ages enacted laws to enwith their own peculthis trivial matter. ComHHR|Hfnse eventually regulated the gave to every person the ■■ft outside of the tyranny of fashion’s E9Hms to care for the exterior of his and to shape the natural covering face according to individual. ' ‘Ecclesiastical governments, adopting St. Paul’s declaration that “long hair was an abomination unto a man,” have made a vigorous war agaiust the sinfulness of the custom, and fulminated in opposition to it .from the pulpit as barbarous, unclean and unholy; but at the same time they have permitted, tblerated and sold immunity from sins, not of the hair or beard, but of the heart and mind and con- , of greater enormity and more worthy of denunciation and suppression. Woman’s tresses have turned the poet’s lyre, nerved the warrior’s steel, and drawn woeful sighs from the depths of the lover’s heart. . y All other features are, to lire enthusiastic lover, subordinate; beauty, intelligence and goodnesspdfe nothing. His life and hopes are staked on her voluptuous Jocks; he awakens from his dream of bliss only when, in a moment curiosity, he discovers it is false, a

ngnon. Il&jank hair, among the ancients, was KjKn of cowardice; auburn hair, or Ht brown, evidenced great susceptiHjHy to the tender passion; black hair SBKnot highly esteemed, the possessors being thought jealous and quar- ; red hair, in general, was an HBsion, a mark of reprobation, even ■more the time of Judas. “As wicked W&a a red ass” was freely applied to any one having bright red hair, and was a popular and opprobrious saying, and, to make the sentiment more binding, one of that patient tribe of quadrupeds was made to atone for it every year by being thrown from a high wall. The Homans never adopted • long hair, as later nations did, deeming it effeminate and unbecoming, alike for scholar, statesman, or warrior. A few of them may have done so, but it was after they bad ceased to be a nation of warriors and became scented courtiers. Shaving, by the Roman youths, was an event looked forward to, ancl commenced at about the age of twenty-one. The Franks wore long hair, which was the distinguishing mark of kings and nobles. An old historian remarks: “The hair is never cut from the heads of the Frankish kings’ sons; it is parted on the forehead and falls equally on both sides. They sprinkle their hair with gold-dust after plaiting it in small bands, which they ornament with pearls and precious metals.” It has been written by some one that Dionysius, the tyrant, was so fearful of violence that he would permit no one to shave him, and that he singed his < beard off with hot walnut shells; and so either the tyrant rid himself of his beard in some other way, or did not shave at all; probably the latter. The greatest • prejudice has existed t against the wearing of the beard and the style of the hair. Archbishop Tait forbade one of the clergy to officiate in his own church because he had grown a mustache. Lord Justice Anight Bruce refused to hear the case of a barrister because he wore a beard; and numerous instances might be cited to show the disfavor which the wearing of a beard has excited.— George P. Goff, A. M., in the Ingleside. •

The Story of Poe’s Unhappy Life. "When Poe was a boy, he had no father or mother to go to when he was in trouble. They both died when he was very young, and Mr. Allan, a wealthy man, who liked Poe because he was such a, bright little fellow, adopted him. He gave the boy good clothes, fine toys, ana everything that money could buy, but the little Edgar cared more about something else than he did for all these. He wanted somebody to love him as his mother would have done if she had lived. He longed for this more than most boys; so much that he used to go out where the dumb animals were and pet and feed them, and imagine that they loved him in return (ordiiskindneal; But he found some one at last that loved him. When he was yet quite a little boy, perhaps eight or nine years old, he went home with one of his schoolmates on a visit. The boy’s mother met them at the door and was so kind to the orphan boy that he wa3 almost wild with delight. He had an excellent visit, and afterward he spent all the time he possibly could with this lady. He used to tell her all his troubles—and he had more than most boys have, because of his bad temper. This lady used to help him to control it, and if she had only lived he might have grown up to be a good man; but she died just when ho needed her the mok He was nearly heart-broken when she died; he used to go and sit on her grave and mourn for hours at a time ? He would go' there nights, no matter how cold and stormy it was, the strangest things about her. In the poem “Lenore” he speaks of her soul'afloat on Borne mysterious river. The whole poem is about her; he wrote it soon after she died, but called it by another name. It always seemed to be a favorite poem of his, for he spent much time re-writing and improving it, and at last it was published under its present name, “Lenore.” The same name he uses in the “Raven”— The rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore. Poe might have been a good man if

he had learned to control himself. He had great talent, but it brought him little good; and "he was very unhappy all his life. He seemed to try hard enough to have good times, for he drank and gambled and did almost everything that was had, but he found oat when it. was too late that these were not the things to bring him happiness. The night before he died he spent nearly the whole night drinking and carousing, and the next morning he was found in the streets nearly dead with delirium tremens. He was taken to & hospital, but only lived a few hours.