THE FOREST--A SOLILOQUY ON HAIR
Mille hominum species, et rerum discolor usus:
Velle suum cuique est, nee voto vivitur uno.
Persius.
In mind and taste men differ as in frame:
Each has his special will, and few the same.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian_. It strikes me as singular that, with such a
house, you should have only female domestics.
_Mr. Falconer._ It is not less singular perhaps that they are seven
sisters, all the children of two old servants of my father and mother.
The eldest is about my own age, twenty-six, so that they have all grown
up with me in time and place. They live in great harmony together, and
divide among them the charge of all the household duties. Those whom you
saw are the two youngest.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ If the others acquit themselves as well, you
have a very efficient staff; but seven young women as the establishment
of one young bachelor, for such I presume you to be (_Mr. Falconer
assented_), is something new and strange. The world is not over
charitable.
[Illustration: Seven young women in a bachelor's establishment. 056-24
_Mr. Falconer._ The world will never suppose a good motive where it can
suppose a bad one. I would not willingly offend any of its prejudices. I
would not affect eccentricity. At the same time, I do not feel disposed
to be put out of my way because it is not the way of the world--_Le
Chemin du Monde_, as a Frenchman entitled Congreve's comedy{1}--but I
assure you these seven young women live here as they might do in the
temple of Vesta.
1 Congreve, le meilleur auteur comique d'Angleterre: ses
pièces les plus estimées sont Le Fourbe, Le Vieux Garçon,
Amour pour Amour, L Epouse du Matin, Le Chemin du Monde.--
Manuel Bibliographique. Par G. Peignot. Paris, 1800.
It was a singular combination of circumstances that induced and enabled
me to form such an establishment; but I would not give it up, nor alter
it, nor diminish it, nor increase it, for any earthly consideration.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ You hinted that, besides Milton's verses, you
had another association of ideas with living in the top of a tower.
_Mr. Falconer._ I have read of somebody who lived so, and admitted to
his _sanctum_ only one young person, a niece or a daughter, I forget
which, but on very rare occasions would descend to speak to some
visitor who had previously propitiated the young lady to obtain him an
interview. At last the young lady introduced one who proposed for her,
and gained the consent of the recluse (I am not sure of his name, but
I always call him Lord Noirmont) to carry her off. I think this was
associated with some affliction that was cured, or some mystery that was
solved, and that the hermit returned into the everyday world. I do not
know where I read it, but I have always liked the idea of living like
Lord Noirmont, when I shall have become a sufficiently disappointed man.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ You look as little like a disappointed man as
any I have seen; but as you have neither daughter nor niece, you would
have seven links instead of one between the top of your tower and the
external world.
_Mr. Falconer._ We are all born to disappointment. It is as well to be
prospective. Our happiness is not in what is, but in what is to be. We
may be disappointed in our everyday realities, and if not, we may make
an ideality of the unattainable, and quarrel with Nature for not giving
what she has not to give. It is unreasonable to be so disappointed, but
it is disappointment not the less.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ It is something like the disappointment of the
men of Gotham, when they could not fish up the moon from the sea.
_Mr. Falconer._ It is very like it, and there are more of us in the
predicament of the men of Gotham than are ready to acknowledge the
similitude.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I am afraid I am too matter-of-fact to
sympathise very clearly with this form of aestheticism; but here is a
charming bit of forest scenery. Look at that old oak with the deer
under it; the long and deep range of fern running up from it to that
beech-grove on the upland, the lights and shadows on the projections and
recesses of the wood, and the blaze of foxglove in its foreground. It is
a place in which a poet might look for a glimpse of a Hamadryad.
_Mr. Falconer._ Very beautiful for the actual present--too beautiful for
the probable future. Some day or other the forest will be disforested;
the deer will be either banished or destroyed; the wood will be either
shut up or cut down. Here is another basis for disappointment. The more
we admire it now, the more we shall regret it then. The admiration of
sylvan and pastoral scenery is at the mercy of an Enclosure Act, and,
instead of the glimpse of a Hamadryad, you will some time see a large
board warning you off the premises under penalty of rigour of law.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ But, my dear young friend, you have yourself
enclosed a favourite old resort of mine and of many others. I did not
see such a board as you speak of; but there is an effective fence which
answers the purpose.
_Mr. Falconer._ True; but when the lot of crown land was put up for
sale, it was sure to be purchased and shut up by somebody. At any rate,
I have not interfered with the external picturesque; and I have been
much more influenced by an intense desire of shutting up myself than of
shutting up the place, merely because it is my property.
About half-way from their respective homes the two new friends
separated, the doctor having promised to walk over again soon to dine
and pass the night.
The doctor soliloquised as he walked.
'Strange metamorphosis of the old tower. A good dining-room. A good
library. A bedroom between them: he did not show it me. Good wine:
excellent. Pretty waiting-maids, exceedingly pretty. Two of seven
Vestals, who maintain the domestic fire on the hearth of the young Numa.
By the way, they had something of the Vestal costume: white dresses with
purple borders. But they had nothing on their heads but their own hair,
very gracefully arranged. The Vestals had head-dresses, which hid their
hair, if they had any. They were shaved on admission. Perhaps the hair
was allowed to grow again. Perhaps not. I must look into the point. If
not, it was a wise precaution. "Hair, the only grace of form,"{1} says
the _Arbiter elegantiarum_, who compares a bald head to a fungus.{2} A
head without hair, says Ovid, is as a field without grass, and a shrub
without leaves.{3} Venus herself, if she had appeared with a bald head,
would not have tempted Apuleius: {4} and I am of his mind. A husband, in
Menander, in a fit of jealous madness, shaves his wife's head; and when
he sees what he has made of her, rolls at her feet in a paroxysm of
remorse. He was at any rate safe from jealousy till it grew again. And
here is a subtlety of Euripides, which none of his commentators
have seen into. Ægisthus has married Electra to a young farmer, who
cultivates his own land. He respects the Princess from magnanimity, and
restores her a pure virgin to her brother Orestes. "Not probable," say
some critics. But I say highly probable: for she comes on with her head
shaved. There is the talisman, and the consummate artifice of the
great poet. It is ostensibly a symbol of grief; but not the less a
most efficient ally of the aforesaid magnanimity. "In mourning," says
Aristotle, "sympathising with the dead, we deform ourselves by cutting
off our hair." And truly, it is.
1 Quod solum formse decus est, cecidere capilli.--Petronius,
c. 109.
2. .. laevior. . . rotundo Horti tubere, quod creavit unda.
_Ibid_.
'A head, to speak in the gardener's style, is a bulbous
excrescence, growing up between the shoulders. '--G. A.
Steevens: _Lecture on Heads_.
3 Turpe pecus mutilum; turpe est sine gramme campus; Et sine
fronde frutex; et sine crine caput.
Ovid: Arks Amatorio, iii. 249.
4 At vero, quod nefas dicere, neque sit ullum hujus rei tam
dirum exemplum: si cujuslibet eximiae pulcherrimaeque
fominae caput capillo exspoliaveris, et faciem nativa specie
nudaveris, licet ilia coelo dejecta, mari édita, fluctibus
educata, licet, inquam, Venus ipsa fuerit, licet omni
Gratiarum choro stipata, et toto Cupidinum populo comitata,
et balteo suo cincta, cinnama fragrans, et balsama rorans,
calva processerit, placere non potent nee Vulcano suo.--
Apuleius: _Metamorph_. ii. 25.
But, indeed, what it is profanation to speak, nor let there be hereof
any so dire example, if you despoil of its hair the head of any most
transcendent and perfectly beautiful woman, and present her face thus
denuded of its native loveliness, though it were even she, the descended
from heaven, the born of the sea, the educated in the waves, though, I
say, it were Venus herself, attended by the Graces, surrounded by the
Loves, cinctured with her girdle, fragrant with spices, and dewy with
balsams, yet, if she appeared with a bald head, she could not please
even her own Vulcan. A woman's head shaved is a step towards a death's
head. As a symbol of grief it was not necessary to the case of Electra;
for in the sister tragedies of Æschylus and Sophocles her grief is
equally great, and she appears with flowing hair; but in them she is an
unmarried maid, and there is no dramatic necessity for so conspicuous an
antidote to her other charms. Neither is it according to custom; for in
recent grief the whole hair was sacrificed, but in the memory of an
old sorrow only one or two curls were cut off.{1} Therefore, it was the
dramatic necessity of a counter-charm that influenced Euripides. Helen
knew better than to shave her head in a case where custom required
it. Euripides makes Electra reproach Helen for thus preserving her
beauty;{2} which further illustrates his purpose in shaving the head of
Electra where custom did not require it. And Terence showed his taste
in not shaving the head of his heroine in the _Phormio_, though the
severity of Athenian custom would have required it. Her beauty shone
through her dishevelled hair, but with no hair at all she would not have
touched the heart of Antipho.
1 Sophocles: Electra, v. 449.
2 Euripides: Orestes, v. 128.
But wherefore does my mind discourse these things to me, suspending
dismal images on lovely realities? for the luxuriant hair of these young
girls is of no ordinary beauty. Their tresses have not been deposited
under the shadow of the sacred lotus, as Pliny tells us those of
the Vestals were. Well, this young gentleman's establishment may be
perfectly moral, strictly correct, but in one sense it is morality
thrown away: the world will give him no credit for it. I am sure Mrs.
Opimian will not. If he were married it would be different. But I think,
if he were to marry now, there would be a fiercer fire than Vesta's
among his Lares. The temple would be too hot for the seven virgins. I
suppose, as he is so resolute against change, he does not mean to marry.
Then he talks about anticipated disappointment in some unrealisable
ideality, leading him to live like Lord Noirmont, whom I never heard of
before. He is far enough off from that while he lunches and walks as he
does, and no doubt dines in accordance. He will not break his heart for
any moon in the water, if his cooks are as good as his waiting-maids,
and the wine which he gave me is a fair specimen of his cellar. He is
learned too. Greek seems to be the strongest chord in his sympathies. If
it had not been for the singular accident of his overhearing me repeat
half a dozen lines of Homer, I should not have been asked to walk in. I
might have leaned over the gate till sunset, and have had no more notice
taken of me than if I had been a crow.'
At dinner the doctor narrated his morning adventure to Mrs. Opimian,
and found her, as he had anticipated, most virtuously uncharitable
with respect to the seven sisters. She did not depart from her usual
serenity, but said, with equal calmness and decision, that she had no
belief in the virtue of young men.
'My dear,' said the doctor, 'it has been observed, though I forget by
whom, that there is in every man's life a page which is usually doubled
down. Perhaps there is such a page in the life of our young friend; but
if there be, the volume which contains it is not in the same house with
the seven sisters.'
[Illustration: Verifying the question of hair of the Vestals. 063-33]
The doctor could not retire to rest without verifying his question
touching the hair of the Vestals; and stepping into his study, was
taking out an old folio, to consult _Lipsius de Vestalibus_, when a
passage flashed across his memory which seemed decisive on the point.
'How could I overlook it?' he thought--
'Ignibus Iliacis aderam: cum lapsa capillis
Decidit ante sacros lanea vitta focos:{1}
says Rhea Sylvia in the _Fasti._'
He took down the _Fasti_, and turning over the leaves, lighted on
another line:--
Attonitæ flebant demisso crine ministræ.{2}
With the note of an old commentator: 'This will enlighten those who
doubt if the Vestals wore their hair.' 'I infer,' said the doctor, 'that
I have doubted in good company; but it is clear that the Vestals did
wear their hair of second growth.
1 The woollen wreath, by Vesta's inmost shrine,
Fell from my hair before the fire divine.
2 With hair dishevelled wept the vestal train.
But if it was wrapped up in wool, it might as well not have been there.
The _vitta_ was at once the symbol and the talisman of chastity. Shall
I recommend my young friend to wrap up the heads of his Vestals in a
_vitta?_ It would be safer for all parties. But I cannot imagine a
piece of advice for which the giver would receive less thanks. And I had
rather see them as they are. So I shall let well alone.'