an
recollect the time when no gentleman, still less any lady, would have
owned a terrier with its ears on. And why go back so far? The same
sentiment is prevalent in good society with respect to men's beards in
this year of grace and smooth faces. Yet, if one chance to be looking at
a Rembrandt instead of at society, what an infinitely handsomer adjunct
to a noble face is a fine beard than a pair of ears!

When woman first looked at her face in a polished saucepan, she was at
once struck with the comicality of those things, and bethought herself
what to do with them. She decided to use them for pegs to hang ornaments
on. The improvement excited the admiration of her husband and the envy
of her rivals to such a degree that all other women of taste in her
tribe did the same, and from that day to this, in almost every country
in the world, it has been accounted a shame for any respectable woman to
show her face in public in the hideousness of naked ears. This discovery
of its capabilities gave a new value to the ear, and a large, roomy one
became an asset in the marriage market. I have seen a pretty little
damsel of Sind with fourteen jingling silver things hanging at regular
intervals from the outside edge of each ear. If Nature had been
niggardly, the lobe at least could be enlarged by boring it and
thrusting in a small wooden peg, then a larger one, and so on until it
could hold an ivory wheel as large as a quoit, and hung down to the
shoulders.

But Nature surely did not intend the ear for this purpose. Then what
did she intend? A popular error is that the ears are given to hear with,
but the ears cannot hear. The hearing is done by a box of assorted
instruments (_malleus, incus, stapes_, etc.) hidden in a burrow which
has its entrance inside of the ear. If you argue that the ears are
intended to catch sounds and direct them down to the hearing instrument,
then explain their absurd shape. They are useless. A man who wants to
hear distinctly puts his hand to his ear. And why do they not turn to
meet the sounds that come from different quarters? They are absolutely
immovable, and therefore also expressionless. A savage expresses his
mind with all the rest of his face; he smiles and grins and pouts and
frowns, but his ears stand like gravestones with the inscriptions
effaced. How different is the case when you turn from man to the
"irrational" animals! The eyes of a fawn are lustrous and beautiful, but
they would be as