insuring the
identity of their pictures. Let us imagine a picture of Abraham
Lincoln and one of Professor Morse two hundred years hence, with the
name attached in one case, and a mere tradition of identity in the
other, and it will be easy to estimate the difference in value.

Americans have been accused of an undue taste for portraiture; the
taste has its foundation in the character of the nation. It
corresponds with that estimation of the personal worth of a man, and
that full appreciation of individual independence, which form such
important elements in our national character.

The Crown of Beauty

The glory and the crown of physical perfection is beautiful hair.
Venus would not charm us if she were bald, and neither poet, painter,
nor sculptor would dare to give us a "subject" which should lack this,
the charm of all other charms. Neither is it a modern fancy. Homer,
when he would praise Helen, calls her "the beautiful-haired Helen,"
and Petronius, in his famous picture of Circe, makes much of "trailing
locks."

The loveliness of long hair in woman seems never to have been
disputed, and it had also a very wide acceptance as a mark of
masculine strength and beauty. St. Paul, it is true, says that it is a
shame to a man to have long hair, but his opinion is not to be taken
without reservation, for both the traditions of poetry and painting
give to the Saviour, and also to the Beloved Disciple, long locks of
curling brown hair. The Greek warriors and most of the Asiatic nations
prided themselves on their long hair, and the Romans gave a great
significance to it by making it the badge of a freeman. Caesar, too,
distinctly says that he always compelled the men of a province which
he had conquered to shave off their hair in token of submission.

The Saxon and Danish rulers of England were equally famous for their
long yellow locks, and the fashion continued with little or no
intermission until the dynasty of the Tudor kings. They affected, for
some reason or other, short hair; and "King Hal" is undoubtedly
indebted for his "bluff look" to the short, thick crop which he wore.
The fashion even extended to the women of that age, and their pictured
faces, with their hair all hidden away under a _coif_, have a most
hard, stiff, and unlovely appearance. Under the Stuarts, long, flowing
hair again became fashionable with the Royalist party, who made their
"love locks" the sign and emblem of their loyalty. On the c