LADIES' HAIR IN HISTORY AND LITERATURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14925, 24 February 1912, Page 4 (Supplement)

LADIES' HAIR IN HISTORY AND LITERATURE.

That is a pleasant chapter in George Meredith's masterpiece, '" The Ordeal of Richard Fevercl," where Richard, Ralph Morton, and the curate of Lobourno fall to discussing the glories of ladies' hair. The three, upon whom the glamour of first love had just fallen, fingered in imagination the fair locks of many a classic beauty from Cleopatra to Lucrezia Borgia, " Fair, fair," exclaimed the curate, "every one fair," and for fair, and golden locks, like those of Catherine 1., of Russia, Joan of Arc, and "'Good Queen Bess" he and the curate plumped solidly, Ralph, however, voted lor black, for did not he think of Ins own darling Clare, whose raven locks might vie with any of the beauties of old time ay, even with the most lovely woman of her day—Mary Queen of Scots." All contemporary authors agree in ascribing to Mary the utmost beauty of countenance and 'elegance of shape. Her hair was black, though according to the fashion of the age, she frequently- wore borrowed locks, and of different colours, and often all how evanescent is the glory of the human hair ! When the unfortunate Queen came to the block, and when her head was held up by the executioner, the real hair, beneath the false locks, was seen to be as grey as that of a woman of 70, though sue was at that time only in her 46th year. But women's hair has in the world's history played a different role from that of being merely admired and gazed upon. Take a few instances by way of illustration. There is that of "Matilda, Princess of Flanders, afterwards wife of William the Conqueror. When William went awooing, the young lady wouldn't say "Yes" on any account. This so enraged him that he made his way into her father's palace, seized the fair Matilda by her long tresses, dragged.her about the* chamber, struck her repeatedly, and ended by flinging her on the floor. This forcible wooing, .strange to say, produced the desired effect, and Matilda became his bride. Surah, Duchess ot Marlborough, had superb tresses, and I have read " in some page of old" that when the domesticities between her and her noble husband, the great warrior, were somewhat ruffled, a display of her glorious hair made all smooth again. I will pass over the legend of Godiva, who, " showering her rippled ringlets to her knee," rodo naked through the streets of Coventry, and thereby freed the people from an oppressive tax, and proceed to the heart-rending days of the French Revolution. Look at yon chariot on its way to the guillotine, and behold Madame du Barri. the profligate mistress of Louis XV., screeching, and trying to gain the sympathy of the onlookers, by a lavish display of her fine black hair. Behold also that heroic woman Madame Roland on her way to the scaffold—a different creature from your Du Barn's and Pompadours. Carlyle says:—"Noble white vision with its high, queenly face, its soft, proud eyes, long black hair flowing down to the girdle; and as brave a heart as ever beat in a woman's body. Like a white Grecian statue, serenely complete, she shines in that black wreck of things—long memorable." The fate of the lovely Princess de Lamballe occurs to me. Hacked to pieces by the human tigers in authority, her head stuck upon a pole, was paraded under the windows of the Temple, and recognised by the King. . The unfortunate Louis knew* it by its beautiful hair.

Ladies' hair as a keepsake appeals to all of us.- The tendercst piece of poetry Scott has given us is that on a Jock of hair found on the body of Both well, a character in "Old Mortality." Thackeray, in bis lecture on Swift, says that a gentleman in. Dublin has a lock of Stella's hair, enclosed in a paper by Swift, on which is written in the dean's hand the words, "Only a woman's hair." And on this the lecturer bursts out in a flood of fervid eloquence : ** Did you ever hear or read four words more pathetic? ' Onlv a woman's hair;' only love, only fidelity; only purity, innocence, beauty; only the tendorest heart in the world stricken and wounded, and passed away now out of pangs of hope deferred, love insulted and pitiless desertion." One more dip into the sorrowful annals of the Reign of Terror. The last letter from Oamille Desmoulins to his .young and beautiful wife, Lucile, has held "many I a. tender heart in thrall. Writing from his prison in the Luxembourg he says :— "0, my good Lulotte, I throw myself at thy feet; I stretch'out my arms'to embrace thee ; I find no more poor Lulotte. I am ill ; I have eaten nothing since yesterday but the soup you sent me. Heaven has had compassion on mv innocence ; a dream has been granted me in which I have seen you all. Send mo a lock ot thy hair, and thy portrait I beseech you tor I think of thee alone, and never ot the business that has brought me here." And in this strain he continues, beggin~ again for a lock of hair to place next his heart. "Here is the pathos of nature." exclaims Sir Archibald Alison, "when will romance or poetry figure anything so touching?" ° "•