try vicar)--I now cannot help thinking a good
deal--who can?--upon the unnecessary and villainous custom of shaving:
it is a thing so unmanly (here I nestle closer)--so effeminate (here I
recoil from an unlucky step into the colder part of the bed.)--No
wonder that the Queen of France took part with the rebels against the
degenerate King, her husband, who first affronted her smooth visage
with a face like her own. The Emperor Julian never showed the
luxuriancy of his genius to better advantage than in reviving the
flowing beard. Look at Cardinal Bembo's picture--at Michael
Angelo's--at Titian's--at Shakespeare's--at Fletcher's--at
Spenser's--at Chaucer's--at Alfred's--at Plato's--I could name a great
man for every tick of my watch.--Look at the Turks, a grave and otiose
people.--Think of Haroun Al Raschid and Bed-ridden Hassan.--Think of
Wortley Montagu, the worthy son of his mother, a man above the
prejudice of his time.--Look at the Persian gentlemen, whom one is
ashamed of meeting about the suburbs, their dress and appearance are
so much finer than our own.--Lastly, think of the razor itself--how
totally opposed to every sensation of bed--how cold, how edgy, how
hard! how utterly different from anything like the warm and circling
amplitude, which

Sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.

Add to this, benumbed fingers, which may help you to cut yourself, a
quivering body, a frozen towel, and a ewer full of ice; and he that
says there is nothing to oppose in all this, only shows, at any rate,
that he has no merit in opposing it.

Thomson the poet, who exclaims in his Seasons--

Falsely luxurious! Will not man awake?

used to lie in bed till noon, because he said he had no motive in
getting up. He could imagine the good of rising; but then he could
also imagine the good of lying still; and his exclamation, it must be
allowed, was made upon summer-time, not winter. We must proportion the
argument to the individual character. A money-getter may be drawn out
of his bed by three and four pence; but this will not suffice for a
student. A proud man may say, "What shall I think of myself, if I
don't get up?" but the more humble one will be content to waive this
prodigious notion of himself, out of respect to his kindly bed. The
mechanical man shall get up without any ado at all; and so shall the
barometer. An ingenious lier in bed will find hard matter of
discussion even on the score of heal