Prev | Current Page 388 | Next

Clouston, William Alexander, 1843-1896

"Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers"

"_Superbiae Flagellum_, or the Whip of Pride," p. 34.
The staunch Puritan Phillip Stubbes, in the second part of his _Anatomie
of Abuses_ (1583), thus rails at the beards and the barbers of his day:
"There are no finer fellowes under the sunne, nor experter in their
noble science of barbing than they be. And therefore in the fulnes of
their overflowing knowledge (oh ingenious heads, and worthie to be
dignified with the diademe of follie and vaine curiositie), they have
invented such strange fashions and monstrous maners of cuttings,
trimings, shavings and washings, that you would wonder to see. They have
one maner of cut called the French cut, another the Spanish cut, one
called the Dutch cut, another the Italian, one the newe cut, another the
old, one of the bravado fashion, another of the meane fashion. One a
gentlemans cut, another the common cut, one cut of the court, another of
the country, with infinite the like vanities, which I overpasse. They
have also other kinds of cuts innumerable; and therefore when you come
to be trimed, they will aske you whether you will be cut to looke
terrible to your enimie, or amiable to your freend, grime and sterne in
countenance, or pleasant and demure (for they have divers kinds of cuts
for all these purposes, or else they lie).


Pages:
376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400