CHAPTER CLIII.
MATRIMONY AND RAZORS. LIGHT SAYINGS LEADING TO GRAVE THOUGHTS. USES OF SHAVING.
I wonder whence that tear came, when I smiled
In the production on't! Sorrow's a thief
That can when joy looks on, steal forth a grief.
MASSINGER.
Oh pitiable condition of human kind! One colour is born to slavery abroad, and one sex to shavery at home!—A woman to secure her comfort and well-being in this country stands in need of one thing only, which is a good husband; but a man hath to provide himself with two things, a good wife, and a good razor, and it is more difficult to find the latter than the former. The Doctor made these remarks one day, when his chin was smarting after an uncomfortable operation; and Mrs. Dove retorted by saying that women had still the less favourable lot, for scarce as good razors might be, good husbands were still scarcer.
Aye, said the Doctor, Deborah is right, and it is even so; for the goodness of wife, husband, and razor depends upon their temper, and taking in all circumstances and causes natural and adventitious, we might reasonably conclude that steel would more often be tempered precisely to the just degree, than that the elements of which humanity is composed should be all nicely proportioned and amalgamated happily. Rarely indeed could Nature stand up, and pointing out a sample of its workmanship in this line say to all the world this is a Man! meaning thereby what man, rational, civilized, well educated, redeemed, immortal man, may and ought to be. Where this could be said in one instance, in a thousand or ten thousand others she might say this is what Man has by his own devices made himself, a sinful and miserable creature, weak or wicked, selfish, sensual, earthly-minded, busy in producing temporal evil for others,—and everlasting evil for himself!
But as it was his delight to find good, or to look for it, in every thing, and especially when he could discover the good which may be educed from evil, he used to say that more good than evil resulted from shaving, preposterous as he knew the practice to be, irrational as he admitted it was, and troublesome as to his cost, he felt it. The inconvenience and the discomfort of the operation no doubt were great,—very great, especially in frosty weather, and during March winds, and when the beard is a strong beard. He did not extenuate the greatness of this evil which was moreover of daily recurrence. Nay, he said, it was so great, that had it been necessary for physical reasons, that is to say, were it a law of nature, instead of a practice enjoined by the custom of the country, it would undoubtedly have been mentioned in the third chapter of the book of Genesis, as the peculiar penalty inflicted upon the sons of Adam, because of his separate share in the primal offence. The daughters of Eve, as is well known, suffer expressly for their mother's sin; and the final, though not apparent cause why the practice of shaving which is apparently so contrary to reason, should universally prevail in all civilized christian countries, the Doctor surmised might be, that by this means the sexes were placed in this respect upon an equality, each having its own penalty to bear, and those penalties being—perhaps—on the whole equal; or if man had the heavier for his portion, it was no more than he deserved, for having yielded to the weaker vessel. These indeed are things which can neither be weighed nor measured; but it must be considered that shaving comes every day to all men of what may be called the clean classes, and to the poorest labourer or handicraft once a week; and that if the daily shavings of one year, or even the weekly ones could be put into one shave, the operation would be fatal,—it would be more than flesh and blood could bear.
In the case of man this penalty brought with it no after compensation, and here the female had the advantage. Some good nevertheless resulted from it, both to the community, and to the individual shaver, unless he missed it by his own fault.
To the community because it gives employment to Barbers, a lively and loquacious race, who are everywhere the great receivers and distributors of all news, private or public in their neighbourhood.
To the individual, whether he were, like the Doctor himself, and as Zebedee is familiarly said to have been, an autokureus, which is being interpreted a self-shaver, or shaver of himself; or merely a shavee, as the laboring classes almost always are, the operation in either case brings the patient into a frame of mind favorable to his moral improvement. He must be quiet and composed when under the operator's hands, and not less so if under his own. In whatever temper or state of feeling he may take his seat in the barber's chair, or his stand at the looking-glass, he must at once become calm. There must be no haste, no impatience, no irritability; so surely as he gives way to either, he will smart for it. And however prone to wander his thoughts may be, at other and perhaps more serious times, he must be as attentive to what he is about in the act of shaving, as if he were working a problem in mathematics.
As a lion's heart and a lady's hand are among the requisites for a surgeon, so are they for the Zebedeean shaver. He must have a steady hand, and a mind steadied for the occasion; a hand confident in its skill, and a mind assured that the hand is competent to the service upon which it is ordered. Fear brings with it its immediate punishment as surely as in a field of battle; if he but think of cutting himself, cut himself he will.
I hope I shall not do so to-morrow; but if what I have just written should come into my mind, and doubt come over me in consequence, too surely then I shall! Let me forget myself therefore as quickly as I can and fall again into the train of the Doctor's thoughts.
Did not the Duc de Brissac perform the operation himself for a moral and dignified sentiment, instead of letting himself be shaved by his valet-de-chambre? Often was he heard to say unto himself in grave soliloquy, while holding the razor open, and adjusting the blade to the proper angle, in readiness for the first stroke “Timoleon de Cossé, God hath made thee a Gentleman, and the King hath made thee a Duke. It is nevertheless right and fit that thou shouldst have something to do; therefore thou shalt shave thyself!”—In this spirit of humility did that great Peer “mundify his muzzel.”
De sçavoir les raisons pourquoy son pere luy donna ce nom de Timoleon, encore que ce ne fut nom Chretien, mais payen, il ne se peut dire; toutesfois, à l'imitation des Italiens et des Grecs, qui ont emprunté la plus part des noms payens, et n'en sont corrigez pour cela, et n'en font aucun scruple,—il avoit cette opinion, que son pere luy avoit donné ce nom par humeur, et venant à lire la vie de Timoleon elle luy pleut, et pour ce en imposa le nom à son fils, présageant qu'un jour il luy seroit semblable. Et certes pour si peu qu'il a vesçu, il luy a ressemblé quelque peu; mais, s'il eust vesçu il ne l'eust resemblé quelque peu en sa retraite si longue, et en son temporisement si tardif qu'il fit, et si longue abstinence de guerre; ainsi que luy-mesme le disoit souvent, qu'il ne demeureroit pour tous les biens du monde retiré si longuement que fit ce Timoleon. 1 This in a parenthesis: I return to our philosopher's discourse.
1 BRANTOME.
And what lectures, I have heard the Doctor say, does the looking-glass, at such times, read to those men who look in it at such times only! The glass is no flatterer, the person in no disposition to flatter himself, the plight in which he presents himself, assuredly no flattering one. It would be superfluous to have γνωθι σεαυτον inscribed upon the frame of the mirror; he cannot fail to know himself, who contemplates his own face there, long and steadily, every day. Nor can he as he waxes old need a death's head for a memento in his closet or his chamber; for day by day he traces the defeatures which the hand of Time is making,—that hand which never suspends its work.
Thus his good melancholy oft began
On the catastrophe and heel of pastime.2
2 SHAKESPEARE.
“When I was a round-faced, red-faced, smooth-faced boy,” said he to me one day, following the vein upon which he had thus fallen, “I used to smile if people said they thought me like my father, or my mother, or my uncle. I now discern the resemblance to each and all of them myself, as age brings out the primary and natural character of the countenance, and wears away all that accidental circumstances had superinduced upon it. The recognitions,—the glimpses which at such times I get of the departed, carry my thoughts into the past;—and bitter,—bitter indeed would those thoughts be, if my anticipations— (wishes I might almost call them, were it lawful as wishes to indulge in them)—did not also lead me into the future, when I shall be gathered to my fathers in spirit, though these mortal exuviæ should not be laid to moulder with them under the same turf.”
There were very few to whom he talked thus. If he had not entirely loved me, he would never have spoken to me in this strain.
