Growing a Beard

No, this is not a post about how to grow some tidy, hedge-like, fashionable beard. It is not about the alchemy of oils, supplements, conditioners and other horrid products that will guarantee you a full luscious beard in no time, as the marketing would go. There are few greater abominations than the modern 'hipster' beard, usually accompanied with skinny jeans and tattoos and scooters. Fye upon them all!

In fact, this post is not really about 'growing a beard', contrary to the title. The word 'growing' implies some sort of cultivation on my part; rather, I have simply neglected to shave. And what has resulted from this inactivity -- a sort of sprouting of many hairs on various parts of my face -- cannot with all honesty be called a 'beard'.

I have more 'coverage' on my face than many people my age. I have enough to form a moustache (though not, sadly, one of those marvellously fulsome Lord Kitchener moustaches), light and sparse hairs on my upper cheeks which just about join the moustache, fairly decent sideburns, a goatee but two large hairless gaps to either side, and enormous amounts on the neck and chinline.

Of course, they (the ominscient they) say that most men's beards never stop growing, and that many do not get full 'coverage' until well into their middle age. Not that I necessarily want such a beard.

Naturally, I have done extensive research to see the possible results if I were to let my beard grow out. All these roughly share my 'growth pattern' (oh, to be able to unlearn all this beard jargon):

Dostoevsky

Shaw

Shakespeare

Thoreau

The Thoreau neckbeard is certainly the most peculiar, made worse by his rather doleful, absent look. However, the neckbeard was not so freakish a style at the time, with at least one other great man, Richard Wagner, adopting the look. But however antiquated and unfashionable I may enjoy being, not even I could suffer the embarrassment that such a beard would cause.

The Shakepeare is of course the most agreeable and shapely beard, but I am rather partial to the wilder Dostoevsky and Shaw. I think one looks more interesting and important the longer one's beard. Particularly if the beard shows no obvious signs of grooming. The Trollopian beard exemplifies this:

Or perhaps Tolstoy:

What fine beards!