Friday, May 9, 2008

#32 , ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS 311 TO 320, Describing beards

EXPLANATORY NOTE ON 'DESCRIBING THE BEARDS'

"Desde que no hay barba, no hay mas alma."
We have no longer souls since we have lost our beards.
---An ancient Spanish saying., quoted by Charles Mackay.


The most conspicuous part of a male human face is the beard. While the beard of a youth may show freshness and youthfulness, the beard of an old person may look like dry grass or hay. A writer has to make the best use of his opportunity to describe faces, by describing the beards also. Some personalities will be incomplete without their beards. Imagine an Abraham Lincoln or Karl Marx without a beard!

IN THIS TEST
To see the original test: Click. Your answers need not agree with this key, because choice of words and phrases is always a question of personal preference. The utility of referring to Classic Literature is, we can just know how the Classic Authors wrote in their days.

CHOICE BOX
Black beard
Bristling beard
Chin beard
Dishevelled beard
False beard
Fan-shaped beard
Foul beard
Grey beard
Grizzled beard
Growing beard
Long beard
Matted beard
Meager beard
Odorous beard
Ox-tail beard
Red beard
Rope-yarn beard
Scarlet beard
Short beard
Solemn beard
Splashed beard
Thin beard
Trimmed beard
Unctuous beard
White beard
Youthful beard




311. One day, when a German bomb burst among them, and they all fell to the ground excepting Colonel Lantz, who had not flinched. He tranquilly settled his glasses upon his nose and wiped off his splashed beard as coolly as he had, not long since, cleaned his India-ink brushes. [Francois Coppee in his book 'Romance of Youth'.]


311. By this time Dorothea had seated herself upon the curate's mule, and the barber had fitted the ox-tail beard to his face, and they now told Sancho to conduct them to where Don Quixote was, warning him not to say that he knew either the licentiate or the barber, as his master's becoming an emperor entirely depended on his not recognising them. [Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra in his 'Don Quixote'].


312. He reminded her of one of Perugino's angels--with a youthful beard. If angels had beards, she thought, without a smile, they would have beards like Gianluca della Spina's, very youthful, scanty, curling, and so fair as to be almost colourless. [F. Marion Crawford in his book 'Taquisara'].


313. Cerberus, cruel monster, fierce and strange, Through his wide threefold throat barks as a dog ... His eyes glare crimson, black his unctuous beard, His belly large, and clawed the hands with which
He tears the spirits, flays them, and their limbs Piecemeal disparts. [Rev. E. Cobham Brewer and Dante].


314. "Sooaye, Sooa-a-aye!" he roared. "Make way fer the great king
o' the sea!" I saw the fellow had on a long, rope-yarn beard and a wig to match, while a pair of black wings hung from his shoulders. [T. Jenkins Hains in his 'Mr. Trunnel'].


315. a knock sounded at the door, and a sailor with a bristling beard stood upon the threshold. "You're hanging in the wind, Eumolpus," said he, "as if you didn't know that son-of-a-bitch of a skipper!" [Petronius Arbiter in his 'The Satyrican - Escape by Sea].


316. A full dense beard may indicate a strong masculine personality. A meager beard may mean a mixed personality.


317. The same types from the army of the East crowded its sidewalks,--English dressed in khaki, Canadians and Australians in hats with up-turned brims, tall, slender Hindoos with coppery complexion and thick fan-shaped beards, Senegalese sharpshooters of a glistening black, and Anammite marksmen with round yellow countenance and eyes forming a triangle.


318. Somerset found himself face to face with one of the most regular of the few who visited Mr. Jones: a man of powerful figure, strong lineaments, and a chin-beard in the American fashion. [R.L. Stevenson and F.G. Stevenson in 'The Dynamiter'.]


319. Our towns were shaken of tall kings
With scarlet beards like blood:
The world turned empty where they trod,
They took the kindly cross of God
And cut it up for wood. [G.K. Chesterton in his poem 'The Vision of the King'].


320. On nearer approach he was still more surprised at the
singularity of the stranger's appearance. He was a short, square-built old fellow, with thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion: a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist, several pair of breeches, the outer one of ample volume, decorated with rows of buttons down the
sides, and bunches at the knees. [William H. Elson, Christine Keck]

No comments: