The International Weekly Miscellany - Volume I, No. 4 | Page 8

any work of art, they have rarely been
treated with a loftier severity, purity, and sympathy than in Mr.
Hawthorne's 'Scarlet Letter.' The touch of the fantastic befitting a
period of society in which ignorant and excitable human creatures
conceived each other and themselves to be under the direct 'rule and
governance' of the Wicked One, is most skillfully administered. The
supernatural here never becomes grossly palpable:--the thrill is all the
deeper for its action being indefinite, and its source vague and distant."
[Footnote 2: The Scarlet Letter: a Romance. By Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Boston: Ticknor & Co.]
* * * * *
The Emperor Nicholas has just published an ordonnance, which
regulates the pensions to which Russian and foreign actors at the
imperial theaters at St. Petersburgh shall be entitled. This ordonnance
divides the actors (national as well as foreign) into four classes. The
first class obtains, after twenty years' service, pensions averaging from
300 to 1140 silver rubles. The others, after fifteen years' service, will
receive pensions from 285 to 750 silver rubles.
* * * * *

THE HAIR
CHEMICALLY AND PHYSIOLOGICALLY CONSIDERED.--Each
hair is a tube, containing an oil, of a color similar to its own. Hair
contains at least ten distinct substances: sulphate of lime and magnesia,
chlorides of sodium and potassium, phosphate of lime, peroxide of iron,
silica, lactate of ammonia, oxide of manganese and margaim. Of these,
sulphur is the most prominent, and it is upon this that certain metallic
salts operate in changing the color of hair. Thus when the salts of lead
or of mercury are applied, they enter into combination with the sulphur,
and a black sulphuret of the metal is formed. A common formula for a
paste to dye the hair, is a mixture of litharge, slacked lime, and
bicarbonate of potash. Different shades may be given by altering the
proportions of these articles. Black hair contains iron and manganese
and no magnesia; while fair hair is destitute of the two first substances,
but possesses magnesia.
No one ever possessed all the requisites of masculine or feminine
beauty without a profusion of hair. This is one of the crowning
perfections of the human form, upon which poets of all ages have dwelt
with the most untiring satisfaction. However perfect a woman may be
in other respects; however beautiful her eyes, her mouth, teeth, lips,
nose or cheeks; however brilliant her expression, in conversation or
excitement, she is positively disagreeable without this ornament of
nature. The question is sometimes asked, "What will cure love?" We
answer, scissors. Let the object be shorn of hair, and you may take the
word of a physiologist, that the tender passion will lose its
distinctiveness; it may subside into respect: it is more likely to change
into a less agreeable emotion.
In man, the hair is an excellent index of character. As the beard
distinguishes man from woman, so its full and luxuriant growth often
indicates strength and nobleness, intellectual and physical; while a
meager beard suggests an uncertain character--part masculine, part
feminine. Was there ever a truly great man, or one with a generous
disposition, with a thin beard and a weazen face? On the other hand,
show me a man with "royal locks," and I will trust his natural impulses

in almost every vicissitude. When we see a genuine man, upon whom
Nature has declined to set this seal of her approval, we cannot help an
involuntary emotion of admiration for the virtuous and persevering
energy with which he must have overcome his destiny.
Pertinent hereto: we have read with unusual satisfaction the arguments
for Beards in Dr. Marcy's Theory and Practice of Medicine and the
pleasant essays in the same behalf which John Waters has printed in the
Knickerbocker. Our conservatism yields before these reformers, who
would bring custom to the proprieties of nature.
* * * * *
WHAT'S IN A NAME?--A good deal, sometimes. Thus, the truth of
the adage of "give a dog a bad name," &c., has lately been exemplified
in a singular manner. Eugene Sue, you may remember, causes some of
the most terrible events in the Mysteres de Paris to occur in the Allée
des Venves, a fine avenue in the Champs Elysees. This has had the
effect of giving the unfortunate Allée--though as quiet, modest,
well-behaved, moral street as need be--a detestable reputation; people
have shunned it as if it were a cavern of cutthroats--those condemned to
live in it have felt themselves quasi-infamous--its rents have fallen, its
shops stood empty, its business has dwindled away. The owners of its
houses, and its few remaining inhabitants and shopkeepers, have for
months past been pestering the municipality of Paris to devise means of
restoring its fallen prosperity, and removing the monstrous stigma
attached to it. At last, moved